It’s been quite an exciting experience going from indie writing/filmmaking to co-founding a tech startup. As you know, we launched our beta at the end of November and since then, we’ve been getting a lot of great feedback. Some have been positive and constructive, and some. Well…You know how the internet is. But overall, most of the creators we’ve shown this to are very excited about the prospects of what we’re building, which has certainly given us much-needed encouragement to continue on. So thank you for that support. It means a hell of a lot to us!
However in spite of this, we still see some common misconceptions and concerns expressed about Story Prism, and so we wanted to take a moment and tackle them so that you can hopefully gain a deeper understanding of what Story Prism is and what we’re trying to turn it into.
So with that, let's rock and roll! Or, uh, ahem…Yeah, let's go over some of these concerns.
Story Prism Does Not Write for You:
Let me repeat that. Story Prism does not write for you! Yeah. That’s right. An AI writing app that actually doesn’t do what you’d expect it to! Seriously, though. We’re not in the business of creating something that will displace narrative creators and even if we were, it wouldn’t be possible.
Sure, in the future, it may be possible to have synthetic media where the movie frames are literally created in real-time by advanced algorithms that can read your data and mood at the moment of watching something so as to curate the perfect experience for you, buuuut. That’s still very much in the realm of science fiction, and it’s still debatable whether AI alone can even build a cohesive story that’s great. So it seems that for now and in the foreseeable future AI will be more like a partner rather than a competitor.
And if it does become a competitor we will not be the ones using such technology. That will be the big studios. Why? It’s because their entire business model is designed for one thing and one thing only: To get people to sit down for a couple of hours and watch something. And if AI becomes so advanced that it replaces humans, you better believe they’ll phase everyone out.
Story Prism, though, is not in the business of getting people to watch movies. We’re in the business of helping you get others to do that with your own content, which means if we use AI to replace you, then we’re literally replacing our customers and ourselves since we’re also indie filmmakers. So bottom line. Story Prism doesn’t write for you, it can’t write for you, and if it could write for you, we wouldn’t design it that way. Period.
Story Prism Does Not Understand Your Story:
Wait, that’s kinda weird. How is Story Prism able to generate relevant suggestions for your story if it doesn’t understand your story? That, my friends, is the great illusion of today’s AI programs.
In fact, it’s actually a misnomer to even call it AI. What we’re using is a natural language processing model (NLP) that employs predictive text analysis to logically complete sentences. In other words, it can analyze patterns and associations with words strung together in sentences to develop possible continuations of thought. So this is simulating understanding. It isn’t actually understanding what it’s generating, which is why you sometimes end up with quirky answers.
And that feeds back into the first point I made, which is that Story Prism doesn’t write for you! If it did, no one would want to use it, not just because it defeats the entire point of wanting to write, but also because it doesn’t understand your story! That’s why it’s better suited as a bouncing board to riff off of.
Story Prism Can’t Give Your Ideas To Other Users
Contrary to what some people surprisingly think of us, we’re not some hot-shot tech giants stealing your data. We’re a couple of off-beat filmmakers renting a cheap apartment, working day jobs that don’t pay nearly enough, putting everything we have into developing something that we genuinely believe will help many people like us.
What you generate or write on Story Prism is yours and yours alone. There is some concern that your story is being used to train the AI and that it might inadvertently give away your story ideas to other users. I assure you, this cannot happen.
We use an AI that is already trained. We just fine-tuned it to our specific use case. So you’re basically just giving it things to respond to rather than giving it things to learn and incorporate into future answers. It does learn about your story, though. But it only learns about your story in relation to what it already knows. So, it’s almost like a simple coffee machine with different options. You input your option, it learns that you want that option, but if someone else uses it they can input their own option without the coffee machine revealing any information about the option you chose because it doesn’t remember your choice. That’s pretty much Story Prism.
Story Prism is Not Intended For Writers
Boy, I’m just full of all these shocking statements, today. Yes, Story Prism is not for writers. It is for writers AND non-writers alike. More accurately, this is a tool for all narrative creators. So novelists, filmmakers, video game developers, graphic novelists, comic book writers, and even communication specialists trying to tell a story about their company or organization can use Story Prism to develop the right narrative content for whatever medium they’re using.
This is because narrative storytelling cross-pollinates with all mediums. While yes, there are specific differences in how professionals create the final product, the process of going from a vague idea to a finished story is still more or less the same. So it doesn’t matter if you’re creating a feature film or sales copy about the origins of a company because they all have the same elements that, when put together, form a story.
So Story Prism is more of a general-purpose tool for narrative creators of all kinds, whether professional or non-professional, writer or non-writer.
Story Prism Does NOT Replace Creativity
You have a car, right? And if you don’t, I’m sure you ride the bus, take Uber, or get a lift from friends. Most of us use motor vehicles to get around rather than bikes or walking, yet most of us still walk around when we’re at home or when we’re out shopping. It isn’t as if using cars makes walking obsolete in everyday life. Walking and driving co-exist and play their own roles at the right moments in our lives, and this is the same for Story Prism and creativity.
When you’re in that, “Flow state” and ideas are churning out left and right, you don’t stop and generate ideas on Story Prism. That’s disruptive and as a writer, you never disrupt the flow state because it's very hard to get back into it. But, let's say you’re not in that state of mind. Let's say you’re stuck on a particular part, or worse, you’re staring at a blank screen and pulling your hair out because you don’t know where to start. That’s when using Story Prism makes sense.
You use Story Prism when you need to jumpstart your creativity and you write when your creativity is flowing, just as you drive when you’re going long distances and walk when distances are shorter.
Story Prism is Not Like Other AI-Generated Writing Apps
Auto-generated answers as a feature isn’t really new. You can Google search idea generators and narrative writing apps that incorporate AI in this fashion, but none of them function the way Story Prism does. Unlike others, we designed our auto-generated responses to be relevant for the most important parts of your story.
The other apps either broadly generate ideas or focus on generating the more surficial parts of a story like character personalities, themes, or story summaries. None of these are as important as developing the more detailed components, such as your premise, logline, or character arches. It’s these components that fundamentally help you determine personalities, themes, and the overall summary of your stories, and it’s these kinds of things that Story Prism can help you develop so you’re able to make stronger choices for your stories.
Conclusion:
So yeah, I think that covers all the major concerns surrounding Story Prism. I suppose a final concern is when or whether the other tools will ever be available. Currently, we’re searching for the right technical founder while seeking pre-seed investment, and when we’re able to secure one or ideally both, then we can put the pedal to the metal and realize the full scope of this. But for now, we’re gonna roll up our sleeves, somehow code the thing ourselves, and hopefully give you a decent rough version of the other tools without breaking the internet…Because obviously, that’s how these things work.
Anywho, I hope this clarifies things and you have a better understanding of who we are, who we aren’t, and what we’re trying to build. We’re not evil technologists conspiring to replace you as we sip our kombuchas in the luscious hills of Silicon Valley.
No, we’re just a couple of filmmakers who see creative industries that are way too centralized, controlled, and profit-driven, which is diminishing the quality of the stories we enjoy. And the way to rectify this is to help revitalize the indie spaces. What you’re seeing right now is just the tiny beginnings of that big goal we hope to realize in the future. Baby steps. You know how that goes!
Again, thank you for giving us a shot at this. We can’t sit here and promise that Story Prism will ever become successful, but we can certainly promise that we’re gonna give it our all because we’d rather fail having tried something that could help tons of people than to have never tried anything at all. I know. That line’s super cliche. Don’t ever use that in your dialogue. But on here, I think it works…right?
Until next time, best of luck in your writing endeavors!
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Story Prism, LLC