Ok David, my first has to come from your background, since you were with Microprose! Did you work on X-Com????
Also I identify strongly with your being a new author, your voice getting stronger as you go, and asking readers to stay a while before rendering final judgement.
X-Com was done by Microprose UK, but I was a part of the team that published it in the U.S. So yes, I worked on it, but I had nothing to do with the design, which was amazing!
I designed Shandalar - the game world for Magic: The Gathering PC - which has a cult following working to revive and modernize the game here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Shandalar/
I really miss all the old school magic card game and computer versions. I have been a fan, well was until about mid 2000s and I lost touch with it. Anyways thanks for answering my off context question, you are kind of a rockstar to an old gamer nerd like me.
The stories I want to write are incredibly complex with interdependent world-building. Frankly, until I had AI as a tool for research and for helping me manage and index the world state, I couldn’t even imagine writing something like Inference while I also ran a company. I always intended to write once I retired, but AI has let me open that chapter of my life sooner.
The story I was going to write first is a sci-fi space opera called Omega, and I have over 500,000 words of world-building written in an Obsidian wiki. But as I started writing the first chapters of that story, it occurred to me that a story about the emergence of AI, written concurrently with the event, could only be done NOW, and so Inference was born. After Inference, I hope to get back to Omega.
Gosh i am blown away by how similar your process is to mine. I started as a masters thesis (it isnt that any more) trying to create a ttrpg with an AI driven 'perpetually offline' world.
I have an entire world of the ttrpg 60% written (75% notetaken) whose short fiction chapter intors turned into Ignition. An I have been able to craft it all through the rapid research and idea formulatiin and iteration of my LLM. Creating hard sci fi tech that is believable requires a tremendous amoint of research.
I admire your commitment to the use of the tool, as well as your dedication to your own voice. Voices like yours need to be heard both as a stpryteller and as a proponent and mentor of HOW to use the tool effectively in human endeavor.
That’s really kind of you to say. I want to use AI as a tool to enhance my writing, not to replace my voice. It irritates me that so many people are 100% anti-AI being used in any capacity when its such a powerful tool for author enablement.
Of course, you are welcome and it is well deserved. Congrats on your success so far as a writer and I look forward to your space opera! Meanwhile your current work will be informative to my own, AI wise, since AGI characters feature heavily in my cosmology.
Craft question: You mention news constraints as being story seeds and integral to the writing process. How does that impact your plans on where the novel ends? If every chapter has to take into account the emerging news (brilliant methodology btw), how will you know when you’ve reached a stopping point or resolution that makes sense?
Great question. I have character bibles that map out each Character's arc across the trilogy. I know their starting point and destination and their mini-arcs that get them from start to finish. Then I have a series arc that ties all the main themes and the characters together with the Antagonist, who is overarching and touches every character. So it's all roadmapped.
When I go to write a chapter, I start by researching AI news for the period the chapter should be set in (something between the last chapter and the current date) - this may give me a list of 10 or 20 major news items. Then I look at my character arc maps to see whose story needs to progress and how that progression is likely to take place. I pick 1 to 5 characters whose next arc beat matches one or more recent stories and then generate epigraphs for either the whole chapter or for each individual character that reflect the news story I've selected. At that point I know who is in the chapter, what the news "weather" is they are contending with and what their next arc beat needs to be and I write their individual sections.
As a specific example - take Chapter 13 - I knew I needed to progress Thibault's relationship with Dana by introducing a romantic element. I knew I needed Gemini to interact with Model-Blake (who'd just been introduced last Gemini chapter and needed progression) in a way that advance Nova's storyline as well in a parent / child framework. And I knew I needed to advance Atlas's relation with Marcus-02 as co-workers who are becoming friends. One of the news stories I found related to a robot arbitrarily giving a girl a hug during a Robot / Human dance performance so I picked that because it created a great wedge for exploring AI / Human intimacy and that theme connected to all three characters I needed to advance. Kimi and Claude could have been included as well, but I decided to do romantic, familial and social love as three matched scenes and so I left Kimi and Claude out of the chapter.
Awesome - appreciate the behind-the-scenes stuff! I really like the self-imposed constraints aspect. Always cool to see how other authors are approaching the process.
This is such a thoughtful interview from both sides. I especially liked the psrt where David talks about research as something that keeps changing the stry as it moves. That made the project feel much more organic to me. The idea of characters taking a scene somewhere the writer didn’t fully expect really resonated with the way many of my short stories develop. I know that feeling, and I like it: sometimes listening to the characters is where the real story begins to appear.
Giving those first chapters a try feels like a very natural next step. I do have a hard time following serial fiction sometimes, but I’ll definitely read chapter 1 again and keep going through chapter 5. I’m open to being converted :)
Great interview and thoughtful responses. I have enjoyed David’s perspective about context for a while and I have really enjoyed the first few chapters of Inference. I played Magic with my brother and I sometimes find it interesting that many of us have had similar gaming (board or video) experiences. What moments in game culture through the 80s and 90s do you feel influenced you?
Nope - I did QA on Civilization Windows (basically Civ. 1!) with Sid Meier and on a game called Darklands where I understudied game design. Magic was my first and last (so far!) solo gig as Game Designer and Producer, but it was a five year project and we put out 2 expansions for it.
Thank you, Tiberius! :)
Ok David, my first has to come from your background, since you were with Microprose! Did you work on X-Com????
Also I identify strongly with your being a new author, your voice getting stronger as you go, and asking readers to stay a while before rendering final judgement.
X-Com was done by Microprose UK, but I was a part of the team that published it in the U.S. So yes, I worked on it, but I had nothing to do with the design, which was amazing!
I designed Shandalar - the game world for Magic: The Gathering PC - which has a cult following working to revive and modernize the game here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Shandalar/
I really miss all the old school magic card game and computer versions. I have been a fan, well was until about mid 2000s and I lost touch with it. Anyways thanks for answering my off context question, you are kind of a rockstar to an old gamer nerd like me.
So at 59.9 (lol) why now?
The stories I want to write are incredibly complex with interdependent world-building. Frankly, until I had AI as a tool for research and for helping me manage and index the world state, I couldn’t even imagine writing something like Inference while I also ran a company. I always intended to write once I retired, but AI has let me open that chapter of my life sooner.
The story I was going to write first is a sci-fi space opera called Omega, and I have over 500,000 words of world-building written in an Obsidian wiki. But as I started writing the first chapters of that story, it occurred to me that a story about the emergence of AI, written concurrently with the event, could only be done NOW, and so Inference was born. After Inference, I hope to get back to Omega.
Gosh i am blown away by how similar your process is to mine. I started as a masters thesis (it isnt that any more) trying to create a ttrpg with an AI driven 'perpetually offline' world.
I have an entire world of the ttrpg 60% written (75% notetaken) whose short fiction chapter intors turned into Ignition. An I have been able to craft it all through the rapid research and idea formulatiin and iteration of my LLM. Creating hard sci fi tech that is believable requires a tremendous amoint of research.
I admire your commitment to the use of the tool, as well as your dedication to your own voice. Voices like yours need to be heard both as a stpryteller and as a proponent and mentor of HOW to use the tool effectively in human endeavor.
That’s really kind of you to say. I want to use AI as a tool to enhance my writing, not to replace my voice. It irritates me that so many people are 100% anti-AI being used in any capacity when its such a powerful tool for author enablement.
Of course, you are welcome and it is well deserved. Congrats on your success so far as a writer and I look forward to your space opera! Meanwhile your current work will be informative to my own, AI wise, since AGI characters feature heavily in my cosmology.
Oho, this is my first time hearing of Omega-- I look forward to hearing more about that one.
I’ll send you a summary. It has many sekrits.
Pardon my typos, i am on my way out the door!
Good article and interview! I have fond memories of Microprose games in the 90s! Most especially, the original X-Com!
Hi David - Great interview!
Craft question: You mention news constraints as being story seeds and integral to the writing process. How does that impact your plans on where the novel ends? If every chapter has to take into account the emerging news (brilliant methodology btw), how will you know when you’ve reached a stopping point or resolution that makes sense?
Great question. I have character bibles that map out each Character's arc across the trilogy. I know their starting point and destination and their mini-arcs that get them from start to finish. Then I have a series arc that ties all the main themes and the characters together with the Antagonist, who is overarching and touches every character. So it's all roadmapped.
When I go to write a chapter, I start by researching AI news for the period the chapter should be set in (something between the last chapter and the current date) - this may give me a list of 10 or 20 major news items. Then I look at my character arc maps to see whose story needs to progress and how that progression is likely to take place. I pick 1 to 5 characters whose next arc beat matches one or more recent stories and then generate epigraphs for either the whole chapter or for each individual character that reflect the news story I've selected. At that point I know who is in the chapter, what the news "weather" is they are contending with and what their next arc beat needs to be and I write their individual sections.
As a specific example - take Chapter 13 - I knew I needed to progress Thibault's relationship with Dana by introducing a romantic element. I knew I needed Gemini to interact with Model-Blake (who'd just been introduced last Gemini chapter and needed progression) in a way that advance Nova's storyline as well in a parent / child framework. And I knew I needed to advance Atlas's relation with Marcus-02 as co-workers who are becoming friends. One of the news stories I found related to a robot arbitrarily giving a girl a hug during a Robot / Human dance performance so I picked that because it created a great wedge for exploring AI / Human intimacy and that theme connected to all three characters I needed to advance. Kimi and Claude could have been included as well, but I decided to do romantic, familial and social love as three matched scenes and so I left Kimi and Claude out of the chapter.
That's the whole process! :)
Awesome - appreciate the behind-the-scenes stuff! I really like the self-imposed constraints aspect. Always cool to see how other authors are approaching the process.
This is such a thoughtful interview from both sides. I especially liked the psrt where David talks about research as something that keeps changing the stry as it moves. That made the project feel much more organic to me. The idea of characters taking a scene somewhere the writer didn’t fully expect really resonated with the way many of my short stories develop. I know that feeling, and I like it: sometimes listening to the characters is where the real story begins to appear.
Giving those first chapters a try feels like a very natural next step. I do have a hard time following serial fiction sometimes, but I’ll definitely read chapter 1 again and keep going through chapter 5. I’m open to being converted :)
Thank you! I’d love to hear your thoughts on the story as you read it. :)
Hey hey, another person I'm doing voiceover work for on Amacitia. Small world, or this little corner of it is!
Great interview and thoughtful responses. I have enjoyed David’s perspective about context for a while and I have really enjoyed the first few chapters of Inference. I played Magic with my brother and I sometimes find it interesting that many of us have had similar gaming (board or video) experiences. What moments in game culture through the 80s and 90s do you feel influenced you?
AD&D. Zork. Civilization. Magic: The Gathering. Orcs versus Humans. Everquest. WoW. Dominions. Baldur’s Gate.
Those are my major TT and PC gaming milestones where things just leveled up and changed my expectations of what games could be.
A lot of overlap. EverQuest was a game changer for me. I know people swore by civilization in the same manner.
Hey David. I love Wizards of the Coast artwork, never got “into” playing Magic. Is that the only video game you’ve ever worked on?
Nope - I did QA on Civilization Windows (basically Civ. 1!) with Sid Meier and on a game called Darklands where I understudied game design. Magic was my first and last (so far!) solo gig as Game Designer and Producer, but it was a five year project and we put out 2 expansions for it.
I am first.
I will read it now
He didn't write the AI
to explain humanity.
The AI looked at a wheelchair
next to a robot's legs
and did the math —
and he understood
something new
about how value
gets assigned
without anyone deciding to.
The characters taught him
what he set out to teach.
— AËLA