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sieveyesterday at 5:25 AM1 replyview on HN

This is something from early 2025. The situation and my own way of driving the models has improved somewhat in the intervening period.

Variations on a Theme of Saki

https://gist.github.com/s-i-e-v-e/b4d696bfb08488aeb893cce3a4...


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grey-areayesterday at 6:38 AM

I’m sorry but this isn’t very good, problems from a cursory look:

Stuffed full of adjectives, a common problem when LLMs attempt to make the text literary.

Stuffed full of incidental detail (window inexplicably open), which doesn’t quite make sense - why would you leave a window open for people to return?

Things which suddenly loom large in the narrative without any previous mention (roaring fire).

Overuse of certain mechanisms (for example here ellipsis).

Meanders without any discernable goal from one scene to the next.

So in short, it’s a tale told by an idiot savant, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Take this sentence as an example:

A biting incident, if I'm to be perfectly honest. Involving… several toes.

The ellipsis just gets in the way, the ‘perfectly honest’ likewise and this should be one better formed sentence. The several toes bit is overly explicit without being clear (he lost several toes, or toes were bitten?). Most of the text is like this - infuriatingly vague, clumsy in construction and full of non-sequiturs.

Compare this with real writing:

https://archive.org/stream/GrahamGreeneShorts/21%20Stories_d...

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3077/3077-h/3077-h.htm#link2...

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