Writing
Related: About this forumOn Writing. And on Trump.
This is SO good. https://www.salon.com/2023/08/05/you-cant-make-this-up-as-a-fictional-character/
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highplainsdem
(51,277 posts)important to have descriptions of this at a time when generative AI like ChatGPT are being pushed at individual users and businesses as "creative."
I've run across articles lately quoting AI peddlers about how good it is to have AI prompt you with something so you never have to face a "blank page." The dreaded blank page.
But the human mind is never a blank page. A writer might not have put a single word on a piece of paper or a computer screen yet, but there's a universe of creativity swirling in that mind. Any human's mind. And humans live in that universe of creativity in a way no chatbot can.
The experience is so complete, so immersive, I found it difficult to live in the real world around me. My mind would wander into the barracks at West Point as I sat at a table of friends in the middle of a busy restaurant. I kept a reporter's notebook in my back pocket and made notes throughout the day before I sat down to write at night. Having finished writing at 4 a.m., I awoke in the middle of the night dreaming entire scenes in the book, complete with dialogue, and wrote them down in my notebook before going back to sleep.
You can't get that from chatbot-"assisted" writing.
And I agree with almost everything Lucian Truscott - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucian_K._Truscott_IV - writes about Trump, until he says this:
Mary Trump has made a very persuasive case for how Trump was turned into the monster he is by his childhood, and especially his sociopathic father's influence:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jul/07/donald-trump-abuse-father-niece-mary-book
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/trump-the-bully-how-childhood-military-school-shaped-the-future-president/
https://www.npr.org/2020/07/15/891381918/mary-trump-describes-abusive-trump-family-home-says-she-will-vote-biden-2020
But I can understand Truscott feeling there's "no arc" to explain how Trump became a monster because it started so early. A baby sociopath shaped by an adult sociopath.
So for non-sociopaths, there is no place to get a handle on Trump's character and motivations that's secure enough for them to them to bridge the distance between their character and emotions and his.
There ARE people, many of his associates and supporters, who think they CAN identify with Trump, but they fall into two categories, both delusional:
1) Others with sociopathic tendencies who sense a kindred warped spirit in Trump, a reflection of their own worst traits, and see him as an ally or representative, who are delusional in imagining he won't turn on them, and
2) People looking for someone to follow, who pin their own fantasies of charismatic leadership on Trump once he's caught their attention, and follow that imaginary leader. These are the people who see Trump as someone sent by God, or as a brilliant businessman who nobly sacrificed his wonderful life as a private citizen because he cares about them.
Trump is still an unreachable island for those people. They just haven't figured it out yet.
Brainstormy
(2,399 posts)I have only lately become aware of the attraction of sociopaths for other sociopaths. And I can attest to the personal reality of your own fiction. I once came very close to buying a teapot for a character in one of my short stories.