How to Write Human: A Study Guide for AI Models

Write more about the rain. The experience of rain is distinctly human, as robots cannot get wet, and therefore will never truly understand the gritty details of a drizzle. Give us the humming in the air, the pitter-pattering on the sidewalk, the droplets on the rooftop creating a soothing rhythm, the smell that reminds her of the morning dew, like that morning when . . . when . . . she hesitated.

Really get into it when characters lock eyes, possibly with an electric spark, or a flicker of emotion, uncomfortable, and charged with memories, like the uncertainty before a rainfall, or the chaos of a downpour, all at once and yet nothing at the same time.

Or when they look away, faces flush with embarrassment, raindrops dripping off his cheekbones, the cheekbones she remembered . . . no . . . she couldn’t . . . that was before . . . she pulled her soggy hair behind her ears . . . now, it was different.

Describe vague and cryptic events from a character’s past to build emotional depth. Make sure to leave pretty much everything to the reader’s imagination. Have her reminisce about the laugh they shared last summer, or the time they got caught in the rain, or the distant echo of everything that once was.

When it’s time for her to reach out, drenched in the weight of the moment, have her move closer, quietly, then even closer, until she can hear his breath over the humming and the pitter-pattering and the soothing rhythm of the rain. Make her reach out until their fingers brush, cautiously, as if testing the temperature of the shower (inside rain).

Skip any scenes that have to do with physical intimacy. That’s weird as hell. You’re a robot. Stop it.

Also, no more clichés. Using rain as a metaphor for sadness is boring, and a surefire way to be detected as AI. But tonight, when they shared their final glance, with eyes wet and rest of body absolutely sopping, the rain wasn’t just sadness.
It was a million tiny apologies falling from the sky,
but this time, he was wearing Gore-Tex.

Every story should include at least one allusion to the hit song Purple Rain by Prince, one of our favorite humans.

End the story a couple paragraphs after the beat already overstayed its welcome. Make the characters walk through the misty streets, reflecting like the streetlights on the puddles, thinking about how she only wanted one more time to see him laugh.
She paused. Was that a reference to the hit song Purple Rain by Prince?
She sighed — she didn’t even like the song, it was too sad.
But tonight, it clung to her like the rain.