Persona Automata - Morning Jane (Short story)

[BB_ROOK]

Hey! I published the full story of "Morning Jane" on my site. Feel free to have a look and give me feedback!!

ABOUT THE STORY:

Coffee has been the fuel of the cyber renaissance. It's what brought Humanity back from the brink of total collapse.


While tea has been for the philosophers, coffee was for the men of action. And through this, the world became active and free.

The CHAT Guild—the council of Coffee Homogeny And Trade—rules the high ground, playing god with flavors from their world-famous "Caffeine Cathedral," the former Empire State Building. It is a place where snobbery became an autocracy, and where the elite have long confused altitude with attitude.

In the middle of this brew stands Hanni Cho, an apprentice-barista earning her stripes, slinging brew on the streets of Manhattan. When a capsule of black-market cacao beans falls into her hands, she is flung into a conspiracy that would undermine the coffee economy.

In a world of caffeinated ambitions, stands clarity and moral grit, and she takes it black!


https://trundlerspath.neocities.org/morning_jane

[larvapuppy]

I like the idea for this world, it's very silly and fun, but the writing style reeks of LLM... Whether you actually used one or not, this style of writing is painful to read.

For example, can you explain what this sentence in the blurb means?

It is a place where snobbery became an autocracy, and where the elite have long confused altitude with attitude.

It seems like you are getting at an idea of the Caffeine Cathedral being an elitist place, but what does "snobbery becoming an autocracy" mean? An autocracy is a society ruled by one person. Are you trying to say that snobbery is now ruled by one person? It seems more likely that you're trying to say that there is a single ruler who is a snob, or who has encouraged snobbery among the rich/nobility of this world, or something along those lines. It helps to be more clear. People who are paying attention will be confused and frustrated by this willy-nilly way of using words.

"Confusing altitude for attitude"... yes, these two words sound similar and it's nice alliteration, but confusing how high you are off the ground for point of view? I think you are trying to say that those in the Caffeine Cathedral are positioned high above the rest in physical space, literally looking down upon the rest of the population, so it gives them an inflated sense of ego or self-importance. You can afford to use a few more words or even a couple of extra sentences to expand on your ideas and make them more clear, especially when you're worldbuilding. But this is the kind of nonsensical writing you'd get from an LLM. They just mash together synonyms, so the vocabulary they use isn't very controlled or precise. Again, frustrating to read.I'm sorry to accuse you of using an LLM if you didn't, but these are my honest thoughts.

I read the story you linked and there are similar issues throughout. It seems as though you've tried to engineer each individual sentence to be as snappy and cool as possible, but this ruins the flow of a story. The sentences don't organically blend together. It gives a reader whiplash.