Hope the day has been treating everyone well!

Over the past few months, I’ve written several articles that aim to define certain aspects of a fully sustainable world. After writing the last couple of articles, I wanted to really explore those concepts within a story. To really get a sense of how life might actually play out. Below I have a link to a story where I put together elements of an open travel society, a shared community, and food culture together:

[SOL001] - A Kitchen Story

I had fun writing the sections that I explored, and hope that reading through it was equally enjoyable. Would love any feedback or opinions that you may have. What did you think of the narrative? Could you envision yourself in that world? Would you buy a solarpunk cookbook filled with short stories?

Hope the rest of the day goes well and thanks for reading! :)

  • Andy
    2·
    11 months ago

    I think it needs a bit more of a hook. We hear it’s a special day, and there are special guests, but we don’t really learn why. It’s also a bit tricky to place this, in time or geography, and we don’t know why Navi was so set on getting these berries, or what this bear confrontation looked like.

    I suggest trying to answer these and tie them all into a theme that circles back in the end. It’s a newer settlement, perhaps, in an area undergoing recent restoration from ecological devastation. Navi’s friend is a mushroom obsesive, but Navi loves berries. Navi was determined to get some to go on top of tarts for dessert, and the visiting elders, who’ve come to assess progress with the new settlement are amazed, because they recognize the berry as a staple of the region thought lost, redeeming Navi’s actions in front of everyone. Something like that.

    • poVoqMA
      3·
      11 months ago

      It does indeed read like an except out of a longer story and not a more self-contained short.

      I do like some of the ideas that hint at a broader world-building though.

    • Sol_r_PunkOP
      1·
      11 months ago

      I intentionally wrote the story as an excerpt, to give it a “slice of life” feel to it. I didn’t want everything to be explained and instead leave it to the reader to fill in the blanks as to how certain aspects came to be. You’re take is interesting and quite different from my headcanon, though I could definitely see things playing out that way.

    • Andy
      2·
      11 months ago

      That’s not a very thoughtful response to someone sharing a story they wrote.

      You’re free to express your displeasure, but I would encourage you to think about how you’d feel if you asked for feedback on a work of lovingly written fiction and someone ignored it completely in favor of what sounds (to me at least) like an offhand dismissal that you even belong in this community.

      Is it possible you can use your words more constructively?

      • blazera@kbin.social
        22·
        11 months ago

        The irony, lovingly created fiction. No, artists did the loving creation and this guy wrote a short prompt for a computer to do it based on their work.

        I was expecting like, solar energy discussion, or gardening and sustainability projects from this community. But its just been AI art and talks at cryptocurrency meetings.

        • poVoqMA
          2·
          11 months ago

          This is a very obvious trolling attempt. Go play somewhere else.

        • Andy
          2·
          11 months ago

          I mean this with all seriousness: why don’t you just set up a parallel community on this instance that you can moderate the way you’d like?

        • Sol_r_PunkOP
          1·
          11 months ago

          Well, hate to disappoint, but the story was 100% homegrown. As much as I think AI can be a very useful tool, the creative arts, to me, will always be a medium for the language of emotion and a playground for curiosity. AI will get close, but it’s incredibly hard to replicate that which you can’t feel. As to your first comment, I’ll take it as that my technique has the makings of a good artist, but perhaps struggles to appeal emotionally, which I think would be a valid critique. Emotional appeal wasn’t a heavy concern while I was crafting the narrative.

          As to the second comment, it’s important to remember that change has to work from two angles. From the goal backwards, as a way to orient our collective compasses, and from the present forward as the actual driver of change. Both are equally important and useless without the other.