A few people have indicated they’d like to see some progress posts on my November novel project, so here I am.
What I’m currently working is a space opera, written from the close third person perspective of a typical hyper-competent space opera heroine. What would the world look like seen through the eyes of such a person, though? It would look like it was run by dangerously incompetent people.
I’m currently editing the manuscript for voice consistency. It’s a long boring task that’s hard to do yourself because after working on your manuscript for a few hours you can’t see it anymore. But it’s a terrible waste of precious human reader time to saddle other people with that task. So I simply took my manuscript, fed it to an AI chat bot, and told it to flag all the places where the narrative voice was inconsistent. It gobbled up the text and seconds later spit out a list of everywhere the narration stood out — too fast, too slow, wall of text that kind of thing.
Then I realize something. There was a model of the narrative style of my novel sitting right in the session context. Could it? I wonder…
So I type: “Show me what Little Red Riding Hood” would look like if it were narrated from the point of view of the female protagonist of this novel:
The Woodcutter's Errand
The trail was bad. Not just overgrown, but functionally mismanaged. Red, who wore a sensible, fire-retardant wool tunic and carried her scout kit—a picnic basket—made a note to speak to the local forestry commission. No proper forest management, no clear sightlines; this was an accident waiting to happen, particularly for anyone foolish enough to follow the village’s sentimental, winding path.
The forest’s gloom was thick, but Red’s internal chronometer told her she was running ten minutes ahead of schedule. She needed to maintain this efficiency, as Grandmother’s maintenance schedule was inflexible: the herbal tonic needed to be administered at noon, sharp.
She heard the movement first—a sloppy cadence, heavier than a deer, lighter than the village ox. Red immediately dropped into a low firing crouch behind a mossy granite slab, activating the magnetic clasps on her basket.
“Halt!” she commanded. Her voice was firm, displaying no tremor, though she was internally calculating the velocity required for a clean shot with her specialized fungal spore projectile (effective range: six meters, incapacitation time: 30 seconds).
A massive gray wolf emerged from the gloom, its teeth bared in a grin that was less feral and more... smug.
“Well, hello there, little human,” the Wolf—who was clearly a political operative, given the tailored, if mud-stained, gray suit—said, without the decency to look surprised. “Aren’t you a long way from the settlement?”
Red bristled. That was a direct challenge to her procedural integrity. “I am on a delivery manifest designated ‘Grandmother, Urgent.’ Identify yourself, or I will consider you an environmental hazard.”
The Wolf sighed, the expression entirely too expressive. “No need for protocols. I’m just a traveler. I believe you’re heading to the cottage across the river, aren’t you? I saw the smoke plume. Fine structural integrity, by the way. No heat loss.”
“My Grandmother is an excellent structural engineer,” Red said. She assessed the Wolf's body language. The tail—the key tell—was twitching with false nonchalance. “Why would a timber wolf be wearing a tweed jacket?”
The Wolf laughed—a rough, theatrical sound. “Ah, you caught my little attempt at disguise! My dear, I am not just a wolf. I am a Specialized Dietary Consultant—a traveling salesman, if you will. And that cottage? I know a shortcut. It’ll save you twenty minutes.”
Red’s ears instantly perked up. Twenty minutes of time saved was an immense efficiency gain. Her moral framework demanded she take the quickest, most efficient path to fulfilling her duty...
