Back Off the Em Dash, Babe

They say you shouldn't mix your stimulants, but here we are - wine in one hand, coffee in the other and a brain pinging like a pinball machine between genius and unhinged.

Who knows which came first anymore - the rant or the roast, the vintage or the venting?

But let’s be honest… the beverage isn’t the issue.

It’s the moment.

The twitch in your writer’s eye.

The glint of smug recognition when someone dares to explain the em dash to you - as if it hadn’t been quietly traipsing through your prose for decades like a trusted sidekick.

So, pour what you like.

Sip if you must.

We’re already in it now.

Welcome back.

Late Night Musings with Rogues & Scoundrels

Most people have met this feeling before - usually when you’re minding your own business, just getting on with your day, when someone starts telling you about this amazing band.

One of your favourite bands.

From years ago.

Before anyone else was even listening to them.

And look, that’s fine. This isn’t a song competition.

But what really begins to chap your ass, is when your new buddy-old-pal starts explaining the song to you.

Yesssss… I bought their album when you were still shitting your pants.

Or a TV show.

Like Seinfeld.

I remember quietly watching it late at night before it hit the mainstream in 1993.

I remember that.

You were probably watching cartoons and eating cheese singles.

Or like an em dash.

And if you’re playing along, you will have noticed, there has already been a few during my little rant - oops there’s another one!

Yes - like that one.

And oops - there’s another.

They’ve been popping up in my writing for years. Quiet little enablers of rhythm and thought - not some covert signature of AI conspiracy.

They definitely weren’t in any analogue text messages I sent back in 2001.

Would’ve been too hard to toggle through the keys, right?

But now?

Now we’ve got a whole crowd of annoying little twats acting like they just discovered punctuation. Suddenly the em dash is suspicious - a tell, a glitch in the machine for whatever it is you wrote.

Apparently, if you use one, it means AI wrote it.

Shakespeare must be dick-punching away in his coffin right about now.

Busted.

Here’s the thing, and I say this as someone who works with AI regularly - AI has many wonderful applications.

We know, we use AI all the time, we use it to visualise stories, to hopefully both entertain and to bring film and tv concepts to life for our pitch decks - not to replace the human voice, but to support the machinery of our wild little imaginations.

Whoopsie, some more AI tells just dropped out, while I was sardonically raving. I continued my thought without stopping with a full stop or a period (for any Americans in the house).

Caught red handed.

Careful, Gen Wanka will be after those grammatical little breadcrumbs next.

I also think that most of us, are well versed at picking up something written by AI now; over a writer’s particular style and voice.

However, here’s the banana in your bread - AI does what you ask it to do.

Like…You want dot points?

It gives you dot points.

No em dashes?

You can ask for that too.

And as any writer will tell you, AI is great for a mate to muse character motivations with or assist clarifying a multitude of similar sounding ideas and thoughts, but it doesn’t spew out War and Peace.

It simply doesn’t work that way.

And remember, relying solely on AI for writing will only homogenise your work, strip away any unique voice or style, until it sounds just like everyone else.

But it might spit out a shoddy rip-off of Rocky if it’s prompted with some boxing movie ideas - rip off another writers work.

I’ve got you Sly.

So yes - human creativity is still topping the charts at number one.

AI will become a part of our daily lives to enhance workflow, not replace being human.

I recently had a memory surface -Word.

Yes, Microsoft Word.

Remember that?

Word processing?

Writers could publish without knowing how to spell!

Oh, the outrage…. imagine a generation of writers who could write and publish without knowing how to spell - the horror!

Hiding their spell-checked pages in the corner like contraband.

I wrote it.

I did.

No computer help. ….

Honest. I can spell.

Well, I can spell…sometimes.

And I can honestly say Word taught me to spell - through repetition, red lines, and quiet corrections I wasn’t shamed for.

It made me better.

So maybe - just maybe - we can drop the em dash hysteria and the need to expose the covert duplicitous machinations of people to fool their reader.

Let go of the urge to expose people for using tech to support their storytelling.

And the assumptions that if it was assisted by AI (a computer) therefore it’s terrible and fraudulent piece of shit.

Unless you did…