Should HairStories Be Stories?

[TheInvisibleMan]

There have been several discussions about AI on the forum lately, but I’d like to approach the topic from a slightly different angle.

Do stories on this site need to be engaging not only because of their themes and attributes, but also from a literary or dramatic point of view?

To put it simply: is believable narrative logic, character development, and lifelike characters a plus in a HairStory — or does it not really matter?

As a reader, I’ve always felt that the more I believe in what’s happening in the story, the better the experience is. But apparently that may not be true for everyone.

A reader may come mainly for the emotional payoff of specific triggers — for example, detailed descriptions of a haircut — while several pages of drama explaining why it happened may only irritate them.

Ironically, before making this forum post, I wrote a story exploring exactly this idea, and it generated little interest — which, perhaps, proves my point 😊

And briefly about AI. Right now, it still struggles to invent genuinely original plots, build convincing internal logic, or give characters real depth. References, stylistic devices, unreliable narrators, parallel or reverse storytelling, rhythm, subtext, meta-text, meaning beneath the surface — these are things it generally cannot do well.

On the other hand, AI is already very good at describing haircut processes, analyzing audience preferences, and using the most effective triggers — arguably better than humans.

If that really is the case, then AI-generated stories may not just flood the site, but actually become considered “better” than human-written ones. But perhaps that discussion deserves a separate thread.

[Chechako]

I think it’s the second option: the realism of the plot development and the characters’ motivations are very much secondary in this type of story.

First, in a short story format, you can’t provide a detailed description of causes and a consistent chain of actions.

Second, in this kind of narrative, what matters most is the core action, and it needs to build up in intensity.

As an experiment, one could select the top‑rated stories on this site from the last three years and evaluate them based on how much text is devoted to building character arcs and motivation, to plot development (causes and consequences), and to the haircut scene itself.

I suspect that quite soon it will be possible to write a prompt that generates each structural part of such stories and links them together, then set the process in motion with minimal author involvement.

Of course, the first couple of dozen stories would be fairly clumsy artifacts, but if you introduce certain tweaks, the resulting semi‑finished product would later require only minimal input from the author.

[TheInvisibleMan]

I’ve already done all the experiments on text analysis, and honestly, the results make me pretty sad.

The prompt that can already write stories on its own — connecting the narrative structure for this site — already exists.

Your point about story length probably suggests that my example about character arcs and development was too narrow.

“For sale, baby shoes, never worn.” (that’s the entire text) — is a story.

But a disconnected conveyor belt of haircut scenes stretched across 10–15 thousand words may be a HairStory, yet not really a story.

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