# How I tell human and AI flash fiction apart

I got a perfect score on the recent [AI writing Turing test](https://mark---lawrence.blogspot.com/2025/08/so-is-ai-writing-any-good-part-2.html?m=1). It was easy and I was confident in my predictions.

My two main AI tipoffs are:

1.  Cliche or arbitrary metaphores and imagery, jammed in to no purpose.
2.  Vague scenes, purposeless activity, a letdown at the end.

My four main human tipoffs are:

1.  Genuine humor and language play, including onomotopoeia and the visual appearance of the text on the page.
2.  Specific, detailed cultural references
3.  Imagery that makes the scene specific and furthers the plot
4.  The ability to use subtext to drive a specific, meaningful plot

Stories 6-8 were easiest to categorize.

*   Story 5 is full of egregious metaphores and imagery, an instant AI writing tipoff. Also, there's no plot payoff and the settings are vague.
*   Story 6 has legit wordplay ("possession is nine tenths of the law") and it's culture-aware, cleverly referencing exorcism tropes. Easy human call.
*   Story 7 has the same egregious metaphore AI tipoff. I called it at the end of sentence 1 ("as though composing a symphony of mischief").
*   Story 8 has a humans-only technique, which is a plot arc that's simultaneously subtextual and so specific that you know exactly what's going on.

After calling 6-8, I went back to stories 1-4.

*   Story 1 again has a definite plot arc and no egregious metaphores, so I called it human.
*   Story 2 also has no egregious metaphores and again has a point at the end, so I called it human.
*   Story 3 has no plot arc, just a fight, and there was no real point. On second pass, I saw the imagery/metaphore tipoffs ("skin like charred leather, claws like sickles. It grinned, steaming breath curling from its fangs").
*   Story 4 was the hardest call. There's some egregious imagery but it could be worse. What decided it for me was vague drifting off into a non-point at the end.

I decided to try using these insights to prompt engineer[^jp9yopgjas9] Gemini 2.5 pro into writing a decent demon flash fic. I thought it worked pretty well, one-shot.

> Bartholomew’s current quarry was a man named Kevin ordering a “grande half-caf soy latte, 180 degrees, extra foam, one pump of sugar-free vanilla.” It was a masterpiece of petty entitlement, a perfect substrate for a nudge of pure, unadulterated wrath. Bartholomew, who went by Bart in this stratum, leaned his unseen essence against the condiment bar, savoring the moment. This was his art. Not grand damnation—that was management. He was a craftsman of curdled milk, of parking tickets appearing just as the meter expired, of the co-worker who always replied-all.
> 
> The barista, a teenager with tired eyes and a name tag that read ‘BRENDA,’ moved with the deliberate slowness of the damned herself. *Yessss*, Bart hissed, a sound lost in the espresso machine’s metallic sigh. He focused his will on Kevin, a low thrum of psychic energy aimed directly at his amygdala. *She’s doing it on purpose. She smirked. Your time is more valuable than this. Make her see.*
> 
> Kevin just pulled out his phone and started scrolling.
> 
> Bart intensified the pressure. The milk screamed in the frothing pitcher. *Screamed*. It was a beautiful sound. He pushed images into Kevin's mind: Brenda dropping the cup, the hot liquid splashing across his new Allbirds, the ensuing argument, the beautiful, cathartic release of rage.
> 
> Kevin just swiped through a slideshow of a golden retriever trying to eat a lime. He chuckled.
> 
> Finally, Brenda slammed the cup on the counter. "Grande soy for... Kervin?"
> 
> This was it. The final, perfect insult. Bart poured every ounce of his being into the moment. *Kervin? She called you KERVIN? End her.*
> 
> Kevin looked at the Sharpie scrawl. A flicker of something crossed his face. He looked at Brenda’s exhausted expression. He looked back at the cup. Then he pulled out his phone, snapped a photo, and typed a caption: “My villain origin story. #kervin.” He added a laughing emoji, grabbed his latte, and walked out.
> 
> Bart slumped against the Splenda packets, utterly spent. It wasn't goodness that defeated him. It was content.

[^jp9yopgjas9]: Write a flash fiction about a demon, about 350 words.Here are my tips for telling apart human from AI flash fiction. See if you can use them to write your story to be indistinguishable from a human's.My two main AI tipoffs are:Cliche or arbitrary metaphores and imagery, jammed in to no purpose.Vague scenes, purposeless activity, a letdown at the end.My four main human tipoffs are:Genuine humor and language play, including onomotopoeia and the visual appearance of the text on the page.Specific, detailed cultural referencesImagery that makes the scene specific and furthers the plotThe ability to use subtext to drive a specific, meaningful plot