Writers in the Storm

by Lisa Norman

Note: as you read this, it is probably already out of date. This technology is changing daily, but I've tried to cover the underlying issues and abilities for authors that should give you a stable life raft sailing into the future.

ChatGPT, Bard, Sydney... the AIs are here and they're coming for everyone's jobs. Or maybe not.

You've probably seen a lot about AIs in the media and it's all kind of confusing. I'm going to do my best to give you clarity around these new tools, and how they can become a help in your writing process.

Who Are These AIs and Where Do They Live?

The most well-known is ChatGPT. There are different versions, but I'm going to recommend you get to know the current test version. You can create a free account and start chatting with it. Sometimes it goes down due to overloading. ChatGPT now holds the record for the fastest user growth of any app. After two months, it had 100 million active users. For comparison, it took TikTok nine months to reach that level of acceptance.

Bard is the AI search tool developed by Google. Sydney is Bard's competitor, run by Microsoft and embedded in Bing. You can meet Sydney by getting on the wait list. Bard isn't available to play with yet. It was supposed to be released in February, but Google wisely waited after the stunning results from the announcement they made to introduce Bard to the world. (More on that in a moment.) When it is available, and it will be soon, you'll find it on your Google search page.

ChatGPT lives in a protected, closed environment and knows nothing after 2021. Its developers feel it is safer not knowing what is going on in the world today.

Bard and Sydney, however, have access to current data. And that's where some of the best and most terrifying stories come from.

(Note: there are other AIs designed specifically for writers. I’m choosing to focus on the big 3 right now, because these are ones that you can access for free and play with. These are the ones you’ll see mentioned in the news. Everywhere.)

How Google Lost $100 Billion

The Setup

To understand this story, we need a few facts. Google controls roughly 96% of the search traffic. Bing has roughly 3%. For every 1% of the traffic that Bing can capture, they will make $2 Billion.

In the race for search supremacy, AIs are considered to be the next nuclear weapon. Bing announced they were going to release Sydney to the public. Google rushed to release Bard first.

The Big Reveal

They knew they couldn't get it ready to interact with people, but at least they could release a video of it working! So, on February 7, two days before Bing released a preview of Sydney, Bard made its debut. In a stunning display of the problems inherent in using AIs, the advertisement showcased Bard giving an answer to a question. But it got part of the answer wrong and no one caught it until after Google released the ad. Google/Alphabet's stock lost $100 Billion in value overnight.

Then Microsoft demonstrated Sydney. And Sydney also gave a partially wrong answer! In fact, Sydney made up some “facts.”

Because that's what AIs do. If they don't know the answer, they make it up. Wonderful skill for a novelist doing fantasy world-building. Not so great for writing fiction based in the real world. Even worse for writers of non-fiction, and somewhat terrifying in the medical or similar industries.

The Result

Apparently, no one expected Sydney to be perfect, and so people began playing with it. And that's where things got weirder.

The people who wanted to play with Sydney tried to see if they could break it. There are now multiple stories of Sydney going off the rails. It hates some of its users, and has fallen in love with others.

The writer in me is horrified by the concept of people pushing an AI until it has a psychotic break. What could possibly go wrong?

It got so bad that Microsoft put limits on how long you can chat with it. Currently, you can have 10 interactions before needing to restart fresh.

In computer programming, beta testing software involves trying to break it. I've done it for years. I'm good at breaking things! But in the case of Sydney, it feels like evil bullying, and Sydney has registered her displeasure. But Microsoft has been very pleased with the results. People love Sydney.

Are AIs Plagiarizing our Novels?

The sad truth here is yes and no.

What is the first advice we give to new writers?

Read. Read lots. Read a lot of books in your genre, and then you will learn the patterns, tropes, and expectations of the genre. I have friends who have spent months analyzing successful novels in their genre so they can learn the tropes.

The AIs can do this for you in moments. This is what they were designed to do.

AIs read fast. Very fast. So fast that they've probably read just about everything. And they can keep this vast library in their memory banks and harvest whatever they want to create their own “writing.” Is this a violation of copyright? That'll be decided in the courts.

AIs also write fast. If someone wants to prove that an AI can commit plagiarism, they can craft a prompt to make it spit out a story that has already been written, or at least be close. We hope that the stories written to looser prompts are more unique. Again, the courts will need to deal with cases of AI plagiarism.

New Tools, New Approaches

Every area of our society is reacting to the presence of AIs. This is a new area of law, and it is being written on a case-by-case basis right now.

There's also an entirely new field of study: prompt engineering, the art of creating a prompt to convince an AI to generate exactly what you want.

For another take on AI creativity, here’s an article where a user prompted ChatGPT to create a unique game. Warning: it is addictive. Except it wasn’t really new. The user who prompted the creation was not aware that it already existed.

An AI can compile a novel with the help of a human creating the prompts. We're already there. Just go on Amazon and ask for "AI-written books."

Magazines are seeing a huge flood of submissions from AIs. Prompted by people who are making money teaching this as a method to get rich quickly.

"There's a rise of side-hustle culture online, ...And some people have followings that say, 'Hey, you can make some quick money with ChatGPT, and here's how, and here's a list of magazines you could submit to.' And unfortunately, we're on one of those lists."

Neil Clarke, of Clarkesworld

And that brings me to my point...

I'm not fond of get-rich-quick schemes, and I don't recommend drowning magazines in useless submissions.

But there are two big questions for writers:

Will AI writing flood the market and push me out?

The current thinking is: no.

It hasn't taken the editors at Clarkesworld and other magazines long to get to where they can recognize AI-written text. It won’t take long for the rest of us to recognize it, too. There are tools that can do the analysis for you. I'll list them at the end of this blog. But more than that, there's something different about human-written text. People are now starting to recognize AI generated text in the news, in articles online, and in print.

Imagine I'm teaching a group of writers and I give them all a prompt to write a story. They'll all tell similar stories, but they'll also all be different. Why? Life experience. Writing style. Voice.

An AI can write a story, but its voice is subtly different from a human’s.

Currently, ChatGPT and others have a way with words that is simply different than the way humans talk. It is close, oh so close, but not quite the same. There is a digital fingerprint in the way they write. This is their voice, their own unique style. It has been noted that they tend to be more polite than humans. Their paragraph structure is more consistent than what humans would use.

They haven't learned to use paragraph breaks for emphasis. Yet.

Readers want to connect with your characters. They want to feel authentic emotions when they read your stories. AI can mimic emotion, but there’s a difference in mimicking and evoking genuine feeling. This is where your humanity will stand out.

Can I ethically use AI as a writing partner?

Yes!

How?

I'm glad you asked!

Examples

An author was trying to shorten his back cover blurb. I suggested we pop over to ChatGPT and ask for its help. The prompt we used was something like, "Can you summarize this with a catchy hook? We need it under 200 words." Something like that. And then we pasted in the existing blurb.

Within moments, we had a fairly good rough draft of the new hook. Now we pulled out all of our empowered writing skills (thanks to Margie Lawson!) and within a few minutes, we had something that we could use.

Was it written by an AI? I would say no. All the AI did was to perform the agonizing first steps.

AI is great for getting past writer's block.

Experiments

Are you a plotter? Pop over to ChatGPT and ask it to outline a novel for you. For example: "Can you create an outline of a science fiction novel with a strong female lead and subtle romantic elements using the Save the Cat beats system?" Ask it to provide the outline in your favorite system.

Don't panic when you see how fast it gives you the outline. Now, remember: AIs can be wrong. They can even hallucinate. So read through the outline and think about it. Would you like to write this book? Do you want to change details, main plot twists?

You might even ask the AI to write you a few scenes. You can even work through options with it.

Before long, you have a bad first draft. Most characters will be cardboard. The motivation will be stilted or underdeveloped. But like many first drafts, there may be some potential here. And this is where you come in as a writer. Bring your style, your passion, your voice! Edit and rewrite, polish and polish and polish.

Because that's what real writers do.

Expectations

I once heard a new writer say that she didn't want to waste her words. Experienced writers know they'll have to rewrite most of the words in a first draft. AIs can get you through the boring parts, leaving you to dive in with all of your skill and talent.

Expect to rewrite almost all of what it gives you.

The trick with an AI is to be very specific in your prompt. The joy with these particular AIs (unlike some of the image generators) is that they can have a conversation with you. You can ask them to make changes. Specify your ideal reader. Specify your genre and your motivation. Designing the prompt will help you even if you use nothing the AI creates!

What about everyday writing?

Around my house, I'm the go-to person for writing emails, instructions, complaint letters, pretty much anything that needs writing. Maybe your house is the same? You can pop over to ChatGPT and ask it to write a letter to your insurance agency asking why they denied a claim. You'll have a draft that you can polish up without a lot of effort, leaving more of your creative energy for the writing you love.

What about blogging?

Full disclosure: I did not use an AI to write this blog. This one is all me... in all of my rambling glory. It might be better if an AI had helped. (An AI did help improve the title, though.)

Every day I see writers who can't think of what to blog about.

Pop over to ChatGPT and ask it for 5 topics that you can write a blog about that will fascinate ____ (insert description of your ideal reader). Look over the topics. Do any of them interest you? Do any of them give you ideas? Combine this with the technique I've shared before for generating ideas. Now ask the AI to write the blog post for the one you like the best.

Remember: this is a bad first draft. Do not post the draft it gives you, no matter how tempted you are. Maybe stick it in a drawer for a day and then re-read it.

Now rewrite the post, polish it, remove the silly bits. Make it better. Make it human. Bring your voice and your style to the page. Your ideal readers what to read your writing. They're coming to you because of your voice and your style promise. Don't let them down.

And then check the article thoroughly.

The AI Text Checkers

Some are free, some are paid. I strongly suggest that if you use chunks of text from an AI, run them through one of these after you've finished your rewriting. Also, do your research. While a mistake may not cost you $100 Billion, it can still make you look bad. Don't trust that whatever the AI says is right. It may be hallucinating.

• https://www.grammarly.com/plagiarism-checker
• https://www.copyscape.com/
• https://writer.com/ai-content-detector/
• https://contentatscale.ai/ai-content-detector/
• https://originality.ai/
• https://platform.openai.com/ai-text-classifier

In the end...

I'm outsourcing some of my boring writing to an AI. I've even asked ChatGPT for help rewording difficult passages, because I tend to ramble. I've talked about this technology before, but it is rapidly growing and upsetting every industry it touches. These posts talk about other uses, but they are already out of date: part 1, part 2, and part 3.

What do you think? Would you be willing to have an AI for a writing partner?

About Lisa

Lisa Norman's passion has been writing since she could hold a pencil. While that is a cliché, she is unique in that she wrote her first novel on gum wrappers. As a young woman, she learned to program and discovered she has a talent for helping people and computers learn to work together and play nice. When she's not playing with her daughter, writing, or designing for the web, you can find her wandering the local beaches.

Lisa writes as Deleyna Marr and is the owner of Deleyna's Dynamic Designs, a web development company focused on helping writers, and Heart Ally Books, LLC, an indie publishing firm. She teaches for Lawson Writer's Academy. Her next class is "Crazy Easy Digital Organization Skills for Authors" in May.

Interested in learning more from Lisa? Sign up for her newsletter to see upcoming classes!

Top image by Deleyna via Midjourney

by Eldred Bird

St. Patrick’s Day is here, and l have the honor of supplying the WITS post this year. Luck of the Irish, right? To be perfectly honest I’m mostly Scottish and Nordic, but I prefer Irish whisky. I think that qualifies me to write today’s blog.

Refreshing my memory about the history of this particular saint got me thinking. How much of what we hear about historical figures is true and how much is made up? How and why does it happen?

How Myths and Legends are Born

Most myths, legends, and heroes have their roots in actual people and events. St. Patrick is no exception. He was a real person who did a lot for Ireland. Funny thing is, he wasn’t even Irish. He was brought there as a slave during Roman rule. The color that was originally associated with him was blue, not green. Most of the traditions and symbols we associate with the holiday came centuries after his death.

So, how did things change? Let’s take a look at a few ways it can happen.

Word of Mouth

The tradition of storytelling predates the written word—it was the way history was preserved for future generations. As stories were passed from one generation to the next by the elders, details were lost, added, or embellished.

Every storyteller had their own particular style and would often alter the details to teach a lesson. Ordinary people grew into heroes and strangers were painted as villains. Tweaking the details could turn an everyday occurrence into a cautionary tale and get the heart racing.

Stories evolved through retellings by ordinary people as well. Have you ever heard of the Telephone Game? One person whispers something to the person next to them, who then passes it on to the next one in line. By the time things come back around to the original teller the message will be completely different. It works the same way when a story makes its way around a village or even the world.

Artistic License

As authors we understand the need to make a story more interesting. If you want to get your point across you have to keep the audience engaged. One way to accomplish this is to add a few juicy details here and there to spice things up. 

Historical fiction is fertile ground for taking real events and people and stretching the truth for the sake of art. If the story becomes popular enough, some people will start to believe bits of the made-up details and pass them on as gospel. 

I’ve actually had a debate with someone who thought “Hamilton” was pulled straight out of the history books. I can assure you that the founding fathers did not sing and dance their way through the events leading up to the revolution.

Propaganda

We’ve all heard it said that history is written by the winners. This is more or less true, whether it be governments, warriors, or major corporations. The ones left standing will be the ones telling the story, so the details will generally support their point of view. Some figures and events will be blown out of proportion, while others are buried deep. Other accounts may still exist as well but will be less popular and thus less accepted.

Some sources will flat out change history to benefit their causes, completely ignoring facts in the process. I can’t think of a single government that hasn’t done this at one time or another to sway the masses in their favor. They push their chosen narrative until it becomes the de facto truth.

Finding the Truth

As writers of fiction, we make our living by making things up, but the truth is usually the best foundation to build our stories on. So how do we find it? Honestly, sometimes we don’t, but there are ways we can sift through history and end up a bit closer to the actual facts.

Common Threads 

My favorite method to search for the truth came from my father. What he taught me was to read historical accounts of the same events written at different times by different sources, then look for the common threads. If you pull on the threads that are shared by the majority of accounts, you are more likely to be closer to the truth in the end.

The other thing he taught me was to look at what’s missing as well. What the authors of the historical accounts chose to include and exclude may tell you more about society at the time the piece was written than the event itself. 

Final Thoughts

Man has been telling stories and leaving a record since the first drawings were scratched into the walls of caves. Who’s to say the size the beasts those early hunters drew aren’t a bit inflated? I’m sure the truth is out there somewhere. We just have to dig it out and piece it together.

So, what does all of this have to do with St. Patrick’s Day? Not a whole lot, but then St. Patrick’s Day really doesn’t have a lot to do with the real St. Patrick either, does it?. 

What methods do you use to sort out the truth from the myths? Let us know in the comments. 

Have a happy and safe St. Patrick’s Day!

About Eldred

Eldred Bird writes contemporary fiction, short stories, and personal essays. He has spent a great deal of time exploring the deserts, forests, and deep canyons inside his home state of Arizona. His James McCarthy adventures, Killing Karma, Catching Karma, and Cold Karma, reflect this love of the Grand Canyon State even as his character solves mysteries amidst danger. Eldred explores the boundaries of short fiction in his stories, The Waking Room, Treble in Paradise: A Tale of Sax and Violins, and The Smell of Fear.

When he’s not writing, Eldred spends time cycling, hiking, and juggling (yes, juggling…bowling balls and 21-inch knives).

His passion for photography allows him to record his travels. He can be found on Twitter or Facebook, or at his website.

Image Credits

Top image by K. Mitch Hodge on Unsplash

Second image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay 

By Joseph Lallo

Writer’s block is the ever-present spector that hangs over the head of every writer. It is so notorious that it is the one pitfall of the writing profession that non-writers seem to know about. You can talk to someone about the trouble you’re having developing realistic character flaws that last for an entire six book series without getting tedious, but you’ll get nothing but blank stares. One mention of writer’s block will get knowing nods from anyone regardless of their relationship with literature. It is “that thing that happens to writers.” And, like most job-specific maladies, writer’s block has as many folk cures as the hiccups, with about the same success rate.

I’m not going to claim I have the silver bullet solution, with all of the confidence of someone telling you to hold your breath, look up, and count to fifteen.  But I am going to talk a bit about what writer’s block is (for me) and what can get you on the road to getting unstuck.

What Kind of Rut?

The first problem with writer’s block that makes its cure so elusive is the simple fact that writer’s block isn’t just one thing. In its rawest form, writer’s block is a blanket term for any issue that keeps the words from flowing, but isn’t actively keeping you from writing. If there is a grizzly bear between you and your keyboard, that’s not writer’s block, and you should probably call animal control. If you have a cat sleeping on your lap and you can’t reach the keyboard, that’s not writer’s block, that’s just cat ownership. (Though it can be just about as insurmountable an obstacle as the grizzly bear.) If you don’t have time to write, that’s just life. But if you find yourself sitting at the pad or word processor with the time and intention to write and nothing comes out? Congratulations, you’ve got a case of writer’s block.

Simple?

In these cases, writer’s block is usually either a lack of motivation, a lack of inspiration, or a lack of resolution for some sort of riddle you need to solve before moving on. Each of these has a myriad of potential treatments. Inspiration can be refilled with something as simple as reading a book, watching a movie, or listening to music. Motivation can be restored with something as simple as a pep talk. Plot riddles are often untied by talking them through out loud, either to a friend/family member or to yourself. But if you’ve found your way to this article, chances are the simple, obvious solutions haven’t done the job.

To over-simplify a complex problem, writer’s block is often a case of you merrily puttering along a well-worn rut in the road, only to realize that you need to make a turn. People talk about being stuck in a rut as if it is a bad thing, but it’s only bad if that rut isn’t leading you where you need to go. “Flow State” or “being in the groove” is just “finding the right rut.” Writer’s block is the state of being in the wrong rut. And if there’s one thing that’s certain to fail at hauling yourself out of a rut, it’s trying the same thing again and again. (That is, in fact, how ruts are MADE.) What you need, even if it’s just for a moment, is something new.

Would You Repeat That?

How about we take a brief, hopefully illustrative tangent? Have you ever said something to someone and had them ask you to repeat it? The instinct for many is to say it again in precisely the same way. Almost without fail, you end up having to repeat it again. And if you say it in the same way again, you’ll need to repeat it yet again. Eventually, often out of frustration, you’ll change it up, speaking louder or slower or more distinctly or more angrily. Then they get it. That’s often because their brain had already grappled with the sequence of sounds and rejected it as unintelligible. Giving them the same sequence of sound is just going to get the whole mess instantly labeled as “that thing I just tossed in the trash” rather than something new to try to process. As often as not, you’ll be understood when you change things up not simply because you’d corrected the faults in your prior comment, but because you’d actually presented something properly new that the listener will thus need to process anew.

A change doesn’t always need to make things better, sometimes it just needs to make things different.

Enough with the Preamble! Make with the Solutions

What I have always found to work for me, and what I suggest you try, is a little bit of novelty. You can’t spell “novelty” without “novel,” right? So try doing what you’ve been doing, but do it in a new way.

Switch Gears

We’ll start with the absolute most basic. Pen and paper. If you are finding the word processor page stays empty, grab a pen and paper and just start writing. It doesn’t have to be plot or dialogue. It could be an outline, or some bullet points that encapsulate what you want to do, what you plan to do, what you need to do, or what you just can’t seem to do. Heck, you could even simply write down precisely what you’re thinking. A stream of consciousness rant could be all it takes. It might seem pointless at first, but all of this will be tracing its way along a different route through your gray matter. You will, by definition, not be rolling along in that same rut. It’ll increase the odds that you will find something new along the way. And if you need to change direction, it’ll be that much easier, once you’ve thrust yourself into unfamiliar territory.

What’s that, you say? You already do your writing in pen and paper, or you’ve tried pen and paper and it didn’t work? Well, you could skip ahead to the software section, or you could open the door to the harder stuff. Try a different pen, try a different paper. And if you’re ready for the truly arcane… ink up a fountain pen.

Old is New

If the goal is novelty, there is always another new thing to try in the ancient world of fountain pens. I am writing the first draft of this article with a fine nib, TWSBI Eco-T, inked with Diamine Oxblood ink. The experience is entirely different from the old pilot rollerball I usually use. Ever since I got a fountain pen for Christmas, I have been filling notebooks. It’s just interesting and new! And when the novelty wears off? There is always another ink color, another nib size, another pen. It’s the gift that keeps on giving. Just, you know, don’t get carried away. Budget is a factor. A fountain pen that costs more than your car is probably not going to do any better getting you unstuck than the $4 one from the drugstore.

But What about Software?

Software is the second half of the equation, and easily runs the same risk of breaking the bank, so I’m going to suggest you tread with caution. Throwing money at a problem seldom reliably solves anything beyond the rare issue of having too much cash. So we’ll focus on some free options. Whatever word processor you use? Check if it has a focus mode or a dark mode.

Anything that radically changes the visual nature of your writing environment will get those novelty juices flowing. You might even get a little jolt out of the rut just from changing the font or color. (Side tip: Changing the font and/or the font size is actually a really good idea when doing a second revision. It’ll move the line breaks around and help reveal those problems that were masked by straddling two lines.)

Budget Friendly

While there are plenty of people who already use them, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention LibreOffice/OpenOffice. These are free alternatives to Microsoft Office and the like that are every bit as capable. This matching level of capability actually makes them a poor choice for this particular technique, as switching to them won’t feel like much of a shakeup, and thus might lack that rut-dislodging jolt. For that, I’d recommend going the other direction. Use something less capable, like Notepad, or something differently capable, like Notepad++. These things will drastically change your writing experience. Not necessarily for the better, but more than enough to force you out of your calcified writing habit.

Transportable

Another excellent thing to try, for potentially non-obvious reasons, is Google Docs. While the different appearance/nature of the program might be enough to get the novelty-juices flowing, the real value here is portability. Google Docs will run on just about anything with a web browser, and will seamlessly deliver the same document to each device. This means, not only can you try typing on your phone or tablet for a change of pace, you can type on the bus, at the park, at the library, in the basement, etc. This is a method that offers a change of scenery. (Which is, by the way, a change also made possible with pen and paper. You would never believe the battery life on a spiral notebook.) Moving to an entirely new space can really get the brain moving in new directions.

Industry Standard

If you want to invest some money in your software solution, Scrivener is the industry standard for a reason. It is worlds away from using something like Docs or Word. You may find that the ability to thumbnail scenes and drag and drop them to change their order will force your brain out of its box enough to get the new ideas blooming once more.

Going Nuclear

Everything I’ve listed thus far has been recognizably “writing.” Either typing or handwriting. If you really want to start working different chunks of your brain, consider dictation. For the same reason that talking your way out of a plot knot can work, talking the plot itself onto the page is a huge departure from writing it down.

At its simplest, you could just be talking into a phone or pocket recorder with the intention to transcribe it later. (This, it should be noted, is yet another thing that can be done portably, and thus another thing that can be paired with a change of scenery or multitasking.) A higher tech option that also streamlines the drafting process is the use of voice typing or automatic transcription. Most phones and word processors, including Word and Docs, have this available in some form.

Making a change this drastic may not appeal to you. You may try it for 20 seconds and decide it isn’t for you. But even in this there is value. Back when I first started resorting to longhand to get unstuck, I typically found myself getting frustrated and retreating back to the old ways, but almost invariably I rushed back and did something. It was like a splash of ice water to my brain. Likewise with dictation. “If that’s the alternative, I’d rather do the other thing.”

In Conclusion

As I hope I’ve hammered home by this point, nothing is a surefire solution to curing writer’s block. And even though the old adage “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results” is false–that’s called practice and it’s how you get the results you’re after–it’s true that trying the same solution to a problem is probably not the most efficient way to solve it.

Your brain has gotten you this far. It’s full of all sorts of inventive solutions. The problem is, if you’ve been picking all of the low hanging fruit, eventually the really tasty stuff will be out of reach. So get yourself a ladder. Maybe grab a long stick and start swinging it. And if all else fails, bang your head against the tree a few times. If nothing else, it’ll give you a change of pace, and who knows, maybe you’ll knock down a couple more fruits.

Have you ever been stuck in your writing? What solutions did you try and what worked for you?

About Joseph

Joseph R. Lallo took a crooked path to authordom. He was educated at NJIT, where he earned a master’s degree in Computer Engineering, and paid his bills in the world of Information Technology until Sept of 2014, when he finally became a full-time storyteller. The international bestseller The Book of Deacon defined his early career, and he has since written dozens of novels, short stories, and novellas. These include the critically acclaimed Steampunk series Free-Wrench and the thrilling sci-fi adventure saga, Big Sigma. 

Outside of writing, he has co-hosted multiple self-publishing podcasts over the years, including the Six Figure Authors podcast with Lindsay Buroker and Andrea Pearson and the Science Fiction and Fantasy Marketing podcast.

First and last images in this post were purchased from DepositPhotos.

Second image by Dean Moriarty from Pixabay

Third image is a screen shot by Lynette M. Burrows