During my commute, I listened to numerous AI commentaries on “Harvest of Blood” (the first chapter in my draft novel Boudica and The Butcher) produced using Google’s NotebookLM.
My tangential joke about Congolese cobalt mines that I added during editing was a point that NotebookLM identified as particularly important in introducing the story universe.
Thus, I did a micro edit to make those two paragraphs do the work of integrating with the story instead of it being my tangential inappropriate joke.
** Revised **
Her effort to face the brutal reality so bravely pleased him. His respect for her grew beyond her evident medical talent. He clarified, “By law, those are the only two punishments available to rebels. Now if a female slave is disobedient or displeasing then her master will sell her out of the country to the cobalt mines in Congo.”
He quickly covered his mouth to prevent exposing a smile confessing his deception about the mines. As rebels before the war had insisted that others sacrifice to manifest unrealistic desires, he felt justified in his deceits.
Gruffly for effect, he opined, “Now you object to having the option of slavery instead of death. Yet during the pre-war decadence of luxury, you did not object to how slave labor in the Congo and China contributed to your own comforting lies.”
** Prior Version **
Her effort to face the brutal reality so bravely pleased him. His respect for her grew beyond her evident medical talent. He clarified, “By law, those are the only two punishments available to rebels. Now if a female slave is disobedient or displeasing then her master will sell her out of the country to the cobalt mines in Congo.”
Before the war during the decadence of luxury, women had been indifferent to how slave labor in the Congo and China contributed to her materialistic indulgences. He found it ironic that the most obdurate rebel women might replace the child slaves in Congo’s mines.
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