conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me a plot for a story about Lisa, Silent, Steven entitled Skeleton Crew.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Skeleton Crew (film): In the 1970s, a mental institution near the border of Russia and Finland was shut down when it was discovered that main administrator Doctor Andersson (who had taken to calling himself "The Auteur") had filmed himself torturing patients to death.\nMost of the doctor\'s films were confiscated, though the rooms in which they were developed and screened were never found.\nAround thirty years later, the asylum is being used as the set of Silent Creek, a film based on the murders committed in it.\nWhile doing recordings, two soundmen hear disembodied voices, and find a hidden room.\nThe chamber contains Andersson\'s undiscovered work, and while the bulk of the cast and crew of Silent Crew are disgusted by the snuff films, they decide not to call the police, since doing so would shut down production.\nSteven, the director of Silent Creek, becomes obsessed with Andersson\'s films (which he is drawn to one night by an apparition) and begins acting deranged, claiming that Silent Creek is "not real enough".\nAfter finding Andersson\'s camera among the snuff films, Steve tricks Bruce (the actor playing Andersson) into killing an actress with a drill (which he said was just a prop) while he films it.\nThe next day, the rest of the cast and crew find a note on Andersson\'s projector telling them to turn it on.\nThe projector shows Steven (dressed like Andersson) disemboweling Mari while ranting about how he is "The Auteur".\nSteven then cuts a restrained Bruce in half with a chainsaw, which is shown through a television in the break room.\nSince the telephones and vehicles all fail to work, the remaining employees decide to make a run for it, after they look for the missing Mike.\nDuring the search, Klasu is taken after drinking drugged liquor.\nIn the previously sealed attic the rest of the group find a Moviola showing Skeleton Crew itself, everything up until that very moment.\nAs everyone theorizes that it is like reality itself has become blurred and they are inside a horror film, the machinery shows Klasu in a pit with Mike.\nSteven throws two spiked clubs into the hole, and has Klasu and Mike fight for their freedom.\nThe former wins, but Steven goes back on his word, and burns Klasu to death with spotlights.\nThe next to die is Erno, who is locked in the attic and bombarded with sound, causing a fatal aneurysm.\nWhile he, Lisa, and Anna are looking for another way out due to the main doors being sealed, Darius is captured, strung up, and impaled by a spear attached to a camera set on a dolly.\nSteven then takes Anna, severs her right arm and left leg, and leaves her for Lisa to find.\nAnna begs for death, and Lisa comes close to mercy killing her, but upon realizing that this scenario is almost an exact recreation of the opening of Silent Creek, fakes passing out.\nWhen an angered Steven approaches her, Lisa shoots him several times with a dead crew member\'s gun.\nSteven survives being shot, and upon realizing he cannot be killed due to the supernatural presence in the asylum, Lisa shoots herself in the mouth to spite Steve and ruin his film.\nHowever, Lisa survives the suicide attempt, and wakes up tied to chair, with Steven about to torture her with a blowtorch.\nIn a post-credits scene, Steven is shown watching Skeleton Crew in a theatre.\nA viewer yells out "Ah, mate, that really sucked.\nWeren\'t even any fucking tits.\n".
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the first five paragraphs for this story.. Start with the sentence 'Skeleton Crew
  Here's some more short stories, if you want them'.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Skeleton Crew
  Here's some more short stories, if you want them. They span a long period of my life. The oldest, "The Reaper's Image," was written when I was eighteen, in the summer before I started college. I thought of the idea, as a matter of fact, when I was out in the back yard of our house in West Durham, Maine, shooting baskets with my brother, and reading it over again made me feel a little sad for those old times. The most recent, "The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet," was finished in November of 1983. That is a span of seventeen years, and does not count as much, I suppose, if put in comparison with such long and rich careers as those enjoyed by writers as diverse as Graham Greene, Somerset Maugham, Mark Twain, and Eudora Welty, but it is a longer time than Stephen Crane had, and about the same length as the span of H. P. Lovecraft's career.
  A friend of mine asked me a year or two ago why I still bother. My novels, he pointed out, were making very good money, while the short stories were actually losers.
  I nodded reluctantly. Maine has an income tax which requires residents in my bracket to pay ten percent of their federal taxes to the state. Ten percent of $855 is $85.50.
  All the same, you don't do it for money, or you're a monkey. You don't think of the bottom line, or you're a monkey. You don't think of it in terms of hourly wage, yearly wage, even lifetime wage, or you're a monkey. In the end you don't even do it for love, although it would be nice to think so. You do it because to not do it is suicide. And while that is tough, there are compensations I could never tell Wyatt about, because he is not that kind of guy.
  Take "Word Processor of the Gods" as a for-instance. Not the best story I ever wrote; not one that's ever going to win any prizes. But it's not too bad, either. Sort of fun. I had just gotten my own word processor a month before (it's a big Wang, and keep your smart comments to yourself, what do you say?) and I was still exploring what it could and couldn't do. In particular I was fascinated with the INSERT and DELETE buttons, which make cross-outs and carets almost obsolete.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me five more paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: I went back to the bandstand and we got ready. We had played gigs like this before—what combo hasn't?—and when the doors opened, we swung into a ragtime version of "The Wedding March" that I had arranged myself. If you think that sounds sort of like a lemonade cocktail I have to agree with you, but most receptions we played for just ate it up, and this one was no different. Everybody clapped and yelled and whistled, then started gassing amongst themselves. But I could tell by the way some of them were tapping their feet while they talked that we were getting through. We were on—I thought it was going to be a good gig. I know everything they say about the Irish, and most of it's true, but, hot damn! they can't not have a good time once they are set up for it.
  All the same, I have to admit I almost blew the whole number when the groom and the blushing bride walked in. Scollay, dressed in a morning coat and striped trousers, shot me a hard look, and don't think I didn't see it. I managed to keep a poker face, and the rest of the band did, too—no one so much as missed a note. Lucky for us. The wedding party, which looked as if it were made up almost entirely of Scollay's goons and their molls, were wise already. They had to be, if they'd been at the church. But I'd only heard faint rumblings, you might say.
  You've heard about Jack Sprat and his wife. Well, this was a hundred times worse. Scollay's sister had the red hair he was losing, and it was long and curly. But not that pretty auburn shade you may be imagining. No, this was County Cork red—bright as a carrot and kinky as a bedspring. And had Scollay said she was fat? Brother, that was like saying you could buy a few things in Macy's. She was a human dinosaur—three hundred and fifty pounds if she was one. It had all gone to her bosom and hips and butt and thighs, like it usually does on fat girls, making what should be sexy grotesque and sort of frightening instead. Some fat girls have pathetically pretty faces, but Scollay's sis didn't even have that. Her eyes were too close together, her mouth was too big, and she had jug-ears. Then there were the freckles. Even thin she would have been ugly enough to stop a clock—hell, a whole show-window of them.
  That alone wouldn't have made anybody laugh, unless they were stupid or just poison-mean. It was when you added the groom, Rico, to the picture that you wanted to laugh until you cried. He could have put on a top hat and still stood in the top half of her shadow. He looked like he might have weighed ninety pounds or so, soaking wet. He was skinny as a rail, his complexion darkly olive. When he grinned around nervously, his teeth looked like a picket fence in a slum neighborhood.
  Everyone shouted their approval and applauded. We finished our number with a flourish, and that brought another round. Scollay's sister Maureen smiled. God, her mouth was big. Rico simpered.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Add another sentence about wearing.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: I went back to the bandstand and we got ready. We had played gigs like this before—what combo hasn't?—and when the doors opened, we swung into a ragtime version of "The Wedding March" that I had arranged myself. If you think that sounds sort of like a lemonade cocktail I have to agree with you, but most receptions we played for just ate it up, and this one was no different. Everybody clapped and yelled and whistled, then started gassing amongst themselves. But I could tell by the way some of them were tapping their feet while they talked that we were getting through. We were on—I thought it was going to be a good gig. I know everything they say about the Irish, and most of it's true, but, hot damn! they can't not have a good time once they are set up for it. 
  All the same, I have to admit I almost blew the whole number when the groom and the blushing bride walked in. Scollay, dressed in a morning coat and striped trousers, shot me a hard look, and don't think I didn't see it. I managed to keep a poker face, and the rest of the band did, too—no one so much as missed a note. Lucky for us. The wedding party, which looked as if it were made up almost entirely of Scollay's goons and their molls, were wise already. They had to be, if they'd been at the church. But I'd only heard faint rumblings, you might say. 
  You've heard about Jack Sprat and his wife. Well, this was a hundred times worse. Scollay's sister had the red hair he was losing, and it was long and curly. But not that pretty auburn shade you may be imagining. No, this was County Cork red—bright as a carrot and kinky as a bedspring. Her natural complexion was curd-white but she was wearing almost too many freckles to tell. And had Scollay said she was fat? Brother, that was like saying you could buy a few things in Macy's. She was a human dinosaur—three hundred and fifty pounds if she was one. It had all gone to her bosom and hips and butt and thighs, like it usually does on fat girls, making what should be sexy grotesque and sort of frightening instead. Some fat girls have pathetically pretty faces, but Scollay's sis didn't even have that. Her eyes were too close together, her mouth was too big, and she had jug-ears. Then there were the freckles. Even thin she would have been ugly enough to stop a clock—hell, a whole show-window of them. 
  That alone wouldn't have made anybody laugh, unless they were stupid or just poison-mean. It was when you added the groom, Rico, to the picture that you wanted to laugh until you cried. He could have put on a top hat and still stood in the top half of her shadow. He looked like he might have weighed ninety pounds or so, soaking wet. He was skinny as a rail, his complexion darkly olive. When he grinned around nervously, his teeth looked like a picket fence in a slum neighborhood. 
  Everyone shouted their approval and applauded. We finished our number with a flourish, and that brought another round. Scollay's sister Maureen smiled. God, her mouth was big. Rico simpered.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the last five paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: In the spring of 1970, while creeping home in my white Ford station wagon from the University Motor Inn at 12:30 in the morning, I ran over a number of traffic cones which were guarding a crosswalk that had been painted that day. The paint had dried, but no one had bothered to take the cones in when it got dark. One of them bounced up and knocked my muffler loose from the rotted remains of my tailpipe. I was immediately suffused with the sort of towering, righteous rage which only drunk undergraduates can feel. I decided to circle the town of Orono, picking up traffic cones. I would leave them all in front of the police station the next morning, with a note saying that I had saved numerous mufflers and exhaust systems from extinction, and ought to get a medal.
  I will never forget the Orono cop turning to me after a long, long look into the back of my station wagon and asking: "Son, are those traffic cones yours?"
  We were living in Bridgton at the time, and I spent an hour or so talking with Ralph Drews, the retired doctor next door. Although he looked doubtful at first (the year before, in pursuit of another story, I had asked him if he thought it was possible for a man to swallow a cat), he finally agreed that a guy could subsist on himself for quite a while—like everything else which is material, he pointed out, the human body is just stored energy. Ah, I asked him, but what about the repeated shock of the amputations? The answer he gave me is, with very few changes, the first paragraph of the story.
  The term Reach was unfamiliar to me, and Tommy explained it. He also told me the lobstermen's joke about how it's a mighty long Reach between Jonesport and London, and I put it in the story. It was originally published in Yankee as "Do the Dead Sing?", a nice enough title, but after some thought I have gone back to the original title here.
  Well, that's it. I don't know about you, but every time I come to the end, it's like waking up. It's a little sad to lose the dream, but everything all around—the real stuff—looks damned good, just the same. Thanks for coming along with me; I enjoyed it. I always do. I hope you arrived safe, and that you'll come again—because as that funny butler says in that odd New York club, there are always more tales.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Swap the first and the last sentence.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: I hope you arrived safe, and that you'll come again—because as that funny butler says in that odd New York club, there are always more tales. The paint had dried, but no one had bothered to take the cones in when it got dark. One of them bounced up and knocked my muffler loose from the rotted remains of my tailpipe. I was immediately suffused with the sort of towering, righteous rage which only drunk undergraduates can feel. I decided to circle the town of Orono, picking up traffic cones. I would leave them all in front of the police station the next morning, with a note saying that I had saved numerous mufflers and exhaust systems from extinction, and ought to get a medal.
  I will never forget the Orono cop turning to me after a long, long look into the back of my station wagon and asking: "Son, are those traffic cones yours?"
  We were living in Bridgton at the time, and I spent an hour or so talking with Ralph Drews, the retired doctor next door. Although he looked doubtful at first (the year before, in pursuit of another story, I had asked him if he thought it was possible for a man to swallow a cat), he finally agreed that a guy could subsist on himself for quite a while—like everything else which is material, he pointed out, the human body is just stored energy. Ah, I asked him, but what about the repeated shock of the amputations? The answer he gave me is, with very few changes, the first paragraph of the story.
  The term Reach was unfamiliar to me, and Tommy explained it. He also told me the lobstermen's joke about how it's a mighty long Reach between Jonesport and London, and I put it in the story. It was originally published in Yankee as "Do the Dead Sing?", a nice enough title, but after some thought I have gone back to the original title here.
  Well, that's it. I don't know about you, but every time I come to the end, it's like waking up. It's a little sad to lose the dream, but everything all around—the real stuff—looks damned good, just the same. Thanks for coming along with me; I enjoyed it. I always do.In the spring of 1970, while creeping home in my white Ford station wagon from the University Motor Inn at 12:30 in the morning, I ran over a number of traffic cones which were guarding a crosswalk that had been painted that day.