“Going literary with AI” is a series documenting my shift from factual writing to more literary nonfiction — with creative help from ChatGPT.

Posts in this series: Going literary with AI: Intro | Through-line, theme, voice | Reflection and expansion | Interiority | From blog post to essay | The observer’s eye (this post) | From observation to story | Where facts meet story

Text: Solveig Hansen in collaboration with ChatGPT, 2025

In this post:

What I see

Becoming a flâneur

Essay: To Collect Moments. Walking. Watching. Writing

It starts with observation.

As a follow-up to the Interiority post in my “Going literary with AI” series, my writing partner and coach ChatGPT suggested The observer’s eye. “Observe before going deeper,” it said.

The thing is, I do observe — moments, fragments, small human scenes — but I struggle to go one step further. Not just to capture a moment, but to interpret it. To reflect.

Maybe I’m just an observational, reporting-style writer.

ChatGPT told me:

“The observer takes in the world without rushing to assign meaning. The literary writer might eventually interpret — but good writing often holds the moment open a little longer than is comfortable. It resists summarizing. This is the art of the pause.”

It doesn’t have to be about big things.

“A single moment — someone folding a napkin slowly, checking a rearview mirror twice — can become the anchor for an entire essay or story.”

But what’s the story, I wonder? When I see someone folding a napkin, I just write that. No interpretation. Just the napkin. Just the folding.

What I see

Here’s what I see — or rather, what I’ve caught lately in my always-present notebook:

• A dad and his baby son at the mall, having a conversation in baby language. Dad checks his phone and says in his softest daddy voice: “Still 2–0 to Manchester United.”
• Suitcase sale in a travel items store. Intensely orange ones in the middle of the store. “They are on sale,” the shop assistant told a man. “Is it because of the color?” the man asked.

They’re just moments — but maybe they could become more.

I know — these aren’t the most emotionally charged examples. They’re light, a little quirky. But that’s what I noticed. And maybe that’s part of the practice too: to begin with what catches the eye, even if it’s something small — a glance, a question, a soft shift in tone. There might be deeper stuff waiting inside.

ChatGPT calls this “the hinge” — that subtle pause or gesture where meaning might be waiting. Maybe it’s the disgusted look in the man’s eye. Or the way the dad’s voice softens for his son — then flattens when checking the score.

Small gestures. Lingering questions.

Here are a few moments ChatGPT offered as examples of where a scene might tilt into meaning:

• A man carrying a baguette like a violin case.
• A woman in a white coat sips espresso and keeps checking her reflection in the black of her phone screen.
• A man adjusts his backpack straps twice before crossing the street — though they’re already fine.

“You don’t have to turn everything into a parable. But you can notice what doesn’t quite fit. That’s the crack where light gets in,” ChatGPT said.

Becoming a flâneur

I like to think of myself as a modern flâneur, an urban wanderer strolling the city streets, collecting moments. ChatGPT put it this way:

“Maybe this is your next step: from observer to reflective flâneur. Not to explain, but to wonder on the page. To notice what sticks and ask why.”

We always end these posts with an essay, based on a previous blog post. This time, I gave ChatGPT this micro piece as inspiration:

TO COLLECT MOMENTS

Streets are made to be walked, observed, and strutted along as if a catwalk. Every once in a while we should adopt a modern flâneur’s attitude and stroll the streets. Walk down this street, look around that corner, say hello to a stranger. Sit down in a coffee bar and watch people passing by. Then go home and write about it.

I received this essay in return:

To Collect Moments. Walking. Watching. Writing.

I walk with a notebook.

Not always physically — though often enough it’s tucked beside my wallet or phone — but always mentally. A kind of catch-net for scenes I don’t yet understand, for gestures that snag something in me. A man standing beside a suitcase sale, asking if the discount is because of the intense color. A dad speaking soft baby talk to his infant son, then checking a football score with the same mouth. These are the things I write down. Just that. Just the scene. Just the moment.

For a long time, I thought that was enough.

And maybe it is.

But then came the question — not “What does it mean?” but rather, “Why did I notice that?”

This shift — from gathering to wondering — is where my writing has started to stretch. I used to see myself simply as an observer. A quiet collector of fragments. But recently, I’ve begun to ask: is that moment still echoing because it carries something beneath the surface? Is it asking to be held a little longer?

ChatGPT — my writing partner in the “Going literary with AI” series — called it “the art of the pause.” Not rushing to explain, not forcing meaning, but letting the moment sit in its own small gravity. A napkin being folded. A hesitation before crossing the street. A man adjusting his backpack straps — twice — though they’re already fine.

These aren’t stories. Not yet. But they could be.

There’s a name for this kind of attentive wandering. The flâneur. A French word that resists direct translation. Think of it as a city-stroller, an observer, a connoisseur of the everyday. Charles Baudelaire described the flâneur as someone who walks the streets just to see, open to the “innocent monsters” of city life. Later, Walter Benjamin would frame the flâneur as both a product of modernity and a quiet rebellion against it — a kind of slow-moving resistance to speed, noise, purpose.

I like that. The flâneur as a witness without agenda.

That’s how I feel with my notebook. Noticing is its own kind of commitment. Especially now, when so much is designed to slide by, frictionless and forgettable. The act of observing — really observing — is a pause. A resistance. A way to say: this small thing mattered, even if I don’t yet know why.

And maybe that’s enough: to collect the moment, sit with it, and allow its edges to sharpen with time. The gesture. The glance. The question that didn’t quite land. Writing doesn’t always need an answer — just a place to wonder aloud.

So I keep walking. Watching. Writing.

Not to explain the world, but to hold it open a little longer.

*****

🔜 Next time, I want to go practical — to take one of these observed moments and shape it into a short story.

👀 Try it this week: walk without a destination. Observe something small, something strange, something that lingers. Then ask yourself — why did this stick?

What strange phenomena we find in a great city, all we need do is stroll about with our eyes open. Life swarms with innocent monsters. — Charles Baudelaire

Photo: Mag Pole/Unsplash