My story, in 100 words or less

Just for fun, I ran Microsoft Word's "autosummarize" tool over the 50,000 words of fiction that I just finished writing, to see how a computer-automated reader would sum up the story in 100 words or less.

I think you'll agree that the Cliff's notes edition of this story is destined to be hugely popular. Here are the key "sentences" that Word picked out for me:

*
Meet Professor Toulos

Professor Toulos stirred his soup thoughtfully.

"I'm Professor Stephen Toulos."

"Hi Stefan."

"Stefan, hey man."

"OK, thanks Stefan."

"How is Stefan doing?"

"Hey, it's Stefan."

"No, Stefan."

Tiffany asked.

"Stefan!"

"Stefan!"

Tiffany gasped.

How did Professor Toulos know about her and Stefan being involved?

"Tiffany?"

"Professor Toulos?"

"It's me, Stefan."

"Stefan! What happened?"

"No, Stefan."

"Professor Toulos?" Stefan asked in disbelief.

"Tiffany, hi."

Professor Toulos stopped her.

"OK, Tiffany."

Stefan shouted in the professor's ear.

Stefan asked him.

Stefan paused and glared at the professor.

Toulos asked.

Professor Toulos expected that very answer.

Tiffany knew.
*

Summarized this way, it sounds much more melodramatic than I meant it to be -- feels almost like a soap opera. Of course, you still have very little concept of what actually happens in the story, which I think is why Microsoft all but dumped the autosummarize feature from its latest versions of Word.

Useless tools like this give me some reassurance that the evil computers aren't quite ready to take over the world yet.