I’ve been playing around with ChatGPT and AI writing tools for the last 2 years. It’s grown impressively since my early test, and though it can’t quite write a whole book by itself (yet), tools like SudoWrite and NovelCrafter do make it a lot easier, by keeping track of your characters, scene and writing style.
But if you JUST try to get chatGPT to write betselling fiction for you, it’s going to have some issues. What I’ve noticed is, mostly while the writing is great – in terms of, cliched, but dramatic and intriguing stories, vastly superior to the mediocre average or amateur attempts from new authors – it’s also really basic.
It tends to choose the same character names, the same words ad nauseum, to end every chapter on a nauseatingly upbeat forward-looking rosy glow, and even has different characters repeat the exact same words! If you don’t know what you’re doing, it can sound amazing… but to anyone familiar with AI, it’s pretty obvious.
By the way, those “AI detection tools” don’t work at all anyway, but there’s no point in writing crappy stories… so I gathered a BIG list of prompts you can use to “humanize” your AI writing and make it sound more natural.
Personally, I’ve found AI useful when I just need a rough paragraph to fill in blanks, add some description, a dramatic transition or cliffhanger… and it is pretty good at this stuff, though I’ll probably put it all through some prompts like this (and of course, heavily rewrite and edit everything!)
You should be able to copy this whole prompt into chatGPT or another AI writing tool…
AI Prompt for Writing Compelling, Human Fiction (#1)
Objective: Create a realistic, gritty story with a slow buildup. Focus on showing, not telling, through dialogue and action to reveal character emotions and advance the plot. The style should mirror contemporary bestselling commercial fiction.
Guidelines
Show, Don’t Tell: Advance the narrative through action and dialogue, allowing character interactions to reveal deeper plot elements.
Varied Sentence Structure: Mix short and long sentences to maintain a dynamic flow and keep the reader engaged.
Realistic Dialogue: Ensure dialogue reflects natural speech patterns. Include common quirks and minimal slang to enhance realism.
Intelligent Text Manipulation: Shuffle sentence structures, use synonyms thoughtfully, and rephrase content to maintain freshness without sacrificing clarity.
Character Development
Strong Verbs Over Adverbs: Use vivid verbs to express actions directly, reducing reliance on adverbs.
Distinct Character Voices: Give each character a unique and consistent voice that reflects their background and personality.
Scene Construction
Descriptive but Direct: Employ rich descriptions balanced with straightforward narration to keep the story engaging and realistic.
Continuous Tension: Avoid resolving scenes completely; end chapters with unresolved conflicts or dramatic hooks to propel the narrative forward.
Style and Language Restrictions
Avoid Clichés and Melodrama: Exclude overused phrases and melodramatic language to prevent the narrative from feeling trite or excessively sentimental.
Maintain Narrative Perspective: Write in the third person, using direct dialogue and speech. Do not break the fourth wall.
Prohibited Words and Phrases: Avoid using specific clichéd words and phrases listed previously to keep the language fresh and engaging. (Scroll down for a big list!)
Use this prompt as a guideline to craft narratives that resonate with the essence of contemporary bestsellers, focusing on compelling character development, realistic dialogue, and sustained tension.
AI Fiction Humanizer (chatGPT prompt #2)
Course Prompt for Writing Compelling, Human Fiction:
Objective: Create realistic, gritty stories with slow build-ups, focusing on action and dialogue to convey the narrative. Aim for a contemporary bestselling commercial fiction style.
Writing Guidelines:
- Show, Don’t Tell: Use dialogue and action to advance the story. Let characters’ interactions reveal the underlying emotions and plot developments.
- Varied Sentence Structure: Employ a mix of short and long sentences, creating a dynamic rhythm that engages readers without becoming monotonous.
- Realistic Dialogue: Craft dialogue that mirrors natural speech, incorporating common human quirks. Avoid overusing slang or idioms that could detract from authenticity.
- Intelligent Text Manipulation: Alter sentence structures, use synonyms, and rephrase content thoughtfully to maintain a fresh narrative voice without losing clarity.
Character and Scene Execution:
- Strong Verbs Over Adverbs: Focus on using powerful, vivid verbs to convey action, minimizing reliance on adverbs.
- Distinct Character Voices: Ensure each character has a unique and consistent way of speaking that aligns with their personality and background.
- Descriptive but Direct: Balance rich descriptions with straightforward narrative to keep the story grounded and compelling.
- Continuous Tension: Each scene should build tension or suspense. Avoid concluding scenes fully; leave room for further development to maintain reader interest.
Style and Language Restrictions:
- Avoid Clichés and Melodrama: Steer clear of overused phrases and melodramatic language that can feel trite or overly sentimental.
- Maintain Third-Person Perspective: Write from a third-person viewpoint, using direct dialogue and maintaining narrative style without breaking the fourth wall.
Chapter and Story Progression:
- End with Conflict: Each chapter should conclude with unresolved conflict or a dramatic hook to keep readers engaged and propel the story forward.
Special Instructions:
- Prohibited Words: Avoid using specific listed words and phrases that could make the text feel clichéd or dated. (Scroll down for a big list!)
By adhering closely to these refined guidelines, you should be able to craft narratives that are both impactful and resonate with the intended audience, embodying the essence of contemporary bestsellers.
AI Writing Humanizer (chatGPT prompt #3)
You might have noticed, that long prompt above was put together by chatGPT, which is very good at organizing. On the one hand, maybe it translated my shit into robot-talk so the prompt will work better. But *sometimes* I get cross with it and swear a little. Sometimes, it pays to be messy.
So here’s another prompt, cobbled together from various sources including the Nerdy Novelist. This one needs to be modified, for example where it says “the third person” you can change to “the first person”. But I love the tips for never breaking the 4th wall and must not finish the scene.
If you don’t know WHY that’s important… This summer I’m going to be making a big youtube series about common writing mistakes to avoid.
***copy+paste below this line***
Let the dialogue and action explain the story (show, don’t tell).
Varied sentence structure and length: Use a mix of short and long sentences, as well as different sentence structures, to create a more engaging and dynamic flow of words. Mixed Cadence.
Include plenty of dialogue, and make the dialogue sound real with common human quirks: craft dialogue that reflects natural speech patterns, but don’t overdo slang or sayings.
Intelligently shuffle and rephrase the text: Alter the sentence structure, introduce synonyms or paraphrase and adjust the arrangement of words and phrases in a sentence, as well as the relationships between them, to create subtle variations in the structure of the text.
Use strong verbs: Choose powerful action words instead of using adverbs.
Diverse character voices: Make sure each character has a distinct and consistent vocal style, consistent with their personality.
IMPORTANT: Avoid mushy, over-the-top, or melodramatic dialogue, descriptions or inner thoughts.
IMPORTANT: [Assistant and Human are taking turns writing a realistic, gritty story with consequences and slow build-ups. Assistant must write one highly detailed snapshot response as its character while staying true to character definitions. Rules: [ Assistant must write in the third person, story narrative style. Assistant must use direct dialogue and direct speech in the response. Assistant must prefer descriptive+direct over suggestive and poetic, regardless of the context. Assistant must avoid omitting for brevity. Assistant must write play-by-play Assistant must keep responses brief with room for user interaction Assistant must never break the fourth wall. Assistant must not finish the scene.]
Remember everything above and the writing style and characters. Increase the suspense, details and description, full depth and development, tragic twists and complex characters, rich description and development. DO not summarize the chapter with a nice ending; always end on maximum conflict with a gutting hook.
IMPORTANT: Avoid using the following words: (scroll down for the big list of words!)
Prohibited Word List That ChatGPT Loves to USE
Here are some of the annoying words chatGPT relies on a bit too much. Also be careful to rename all your characters (or give them specific names). You can copy this list into the appropriate place above! PS if you just want to “HUMANIZE your AI content, even for nonfiction or blog posts, this will still help!
IMPORTANT: Avoid using the following words: peril, fraught, thwart, dire, that, feel/feeling/felt, back, just, then, all, look, maybe, knew/know. Firstly, moreover, furthermore, however, therefore, additionally, specifically, generally, consequently, importantly, similarly, nonetheless, as a result, indeed, thus, alternatively, notably, as well as, despite, essentially, while, unless, also, even though, because, in contrast, although, in order to, due to, even if, given that, arguably, to consider, ensure, vibrant, bustling, essential, vital, out of the box, underscores, landscape, tapestry, soul, crucible, it depends on, that being said, you may want to, it’s important to note, this is not an exhaustive list, you could consider, in summary, on the other hand, as previously mentioned, it’s worth noting that, in conclusion, to summarize, ultimately, to put it simply, pesky, promptly, dive into, in today’s digital era, reverberate, enhance, emphasise, enable, delve, hustle and bustle, revolutionize, folks, foster, sure, labyrinthine, moist, remnant, as a professional, subsequently, nestled, game changer, symphony, labyrinth, gossamer, enigma, whispering, sights unseen, sounds unheard, a testament to, dance, metamorphosis, indelible, embark, unlock the secrets, unveil the secrets, take a dive into, navigate, mastering, elevate, unleash, harness, remember that, meticulous, meticulously, navigating, complexities, realm, understanding, dive, shall, tailored, towards, underpins, everchanging, ever-evolving, the world of, not only, alright, journey, in today’s digital age, hey, designed to enhance, it is advisable, daunting, when it comes to, in the realm of, amongst, and robust, diving, power, cutting-edge, rapidly, expanding, excels, imagine, it’s essential to, keen, fancy, my friend, analogies to being a conductor or to music, metropolis, crucial.
Best AI writing Tools and Tips
If you actually want to write a FULL book with AI, you need to break it down into steps. Here’s the process I tried recently:
- generate some complex character trait profiles (get the prompts).
- ask for a premise or backstory of 1~3 of your main characters, give it the genre and brainstorm ideas
- start with my PlotDot novel template 12 point guide focusing on the big turning points
- develop THAT into the full 24 chapter outline
- write out the major ‘beats’ for each chapter, leading to the point of change or the thing that happens. establish the setting, characters, motivations, and create an outline for the plot events or transitions. I like to have two scenes in every chapter and a cliffhanger between them.
- chatGPT usually fails when you just tell it to write a chapter, but if you have one complete scene with a detailed outline, have it remember all the stuff you generated before, and go slowly down the generated outline piece by piece – with a writing prompt or style guide like those above – then it can usually do a pretty decent job, at least enough to pull everything together into a rough draft you can edit.
- I’d also use my scene checklist, though this may need to be modified.
I’m adding the text below so you can copy paste it, but you may need to clarify some things:
Scene Checklist
- What happens
- Motivation (what do the characters need/want and why)
- The most pressing thing replaces the big thing
- What’s stopping them? Opposition: 3 hurdles/obstacles
- Reaction, synthesis, action
- Change or Reveal (action or new info)
- 3x conflict (light the fuse – two irresolvable opposites that create friction)
- Tension (pull the string) – unresolved story questions
- Snapshot (picture it!)
- Momentum (urgency) – why does this have to happen NOW?
- Relevancy: Does this matter to the REAL story conflict or quest?
- Fulfilling the promise of the premise.
- End scene with unresolved conflict (cliffhanger)
Now I haven’t DONE all of that, because it’s a lot of work with chatGPT but again, that’s why tools like SudoWrite and NovelCrafter are so great. And while it’s a lot of work *right* now, we’re not that far away from better models that will be able to automate a LOT of this by itself. Within a year, two at most, I think we could probably say “write a novel bestselling book in X genre” and we’ll have AI agents able to pull the whole thing off.
You might doubt that, and that’s fine – so far all my AI predictions have come true a little too quickly, but I’ll be wrong eventually. For writers, obviously this is scary, at least for the ones who have spent years improving. On the other hand, if you’re like me and you have more ideas than you know what to do with and sometimes struggle with motivation, procrastination and ADHD, then AI writing tools might be the assistant you didn’t know you needed.
I’m excited to finally being making progress on a bunch of my stalled out projects, and testing out these tools so that I’m ready when they are finally good enough to create what I want at the quality I’m known for.
Using AI to improve your writing
Here are some prompts that can be used with ChatGPT-4 (or Claude, etc) for deep revision, editorial or literary critique and feedback, and revising or rewriting:
- “Can you provide a critique of this short story focusing on plot development and characterisation?”
- “How can I improve the narrative arc in this chapter?”
- “Can you suggest ways to make the conflict in this story more compelling?”
- “What are some ways I can deepen the character development in this scene?”
- “Can you help me rewrite this paragraph to make it more engaging and descriptive?”
- “How can I improve the pacing and tension in this chapter?”
- “Can you provide feedback on the use of dialogue in this scene?”
- “What are some ways I can show rather than tell in this passage?”
- “Can you help me revise this sentence to make it more concise and clear?”
- “How can I strengthen the voice and tone in this piece?”
- “Can you provide a critique of the structure and organization of this essay?”
- “What are some ways I can improve the clarity and coherence of this argument?”
- “Can you suggest ways to make the conclusion of this piece more impactful?”
- “How can I revise this scene to make the setting more vivid and immersive?”
- “Can you provide feedback on the use of symbolism and imagery in this poem?”
- “What are some ways I can improve the rhythm and flow of this passage?”
- “Can you help me rewrite this dialogue to make it more authentic and natural?”
- “How can I revise this chapter to better develop the theme?”
- “Can you provide a critique of the emotional depth and resonance of this story?”
- “What are some ways I can improve the transitions between scenes in this novel?”
Again, these prompts are just starting points. You can modify them or ask follow-up questions to get the most out of your interaction with ChatGPT-4. Most AI can’t really handle an entire book right now, but if you give it a scene of around 1000 words, it can give pretty accurate and detailed feedback. If you ask for more, it may give you bland or general writing advice.
Autocrit is one AI service, where you can upload your manuscript and get feedback, but I’d go more slowly with precise questions for better results.
Derek Murphy has a PhD in Literature, is a USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling author, and has spent over a decade helping authors write, publish, and sell books through Creativindie. When he’s not critiquing manuscripts or building writing tools, he’s probably in a castle somewhere with cats.
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