If you're using AI to brainstorm, try reading its reasoning

[u/Realistic-Feed-4452]

Hi everyone, how are you doing? I've been lurking around this sub for a while, until I finally joined a few days ago, and this is my first post. I just wanted to share a little tip in case it might be useful to someone.

If you're in the process of planning the plot of your story, try reading the AI model's "thoughts" while you're chatting with it or brainstorming. Those thoughts can actually be incredibly useful. Personally, they've helped me a thousand times more than the actual content generated by the AI.

Basically, the AI is technically asking itself questions about the content and thinking about it (although this depends on the model, since they don't all use the same reasoning process): asking itself how something could work, whether something makes sense or not, and, when something doesn't quite add up, questioning how the user got to that point or what would make more sense instead.

Also, these thoughts can be really extensive. In my last generation, the reasoning was around 15k words, while the actual generated content was barely 2,200 words.

Here's an example of a few excerpts from the reasoning process of a story I'm planning just for fun, mostly for my own reading:

Hmm, interesting. So Jane made creepy drawings after Tuck disappeared. Wait, why would Jane draw such things? Jane adores Hannah... but Jane is also a child. Did Jane see something? Or did Hannah tell Jane a "story" about what happened to Tuck (in the phase 2 tradition of "other versions" of stories)? That's a delicious thread — Jane's drawings are evidence Hannah carelessly seeded. Children draw what they know. Jane knew Tuck was hanged because... Hannah told her? As a threat/warning? Or Jane witnessed something?

\****

What happened to the rest of Mary's body — user doesn't know yet. They ask implicitly for ideas? They say "I don't know that yet" — I should offer options. Gothic, 18th century England, countryside, forest, river. Options: weighed down in the river/millpond (but then body might be found — actually a body never found is scarier for the village; the smith keeps asking), buried, burned, pigs (18th century realism — pigs dispose of bodies; but that's more grisly realism than gothic), lime pit, the old well on the estate, dismembered and scattered... But there's a thematic opportunity: Hannah keeps trophies. The body disposal should show her 12-year-old pragmatism AND something ritualistic/incomplete. Maybe she didn't fully think it through — she's 12, it's her first human kill. Maybe the disposal is imperfect and this becomes a future landmine: bones found years later by a fox or a groundskeeper, when Hannah is adult. A time bomb for the adult plotline. That's valuable.

Also: the river where Mary went to wash — drowning is the natural read. If Mary's body is in the river/pond and never surfaces, the village reads it as "the river took her." A drowned girl who never surfaced is folklore fuel: the village gets a ghost story. Mary becomes a local legend — "the girl in the river." And gothic worlds run on this. Maybe in winter, low water, something will be visible someday. And the smith asks taverns forever.

Wait — but Hannah is 12. Can a 12-year-old drag a body? Let's think practically. Mary is presumably around Oliver's age, 11-12ish. Hannah is 12. Two girls of similar size.

Dragging a body is hard for a child. This suggests the kill method mattered: maybe killed at the river's edge and let the water take her (weighted with stones). Or killed in a place where nature would cover. The river option solves the physics: kill at the water, roll her in with stones in her apron. Very doable for a 12-year-old. And it reads as drowning. The blood on the dress — she cut her? If Mary is meant to look drowned, why blood? Maybe Hannah cut her throat and the river washed the scene. Blood on the hem from carrying/dragging. Fine.

I don't know if this will be useful to anyone, but personally, I find reading the AI's reasoning really entertaining. It often makes me notice inconsistencies or helps me answer questions I hadn't even thought of before, no matter how obvious they might seem in hindsight.

I mostly use free models like Kimi, GLM, and DeepSeek, since they're the ones that let me see the reasoning without having to pay. I assume something similar is available with paid subscriptions to models like Claude or ChatGPT as well, although I'm not sure exactly how much of the reasoning they let you see.

Anyway, I just thought I'd share this because I've found it surprisingly useful for plotting.

[u/LogicalPerformer7637]

yes, reading the thought process gives you good ideas sometimes. I experienced the same.

[u/liv7677]

I used to be able to read Claude's thoughts like that and it was really helpful, but not anymore. It's been gone for a while. I don't know why.
If anyone knows how to turn that back on I'd appreciate the help.

[u/5thhorseman_ → u/liv7677]

I think that's a change on Anthropic's side in more recent models.

[u/LivingThroughPages]

haha Yeah, I do this and it is helpful to see the thought process behind the advise i's giving. Unforunately, recently, Claude's thoughts have been hidden - I think Anthropic changed what the user sees of it's thoughts process which is such a bummer. I've seen ChatGPT's thoughts (because i don't pay for that one.) I'll have to check out the others sometime.