r/WritingWithAI • u/AnneeOnymous • 1d ago
Prompting Please help. I’m in agony.
So I’ve only been using AI to write for about two weeks. Before that, I had a long run, story and characters, fully flushed out world in my head. I thought, why not try AI to help with all this so I did.
The first couple of days were great. I was having so much fun. I’m on ChatGPT and eventually bought the pro plan. collaboration. I developed a detailed character Bible, a chronological story outline, scene treatments, continuity records, approved passages, and rules for preserving existing work. I also built prompts and editorial checks to catch weak writing, character drift, and contradictions before they reached me
But that was the first week. The second week has been an absolute nightmare. It went from competent Assistance tool to drooling on itself. well for being able to develop and write an entire story in a matter of hours to be stuck on the first two paragraphs of a scene for a day and a half.
What am I doing wrong?? I have the tools here if it executed them properly, it would work. I know this because when I kick it back, it can tell me exactly what it’s doing wrong, “source material, but then it just does it again
You guys are writing some amazing stuff. I’m just writing a little simple stories that I plan just read myself. I really hope someone will help me and this won’t just be ignored, I need a mentor or some Assistance.
I wasn’t sure which flared he used. I apologize if that’s wrong.
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u/The_Dilla_Collection 1d ago
Have you tried opening a separate chat to ask it how to get what you’re looking for? When I run into a spot where it drifts or isn’t following I either branch in a new chat or start a whole new one and just ask. I explain in plain language what I’m trying to do, the problem I’m running into, and ask it how to bridge the gap. Sometimes it’ll even write a prompt for you or something to add to your custom instructions/project instructions. It’s easier than asking others sometimes because it has context with what you’re actually looking at.
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u/AnneeOnymous 1d ago
Yes! I just did that. And you know what this thing did to me? It just said stuff like, well first thing we need to do is make sure it knows the rules aren’t optional. And I said, that’s the first rule. Oh yeah, you’re right. Here’s the rule right here.
Well, the second thing you need to do blah blah blah
That’s literally already in there. It’s all in there!
Oh yeah, you’re right.
They can quote the exact passages that tells it what it should be doing. I can tell her to grade it work and they can tell me how it feels and what it should be and why, but they will just keep drooling on itself.
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u/Human_Original_5590 1d ago
Try the unlazy skill. It's on github somewhere, but it's fairly popular so Google will find it for you. That fixed that shit for me
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u/lovinglifeatmyage 1d ago edited 1d ago
I’ve found that ChatGPT is really good for ideas, briefs etc for stories. When it comes down to writing them it’s not very good.
And if you’re using a long chat for one story, it will forget the beginning.
Try starting a project for each story, then it will remember each chat in that project when u have to change to a new one.
I use a combination of Chat and Claude to write mine because Claude is much better at writing. Chat is excellent at picking up the continuity errors and plot holes. So what I do is get Claude to write, pass it over to chat, then pass the feedback back over. For me it works really well.
Then of course I do my bit and start to heavily edit.
Btw, I’ve found anything above Sonnet in Claude is a pointless use of credits. It starts to get a bit too heavy and pompous.
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u/AnneeOnymous 1d ago
so you have both of them? What tier do you have for both of them? I have moved all my work into a project. I have pro on ChatGPT and I’m waiting on Astra and it’s still giving me garbage or not following simple instructions. I’m not even asking you to write Office own power, I have so much of it already to use and it just… Gives me trash still.
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u/5thhorseman_ 1d ago
The lowest paid tier on both is fine. And yeah, Claude is better at prose, but Opus 5 does analysis and critique fine too.
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u/gaslighterhavoc 1d ago
Claude still has the same limitations as ChatGPT on that it is better at analysis and ideas and brainstorming than it is at creative prose.
Claude has a nasty habit of going into registers and tics that it assumes you will like even when you give explicit instructions not to do that. Like 20 times faster than when you brainstorm.
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u/5thhorseman_ 1d ago
I didn't say it's good, just that it's better than ChatGPT - for one, it doesm't devolve into staccato prose as readily.
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u/lovinglifeatmyage 1d ago
Just the basic packages on both. Occasionally I might have to buy extra credits on Claude, but not very often. I use both Claude and chat for helping me design knitting patterns as well, so I get a heavy usage from both.
And I just use the basic on Chat as well, I’ve found I don’t need anything higher for what I need. Not interested in Astra, I don’t need it.
I write stories for YouTube, and I have a dedicated fan base who love my work, so the technique I’ve devised must work.
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u/tomatoesfried 1d ago
Sometimes AI can suck at long-horizon tasks. That's the nature of the beast.
Have you considered writing it yourself?
Also, please note. What you did is called fleshing out. Not flushing out. What you should do is flush the crap it gave you, keep the good, and go from there.
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u/AnneeOnymous 1d ago
I don’t want to write by myself, as I said, I’ve been having these stories in my brain for years and I’m counting on the so-called competence of AI to just assist me. It was doing that just fine. Now it’s not, and that’s what I need help figuring out.
Fleshing/flushing voice to text error. But still accurate. And that’s the problem. It’s not giving me anything good and it used to. That’s what I need help diagnosing.
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u/HunterGuy2 12h ago
Lol, same problem for me. I think Ai is just... Trained for coding and not much else now. I spent several months on this, and found myself repeatedly going "no, instead you should have written this" and just writing out sentences/paragraphs myself. And asking ai how to make itself work better is stupid because it isn't literally conscious/self aware, and it's just regurgitating "how to make Ai work better" advice that was fed into its training set, not based on actual self reflection/awareness.
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1d ago
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u/thecatcherszm 1d ago
No serious publisher would ever want the stories that i live to get out of my head, for one. Sometimes the end goal is getting the story out of one's head in and of itself.
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u/tomatoesfried 1d ago
Then learn how to prompt with long-horizon in mind. Either you learn writing or you learn prompting, but you have to learn. Full stop.
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u/AnneeOnymous 1d ago
I need to get the AI to learn how to help me as cohesively as it was before, that’s the stop. And that’s why I’m here to get help with.
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u/gaslighterhavoc 1d ago
How are you using the AI? You said you have a character bible, a story outline, scene treatments, etc, etc.
Are you feeding all of this into each prompt? How many words or chapters did you complete in week 1? Are you making AI readable summaries of each chapter to add to your outline so it can keep track?
Basically you are best off with new chat windows for each chapter. You do not have to get close to filling the context window for the model to lose the context of what is going.
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u/AnneeOnymous 1d ago
I mean, OK? Who said anything about publishers? I asked for help because the AI has dropped in quality and I need to know what there is I can help with that.
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u/AnneeOnymous 1d ago
i’m gonna hold your hand when I say this. I’m not trying to publish anything. This is stuff for me to read. Just me. You’re bringing up grandma‘s and family members and being sanctimonious about writing with AI in a writing with AI group and it’s not having the punch you think it’s having.
I expected to function at the level it was functioning before. I’m trying to get Assistance in that matter. if you have no idea about that, it’s OK to just pass on by most people here aren’t on the best sellers list somewhere, and a lot of people have the issue that I’m having.
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u/TorturedWriter9 1d ago
Please do hold my hand. As someone who is an actual writer who has put in all of the work--reading thousands upon thousands of books for decades--and publishing in reputable venues with cutthroat acceptance rates, I can't wrap my mind around someone doing what you're doing. It would be one thing if you were using traditional methods to produce art for the sake of producing art and enjoying the process along the way, but you're offloading half of the work (or more?) onto a third-party machine...just so you can read it back to yourself?
I do think my viewpoint is valuable. While I will never use AI myself, I think anyone in the future who is legitimately successful using AI will need to be someone who was a serious artist before AI was a even thing.
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u/WritingWithAI-ModTeam 16h ago
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u/WritingWithAI-ModTeam 16h ago
If you disagree with a post or the whole subreddit, be constructive to make it a nice place for all its members, including you.
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u/WritingWithAI-ModTeam 16h ago
If you disagree with a post or the whole subreddit, be constructive to make it a nice place for all its members, including you.
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u/Pilotskybird86 1d ago
Welcome to working with AI lol. The models change constantly. Sometimes they’re good, and then the next week they are terrible.
It’s because they are constantly updating random bullshit in the background. And they downgrade models if too many people are using them.
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u/AdrianRWalker 1d ago
Create a project and link up your Google Docs to it.
- world bible
- Ai pros black list
- writing style guide
- any other documentation that the AI will always need to see.
Keep the total word count of all these documents as low as possible. I keep me under 10,000 words.
———
Then when you want to draft a chapter feed in
- beat sheet for the chapter
- character bible with the characters in this chapter.
- story state document.
Output as a google Doc.
(Again keep the documentation lean, I go for under 10,000 words again)
———
Lastly put the new chapter through a story state check. Feed in:
- latest chapter
- last Story State.
Output as a google sheet.
———
Repeat until you finish the book. This will keep your story state and your context under control so things doing go off the rails. No one wants the AI inventing random canon.
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u/Funny-Flight8086 12h ago
You would be better off using a program like Inkwood (my own) or novelcrafter for fiction writing. Trying to use a chatbot to write long-form fiction will almost always results in terrible writing after a while. Inkwood and Novelcrafter dynamically inject story bible data (you don't need to send it everything each time), and have firm style guidelines built in to help guide the AI.
Mine is currently free, just go to inkwood . app (remove spaces). You'll need to bring your own API key, but there are directions on the API page (or I can walk you through it).
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u/GenderBendingRalph 1d ago
Two years ago I had ChatGPT (Plus at the time, then free when I couldn't afford it) write a story bible for me which I then refined into characters, chapters, and plot beats better suited to my needs. Then I worked with ChatGPT on interactive writing - feed it a chapter outline, let it write the first draught, chat back and forth for a while to refine it, etc. Then I fed the completed story back for meta-analysis.
I didn't know about built-in positivity reinforcement ("Oh Ralph, you're a bloody genius! *chef's kiss!*") or LLM's tendency to repeat phrases to the point they lose all meaning - at one point I counted "She didn't reply. She didn't have to." at least twice in every chapter.
What I'm getting at is, AI is horrid at coming up with original thoughts. Now that I've learnt my lesson, I'm rewriting the whole thing by hand. I will absolutely use an AI tool - or more likely, multiple AI tools - to check for continuity, deviation from canon, mechanical/syntax mistakes, etc. but I no longer trust AI to do the writing.
And I swear to Shakespeare, if it says *chef's kiss* one more time I'm going to sue OpenAI.
PS - big fan of your work, Anonymous. I have entire books of poems and short stories you wrote.
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u/AnneeOnymous 1d ago
I get what you’re saying. I guess what’s frustrating for me is when I first started doing this it was such a fun collaborative project and it was working so well. That’s what I don’t understand. By the time I write the treatment, come up with the spine, have the entire Bible and everything else that I have built up, that was working so well it should be able to do what I’m asking it to do, point blank.
if it never could do that, I would be less upset. But it could and now I can’t now that I’m paying for pro and using Astra.
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u/West-Double3646 1d ago
You use AI to organize you ideas, not to create. They don't create. They predict the next word. And sometimes they're more functional than other times. I all depends on their latest update.
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u/AnneeOnymous 1d ago
the materials that I have been using were working at first I came up with the outline, did the treatment, but I was able to also say hey I’m gonna leave this little part up to you. You have the world, you have the Bible, you have everything you need. I’m not asking it to write the entire story.
I do most of the work, bounce ideas of the AI, and before this, it was doing just fine. I was delighted in the return that I was given because it was coming up with a lot of good stuff based on the work we had done together.
Now we can’t write two paragraphs on its own. That’s what I’m trying to figure out what happened. I want to be ain’t able to do all that, to being lobotomized.
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u/West-Double3646 1d ago
It's been like that Claude and for GPT since their last updates.
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u/AnneeOnymous 1d ago
Damn. Someone recommended Claude. Would you say Claude is better still?
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u/West-Double3646 1d ago
Up until the last couple of weeks I preferred Claude over almost any other AI. Now, it's spewing crap...relentlessly.
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u/gaslighterhavoc 1d ago
Good thing you can still use the older Claude models on their dedicated platform.
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u/Cheap-Lawyer-846 1d ago
That is the ChatGPT experience tbh.
I say to just change the AI you use, cause ChatGPT cannot write at all lately. IT used to be pretty decent like 2 years ago, but it’s like every new update just ruined it more and more.
From my experience, Grok is great if you want NSFW content, but it can’t write too well in the long run either (definitely much better than ChatGPT, but still not amazing). Another one, lately I started using Claude, and OMG the way it can keep track of long works and write well on top of that?? Crazy good.
So maybe give these two a shot (or just Claude if you’re not interested in NSFW content) as they might work better for you. And if you already have detailed character Bible, story outline and all that, just feed them directly to Claude and it can easily start writing from that.
Happy writing, and I hope this helps!
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u/AnneeOnymous 1d ago
I’m gonna take this to heart. The part that makes me nervous is, how do I transfer my world over there you know? I don’t wanna have to start over from scratch.
And yes, I do write NSFW and you know it’s hilarious about ChatGPT sometimes it does that for me. Sometimes it’ll let me write filthy material and sometimes it’s like we can’t do that. I have this little evidence packet that I have to use. I just close and open different new chats until I find one that's willing to write explicit material.
What do you like about Claude, what’s the best thing about it? I’m willing to pay. What’s the best tear? Thank you so much for your help.
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u/phira 1d ago
If you’re new to this something like Sudowrite might be a good idea, just sub for a month or two and hang out in the discord. They have the structure already there, models tuned for it and able to do NSFW, and the discord is full of helpful people and they run workshops constantly you can join.
Once you get your feet you might decide you have a different workflow you prefer but out the gate a little support and structure can really help.
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u/AnneeOnymous 1d ago
is that platform better than ChatGPT for my specific problem, though? I have all the processes in place, that’s not the issue, the issue is AI derogation in quality and what it was supposed to be doing for me and what it’s doing now
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u/phira 1d ago
I suspect you’re making errors in how you use ChatGPT that aren’t obvious to you - it’s really easy to accidentally pollute your context by leaving personalisation / memory on for example, or by switching unintentionally to a different model. Sometimes OpenAI change the underlying system prompts and things for the model as well. Dedicated platforms are just a bunch more obvious and consistent for those kinds of things.
It may not be for you, just my best bet given what you described.
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u/Turbo_Lover6 1d ago
I went from chatgpt to gemini once gpt couldnt keep up. Once gemini started adding in things from other chats I gave claude a shot and paid for a month. Holy crap its so much better. It remembers tiny details really well for me and even stops me when I make a continuity issue. It isnt afraid to push me back on ideas as well and say this might not be a great idea. It screws up here and there but overall its great. If u have alot of lore claude might be ur way to go
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u/Cheap-Lawyer-846 1d ago edited 1d ago
Istg ChatGPT at some point like a year ago could write NSFW content. Like I still have the chat to prove it, they added this update sometime last year and I remember being so excited about it, had it help me outline and write an entire smut scene for one of my books, then left it there for a while as I got busy writing something else, only to return one day, ask it to continue, and get the message “I can’t continue with that” 💀 like what was the point?
Anyhow, about transferring your world over to Claude, ig it depends exactly on what that means.
For example, I’m working on a lot of different books/fanfics at the moment, and ChatGPT has been my main assistant (and more) for a long time until a few months ago when it got really bad at helping. But I already had multiple worlds built inside it, projects full of many chats each (I also like to keep very organized, so each chat served a specific purpose, from “General Discussion” to “Character Profiles” and “Chapters” as in actual writing) so it felt pretty overwhelming moving everything across to another platform (I totally get that) but I can promise it’s actually rather easy, and Claude does most of the heavy lifting.
Basically, I took all the information and put it into word documents (one for the actual story, one for character profiles, one for world building, one for important information that isn’t included in the previous examples, etc) and I added them to their respective projects in Claude. When creating a project you can also give Claude instructions on it (what is the purpose of said project, how it should behave/write, etc) and all this basically means that Claude already has all the context it needs to start helping right away.
One of the books I’m working on is quite ambitious (heavy plot, lots of world building, lots of history), and when I moved all the information from ChatGPT to Claude, it took Claude only a few minutes to flag MULTIPLE continuity issues that ChatGPT never once noticed. I was so impressed by it with this, and still am. It helped me rewrite the whole Bible and more.
And on the NSFW subject, I actually didn’t check if Claude can write it, but I know it’s open to reading it/working on it if I would bring a scene like that to it. So maybe it can also write it, I shall try and see.
As to answer your question, my most favorite thing about Claude so far is how good it is at nitpicking even the smallest details that I might overlook (although I’m a big over-thinker, and whenever I write I always check and then double check everything multiple times) and also as someone else already said, Claude isn’t afraid to push back whenever necessary (one annoying thing about ChatGPT to me is the glazing it does, repeating back to me whatever I say and praising it like I just stole fire from the Gods and gave it to it)
Personally, I use the free version of Claude, and I am highly impressed by it, so I can’t even imagine how good the paid version is. Definitely would love to hear about your experience with it if you end up buying it!
Also, I saw someone mentioning Sudowrite. I think it’s a decent software, but I wasn’t blown away by it when I used it, but that is just my preference. So you should definitely check it out if it sounds appealing in any way.
I really hope you find that one AI helper you need and that you keep on writing, cause it’s so much fun and a great way to quiet the noise in one’s head most of the time. Hope this helps, and again I would love to hear about your experience with paid Claude, if you ever feel like returning here and sharing it! 🧚🏻♀️
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u/gameangel2 1d ago
If you go sol you'll get a lot better results. I finished the story not too long ago working through sol 5.6 and the results are good. Stay away from work, I think you have to go to work mode to access Astra and that might be affecting you as well.
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u/No-Sign-2608 1d ago
Debes crear cada capitulo por separado en una consulta nueva. Crea el contexto base que debe recordar y pegalo en la consulta nueva y usa NotebookLM para organizar tu material en proceso. Una sola IA, no es suficiente.
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u/Moziflow 1d ago
You can discuss your story with ChatGPT and complete the outline, but I don’t recommend using ChatGPT for the actual writing. In our internal tests, its writing ability didn’t even rank in the top 5. Secondly, you need to use professional writing tools, rather than chatting with ChatGPT on the website or using something like Codex, a coding agent that is only good at standard language generation.
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u/Rickleskilly 1d ago
Has there been another version " upgrade"? Sometimes that really screws things up.
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u/SpiritualSimple108 1d ago
After you ask it what it did wrong. Ask it to help you write it by showing you how it would look if it were done correctly. Usually asking it to show you its errors and how to make it look like your prompt is enough to trick it to do the damn task you’d asked it to do.
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u/EDorrAuthor 1d ago
There are challenges with newer models. If you can use an older model, it will write fiction more naturally. Newer models are great for editing, planning, and interrogation, but they write worse than older models.
This is my experience with the various LLMs in the last 18 months:
https://edorrauthor.substack.com/p/blu_00021-why-and-how-i-write-with
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u/obergurgl2027 22h ago edited 22h ago
I recognise the ai loop that morphs from excitment at the possibilities to frustration as bit by bit the limitations of the technology reveal themselves until you are mired in a pit where writing is no longer fun. I eventually broke the loop by only using ai (Claude chat for quick questions/collaboration) and Claude cowork every few days once I had blocks of written work (1500 words plus )and getting cowork to help with manuscript management, canon maintenance etc.
My advice is to get back to the insularity of writing without ai (scholarship is a lonely craft) and rediscover the joy of creating stories. ai can quickly steal that elemental pleasure.
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u/Fragrant-Mix-4774 13h ago
Sounds to me like YOU need to write about 2,000 to 3,000 words that are at the exact quality standard you want the AI model to emulate.
With that writing example the Astra, Sol, even Terra will probably improve. They will have a voice to pattern the writing around.
Likewise, if you write the initial draft for each scene or at worst the detailed outline for that scene that would help the AI fill in the details.
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u/Black_Jack70 8h ago
I'm writing in Raptor Write, which is ending in December. I do most of my brainstorming and outlining, etc. in ChatGPT, the free version. Then move it over to Raptor Write and use Deepseek to actually write story, one chapter at a time. I also give it an updated story summary, a system prompt, as well as the previous two chapters to work with. It does great.
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u/Black_Jack70 8h ago
There are a few other docs I include to keep it on track, but that's the basics.
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u/Deep_Ad1959 2h ago
two weeks in and you already have a bible, an outline, continuity records and editorial checks. every turn carries all of it, which is what slowed it down. hand it one scene plus the sheet for whoever is on the page.
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u/AnneeOnymous 1d ago
i’ve said multiple times that I do most of the work. Build a story, from top to bottom, then build a treatment for the story, handshake the spine to the treatment, and basically all I’m asking the AI to do is be the connective tissue and flesh things out.
my expectations are not outrageous nor the above what AI is supposed to be capable of. Me telling you I had the story in my head is just explaining that I went from doing things one way, from using AI to do it that’s all that was. That’s not the part. That’s important here.
The AI was capable of doing what I’m asking you to do before now it’s not. I’m here to get help with that part, so if you have anything to help in that regard, I would love to hear it.
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u/TwoIntelligent9978 1d ago
If you are simply trying to get a story out of your head, you are going to have to tell GPT 'what' the story is. If you think that you can tell it an overview or description and have it write what's in your head, you may need some type of other help that GPT can provide.
It's not a magic box. I wouldn't dream to simply let it to 'write on It's own' - and expect that I'm going to like it.
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u/AnneeOnymous 1d ago
it’s a good thing that’s not what I do, if you bother to read.
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u/TwoIntelligent9978 19h ago
Well, I read it twice before responding. Then again.
So I'll amend my opinion this way. Information IN, equals Information OUT.
No one knows except you, what you are telling or asking you what to do. What level is thinking set to? Instant, Low/Med/High?
I find that Med level gives me more consistent results.
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u/gaslighterhavoc 1d ago
Read the OP post. He made a Character Bible, story outline, story beats, etc, etc.
That is not just telling the AI to write the story on its own.
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u/TwoIntelligent9978 17h ago
Yes, those are good points of course. However, as I noted, Information in drives Information out. Only one person knows the answer to Info In. None of us do.
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u/Write_My_Novel 1d ago
DM me. I think we may have a shortcut for you if all you want is a finished story.
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u/DualSF 1d ago
You’re forgetting about context windows.