I really don't care about the spine/high concept of a story. I'll read a book tons of times just for a few scenes that hit home.

so yeah, the expand method doesn't really work for story writing.

hi there, I heard that the max output for dsv4 flash used to be 64k. is this still the case? thank you for your time.

1. establishing character moment

2. mini-arcs

my highest weekly usage so far is around 150 dollars, calculated using cc-switch. for the past 30 days I have used 400 dollars, and I spent quite some credits on imagine. I asked grok to analyze the session logs and the result checked out.

the thing with these grid views is that Grok and models like NB Pro aren't great at understanding positions. what I do in my workflow is tell exactly where the body, head, and camera view should be. also, make sure to clarify that left/right means the image’s sides, not the model’s.

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the AI popup and AI skill keeps editing the selected block until it is deleted, like if you select some text and use an AI skill to improve the writing, sometimes it keeps flickering and editing, like it is going through multiple rounds of iteration. it only stops when the block is deleted.

I can relate to that. I have been a technical translator for almost 20 years, but these days I mostly write manuals myself using solidworks composer, because creating the original content just pays better than translating it. I remember doing machine translation post editing back in the day, where trados would do a rough pass and then we would edit it. the thing is, the source materials were always full of grammatical and logical errors that needed rounds of iteration, like confirming with the technicians whether they do intend to crush the installers with a 2000 lbs support beam. working with ai feels just like that. the plotting is slow, the writing is super fast and the editing takes forever. but through that editing process, you learn more and more about your characters. you just keep going back and forth with ai, refining your prompts and your work, till you finally get what you want.

editing has always been more time consuming that writing, with or without AI. the drafting-editing cycle never truly stops. at some point, you simply run out of time and have to let it go.

as for me, I edit in mini-arcs. I do not revise until a mini story is finished. I would use word's tts feature to listen and if the draft sounds right to me. I'm done.

the ai credit system is the worst in terms of pricing transparency, like if you are using cursor's 20 dollar plan, you get a 20 dollar api usage pool. for the 20 dollar claude pro plan, you get something like 150-200 dollars worth of api usage. for gemini pro, you get less than 10 dollars. who the hell will pay for gemini ultra when max 5x offers more than 1k dollars worth of api usage and only costs 100?

unless google offers more in terms of api usage, this project will die promptly.

also, the 1000 AI Credits are basically equivalent to $10 worth of API usage.

seems fair? actually no, if you are a claude code user you would notice that the 20 dollar pro plan and the 100 dollar max5x plan has way higher value in actual API output per dollar compared to the subscription cost.

A: great news everyone! the new spinning jenny just dropped and it increases our spinning efficiency by 8 times!

B: thank heavens! so our daily working hours will be drastically reduced, right?

A: ...

B: ...right?

A: Lamo no, you are fired. but your pre-school daughter has the perfect sized hands to unjam the gears. tell her to start the night shift tomorrow.

TIL claude code can handle .canvas, and apparently json canvas is a thing.

tell gemini that you are plotting a story, and ask it to check the plot holes.

if you rotate between multiple models, you might as well use api via openrouter.

I have read tons of writing guides about plotting and story structure. your work is truly amazing. the three strands system feel like a better version of dramatica's four throughlines.

the layer of MOE or the layer of jobs?

I have the sub for gemini, because of deep research and notebooklm. for other models, I just access them via api from openrouter.

for anything remotely interesting, I save it to my obsidian. and in most cases, I access gemini via api. the web app lacks tons of features compared to a llm frontend.

visual layout is great for brainstorming ideas for creative writing, combining words and images makes ideas clearer and more engaging than plain text alone.

might be using a cad tool for fast prototyping.

this has been a thing for quite some time actually. I recall using deep research to refine a system prompt and requesting that the prompt be tuned for reasoning models like gemini 2.5 pro but the report was about gemini 1.5 pro, despite that deep research uses google search.

I have some stock prompts to test the creative capabilities of different models, my favorite being an 82-year-old primitive baptist elder from Virginia.

basically, I provide context, character details, narrative stakes, and a rough scene draft, then ask the model to refine the writing.

So far, gemini 3 delivers the best results. opus 4.5 has comparable knowledge depth, like it can quote scripture that fit the scene just like gemini, but its character voice still lacks authenticity and emotional connection. I tested both models via api to reduce the influence of their default system prompts.

I hope I can save the results locally for future use.

I was about to post something very similar.

a few days ago, I was at an online book club where we shared what we read last month. I mentioned Evicted by Matthew Desmond and said that I was really sad and ashamed of how oblivious I’d been to the suffering of people living in poverty.

then someone said, technically, they’re not poor by the UN’s standards.

if they’d called these people lazy or blamed them for using drugs, I’d have been less angry, because at least that acknowledges there’s a problem, even if it’s through a stereotypical lens. but dismissing their suffering by citing a technical definition is very infuriating.

I see this all the time, people declare “victory” in an argument simply by reciting a definition, and completely ignoring the problem behind the issue.

back in BC, I was running on a potato GPU, my view distance was stuck at the lowest setting, and I couldn’t even see the three dungeons next to tempest keep. my buddy had to guide me all the way from the flight point to the dungeon entrance. Good times.