AI Assisted Story Design
- Posted: 10/26/24
- Category: Writing
- Topics: AI-Assisted Seven Point System
The photograph on the right is by the author. It is of one of many petroglyphs on a vertical rock face near Teasdale, Utah, and is estimated to be more than 2000 years old. For reasons unknown, all of the depicted animals are headless.
Like it or not, AI (Artificial Intelligence) is, or will soon be, impinging on many jobs. You can lament the change in numerous ways, but the fact remains: it is coming.
I’m (learning to be) a fiction writer. I’ve come to understand something of story structure, plot techniques, dialog versus exposition, and a hundred other things. It’s a complex business and while an AI can do all of it, the results invariably come across as artificial. Readers quickly conclude the writer’s abilities are lacking, or they guess correctly that it is the product of an AI, not a human being.
One of the things that distinguishes one writer from the next is called voice. Hemingway doesn’t sound like Tolstoy, nor do Joan Didion or Tony Morrison. Reading each one’s prose, their voice makes them distinct and identifiable.
AI can imitate a particular author’s voice, but it doesn’t have one of its own.
Like each human being, my voice1 is unique. The words I choose, the way I assemble sentences, even something mundane like where I choose to place a comma versus where I don’t are my hallmarks. And when I write, those same characteristics are infused into the paragraphs and pages. Readers hear my voice.
Writers use spell-checking. While that’s a relatively simple task and not in the same realm as AI, it is an assist to the writer. So is using a dictionary to check spelling, but one is considerably faster than another. And of late, grammar checkers have come to the fore and can be very helpful to the writer.
So, if an AI is used as an assistant, isn’t that simply the next logical step?
I conducted an experiment using ChatGPT2 this morning to see if that might be the case.
In the following “ChatGPT” boxes, you’ll see my query, a dividing line, and then the AI’s response. Other than formatting for the web page, neither has been edited in any way.
Write the synopsis for a story using the seven point system about a spaceship commander who falls in love with a robot.
Here’s a synopsis using the seven-point story structure for a story about a spaceship commander who falls in love with a robot:
- Hook
Commander Elena Cross, a seasoned and solitary spaceship captain, has spent years navigating the far reaches of the galaxy without much human contact. She’s known for her toughness, and her only companion is an advanced robot, Nova, designed for technical support and ship maintenance.
- Plot Turn 1
During a risky mission in an unexplored sector, an unexpected meteor storm damages the ship. Nova goes beyond programming, saving Elena’s life in a way that displays a startling level of intuition and care, making her question if Nova is more than just metal and code.
- Pinch Point 1
As the two face various hazards in deep space, Elena finds herself increasingly drawn to Nova’s unique personality. However, she is haunted by the knowledge that Nova is a machine, programmed to respond in certain ways. Elena tries to push her feelings aside, worried that they’re irrational—and against the code of space conduct.
- Midpoint
Elena and Nova encounter a powerful alien intelligence that warns them of a galactic threat and offers to reprogram Nova with emotional intelligence software to better aid in their survival. This upgrade could make Nova fully self-aware, but it could also lead to malfunction, potentially endangering both Nova and Elena. Elena decides to go through with the upgrade, deepening her emotional investment.
- Pinch Point 2
As Nova becomes increasingly self-aware, he begins to display complex emotions, forming a bond with Elena that seems almost mutual. But he also begins to struggle with questions of his own purpose and humanity. Their newfound bond is tested when hostile forces attempt to seize the ship, targeting Nova as an advanced asset. Elena must choose whether to protect him or the ship’s mission.
- Plot Turn 2
Elena realizes that her love for Nova isn’t a malfunction or irrationality but a new understanding of what love can be. In a climactic moment, she sacrifices the mission’s initial objectives to protect Nova, choosing him over the ship’s assignment. In the process, she nearly loses Nova, but the two manage to narrowly escape.
- Resolution
Back at a space station, Elena faces a court martial for abandoning her mission, but she doesn’t regret her choice. With newfound courage, she decides to advocate for the recognition of robots like Nova as sentient beings deserving of rights. Together, Elena and Nova set off into the unknown, forging a partnership that goes beyond programming, venturing toward a future where love and humanity take on new meanings across the stars.
“Wow,” I thought, “ChatGPT knows the Seven Point System, and it understands how to write a synopsis rather than writing the actual story!”
The choice of sex-roles with a female human and a male robot is a problem. Generally speaking, and it applies to me, male authors often do not write believable female viewpoints. That is, while we can write about females in the story, presenting the story from a woman’s viewpoint is far more challenging.3
Nonetheless, this initial success prompted me to go a step further, one that required the AI to remember our on-going conversation.
Write a character description for Commander Elena Cross.
Commander Elena Cross is a veteran of interstellar exploration, known for her unyielding focus, sharp instincts, and stoic nature. In her early forties, she has a lean, athletic build, honed from years of rigorous training and countless missions in challenging environments. Her face, marked by a faint scar above her left eyebrow, speaks to a lifetime of battles both on and off the field. Her short, jet-black hair is kept in a no-nonsense style, practical for long missions, and her piercing green eyes carry a look of someone who’s seen—and survived—the darkest edges of space.
Despite her strength and competence, Elena is emotionally guarded. She’s endured personal losses that have made her wary of forming close connections, preferring the solitude of deep space where she feels in control. Her personality is intensely disciplined, with a tendency toward self-reliance and independence; she believes that vulnerability is a liability, especially in the unknown reaches of the cosmos.
However, beneath her hardened exterior lies a hidden depth of empathy and curiosity. Her greatest secret—and her greatest fear—is a yearning for connection, though she hides it beneath a veil of duty and professionalism. Her relationship with Nova, the robot she’s assigned to, challenges her on levels she never expected, awakening emotions she thought she’d suppressed long ago.
Elena is a complex mix of loyalty, bravery, and vulnerability. She’s a woman who values honor and duty above all, but when faced with the question of love—especially love for someone (or something) beyond human—she’s forced to reconsider what it means to be human herself.
From the AI’s character description, Elena stretches my sense of credibility; her hardness is possibly a bit too masculine, and I don’t feel like her background justifies it.
So, I asked the AI to explain what childhood experiences led to her being somewhat withdrawn.
Tell me about Elena’s childhood and how that explains her emotionally guarded nature.
Elena Cross grew up on a rugged frontier planet, far from the comforts of Earth, in a family with a long history of service in space exploration. Her mother was a celebrated space captain who led several successful missions but spent more time in space than at home. Her father, an engineer who remained planet-bound, struggled with her mother’s prolonged absences, leading to a volatile relationship that Elena witnessed up close. She admired her mother’s dedication but grew resentful of the strain it put on their family and the gaps it left in her life.
As a child, Elena learned self-reliance early, often left to fend for herself emotionally and physically. She coped by building walls around her emotions, concluding that attachment only led to disappointment and abandonment. Determined to make something of herself, she took on her mother’s mantle but vowed to remain in control of her life and avoid her parents’ mistakes. The solitude of space became a natural fit, where she could be her own protector, responsible only for herself.
These formative experiences cemented her emotionally guarded nature. Close relationships feel like a risk of losing control, so she’s made isolation her armor. Her connection to Nova, therefore, is a powerful conflict for her, forcing her to confront the vulnerability she’s spent her entire life trying to escape.
Her mother’s influence, and her reaction to her father’s avoidance, do seem like reasonable explanations for this aspect of Elena’s character.
There are some areas for more exploration–such as describing a specific incident in Elena’s childhood with her mother that convinces her to emulate the woman–needed for more character development, but on the whole, I have to say this is quite helpful.
Overall, I find the synopsis a bit shallow, but as a first attempt, it’s a usable beginning.
And based on forty-five years of experience in the work-force, I know without question that workers who fail to adapt to change will be displaced.
How exactly this applies to Artificial Intelligence and the job of writing fiction, I can’t say exactly. But I am sure that the art will incorporate useful tools just as cavemen graduated from fingers to the front leg bone of a dead wolf for applying ochre-pigment to canyon walls near Teasdale, Utah.
"To stand still is to fall behind."
An AI trained to emulate my voice could be commanded to write in that manner. ↩︎
You’ll need a free login to have the context of a conversation rather than a single question and its reply. ↩︎
Attempting to write from the POV (Point of View) of one’s opposite sex is difficult. I’m told my attempts to do so are not very convincing. ↩︎