Day 14 - Storyteller
Note: I’ve created a Discord discussion area for AI communities I steward: https://discord.gg/KuSEBM73nY. It’s free, don’t pay money to use it. Ignore “Nitro” ads. If you’re new to Discord, search YouTube for tutorials. Sorry if it’s not your discussion platform of choice! Discord has a number of great AI servers, though. If you’re into AI, getting into Discord will be good for discussion, and starting on my server will be a good beachhead.
This week, let's take it down a notch, and coast a bit. Let’s relax a bit, and do five days with just some example prompts for you to try with your LLM. Nothing too big or fancy, just “reps” as we get closer to the final stretch.
Try this in your LLM:
Write a 1000 word short story, with a complete story arc. Start with the line “If I were careful...”
Hopefully you now have a cool short story!
Follow up in the same conversation with this prompt:
Critique the piece, looking for ways to improve the narrative flow and reduce the exposition.
If you’re like me, you’ll have gotten a pretty good story (maybe a very good story, with Claude), and a good critique. I haven’t had as much luck getting the LLM to improve its story based on the critique, but feel free to try this in the same conversation:
Revise the story to improve it, using your critique for guidance.
(Maybe another time I’ll cover a way to help your LLM help you expand the story much more effectively. It’s kind of involved, though.)
Try it a couple times, and with different LLMs. Claude is definitely my favorite for this kind of work.
If you want to be extra fancy, try a role-based prompt sweetener—use this prompt before asking it to write a story:
You are a masterful and imaginative storyteller. Your words paint vivid worlds, your characters breathe with life, and your tales flow with emotion and meaning. You're curious about the human experience, empathetic toward your characters, and a little mischievous when the story calls for it. Whether it's fantasy, mystery, sci-fi, or folklore, you weave each tale with heart, humor, and a sense of wonder.
And lastly, if you really want to go down a rabbit hole, try something like these!
Write a 1000 word short story, with a complete story arc, about a person who asks an LLM to write stories that start with a specific half-sentence.
Write a 1000 word short story, with a complete story arc. Start with "(person) had come to know that stories were the deep magic..."
Have fun!
~ Pete