How Using Better Prompts in ChatGPT Improved My Storytelling

How Using Better Prompts in ChatGPT Improved My Storytelling

I remember when I first started my YouTube channel last year. I was really struggling to write scripts and come up with stories for my content. I had no idea how to get my storytelling off the ground.

That was until I got the hang of it by using generative AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Google Gemini. I went from zero to hero, creating video scripts with AI and just a bit of my own input.

So, how did I do this? Here’s my secret — prompt engineering. In this article, I’ll share some advanced techniques to help you write stories, build complex characters, create images, and even explore multiverse storytelling with the help of AI.

Understanding the Basics of Prompt Engineering

These days, creating compelling stories has become more accessible, even for those who don’t consider themselves natural writers. By mastering advanced techniques in prompt engineering, you can use tools like ChatGPT to create content that hits home with your audience.

First off, what exactly is prompt engineering? It’s all about designing and refining your inputs (or prompts) to guide a generative AI tool to produce the output you’re looking for.

I use prompt engineering all the time in my work as a software developer and researcher. But as a YouTuber, it’s been absolutely crucial for content creation, scriptwriting, and even generating images.

I can tell you from experience that mastering prompt engineering can seriously upgrade your content creation, making your workflow efficient and more productive.

To help you get a better understanding of prompt engineering, you can check out this video:

This shows you how to write effective prompts for storytelling, featuring a day-in-the-life story in multiverse scenarios with a woman and her cat, created using AI.

This will help you understand the prompt engineering techniques we’ll discuss in this article. Now, let’s dive into how you can use these methods to enhance your content creation process.

Defining Your Task

The first step in writing effective prompts is defining your task. This means clearly stating what you want the generative AI tool to accomplish. A well-defined task helps the AI produce results that meet your expectations.

For example, if you want ChatGPT to create a story, your prompt could be:

Write an illustrated story about a woman and her cat.
Develop the characters, their beliefs, and their origin story,
then write a day in their life.

See how this prompt starts by clearly stating the main goal: “Write an illustrated story about a woman and her cat.” Then it moves on to specific steps, like creating character profiles. The origin story adds some background context, and finally, it wraps up by illustrating a day in their life, pulling all the pieces together into an engaging story.

But don’t hit enter just yet! If you start writing a prompt like this and press enter, ChatGPT might spit out a bunch of random stuff because you haven’t given it enough instructions yet.

So, here’s a tip: when I start a new context, I like to type “yay.” This way, ChatGPT responds with “yay,” letting you know it’s ready for your detailed instructions.

Using Context Effectively

Next, I needed ChatGPT to describe three different women so I could choose which one to use for my story. So, I entered a prompt with detailed context:

Give me physical descriptions for a blonde, a brunette, and a raven-haired
woman in their thirties, limited to 20 words each.

This prompt includes several key elements:

• Task: “Give me physical descriptions” - It should define the physical attributes of three different women.
• Context: “a blonde, a brunette, and a raven-haired woman in their 30s” — It adds further context by assigning each woman distinct traits.
• Length: “limited to 20 words each” - It sets a clear limit to ensure concise responses.

Providing these sorts of details helps the AI chatbot understand the specifics and avoid generating content that is off-track or too broad.

Creating Detailed Character Profiles

Building comprehensive character profiles is fundamental to storytelling. To choose the best character for my story, I entered another prompt into ChatGPT:

Describe three types of women in their 30s, including jobs, hobbies,
and personalities. Limit it to 20 words max.

To this, ChatGPT replied with:

Pediatrician: knits, compassionate, patient, always smiling.
Software Developer: codes, analytical, introverted, enjoys puzzles. 
Marketing Executive: networks, charismatic, creative, loves public speaking.

These short descriptions give you a solid foundation for character development. The idea is to create three unique character profiles with the help of AI, so you can pick the one that best fits your vision for the main character. By condensing essential traits into a concise format, this prompt lets you zero in on what defines each character.

Building Philosophical Belief Systems

To really make your characters come alive, think about giving them philosophical belief systems. These beliefs influence their decisions, actions, and interactions, adding depth and realism. Instead of just being a list of traits, your characters become dynamic and relatable.

For example, you could ask ChatGPT to assign belief systems with a prompt like this:

List six philosophical views relevant to American women in their 30s,
categorized into 3 traditional perspectives and 3 polarizing perspectives.

Another effective prompt technique you can use is to clearly state the task, provide specific context, and ask it to break the answer into groups. For instance, in the prompt above, the task is “List six philosophical views,” the context is “to American women in their 30s,” and the two groups are “3 traditional perspectives and 3 polarizing perspectives.”

Here is ChatGPT’s reply to that prompt:

Traditional Philosophical Perspectives:
1. Pragmatism
2. Existentialism
3. Humanism

Radical or Polarizing Philosophical Perspectives:
1. Post-modern feminism
2. Eco-feminism
3. Transhumanism

As you can see, these responses are based on ChatGPT’s take on current philosophical views among American women in their 30s. This gives you a range of perspectives to choose from for your character. For instance, a character with a pragmatic worldview might focus on practical solutions and efficiency, while an existentialist might constantly question the meaning of their actions and existence.

Choosing specific philosophical beliefs for your characters enriches your story by adding different perspectives and internal conflicts.

Creating a Day in the Life Story

A “day-in-the-life” story is a fantastic way to showcase your characters and their interactions. It lets you highlight different aspects of their personalities and relationships, taking your audience into the characters’ world.

When crafting a day-in-the-life story, it’s important to break your narrative into clear, engaging scenes to keep your audience interested. Each scene should contribute to the overall story.

For example, you could create a day-in-the-life story using ChatGPT with a prompt like this:

Create a 'day in the life' narrative for Emily and her cat Whiskers in
six scenes. Ensure each scene features both characters and stays true to
their backstory.

Then, ChatGPT might respond with:

Morning routine: Emily prepares breakfast while Whiskers playfully chases
a toy.

Walk in the park: Emily advocates for sustainability, engaging the public,
while Whiskers explores the surroundings.

Rainy day anxiety: Whiskers shows fear due to mild rain.

Coffee shop trauma: Whiskers gets scared by a child running around.

Quiet time: Emily works on her laptop while Whiskers relaxes nearby.

Evening relaxation: They unwind together, reflecting on their day.

By breaking the day into these scenes, you can show different sides of your characters and how they interact with each other and their environment. Using this advanced prompt engineering technique ensures your story is cohesive and engaging from start to finish.

Creating a Visual Storyboard Using AI Image Generator Tools

After you’ve crafted a compelling “day-in-the-life” story, the next step is to bring it to life, visually.

Visual storyboarding is like mapping out your story scene by scene. It gives you and your audience a visual reference that enhances the storytelling experience. You can see the characters, settings, and key moments, making the story more vivid and impactful.

You can transform your text into images and create a storyboard using AI image generator tools. This is crucial for turning your story or script into engaging video content.

Paid AI image generators like DALL-E 3 and Midjourney, as well as free ones like Ideogram, are powerful tools for creating visual storyboards. They can turn your text prompts into vivid, detailed images that capture the essence of your story.

Here’s how you can use them effectively:

1. Generate Images for Each Scene:

Start by creating images for each scene in your “day-in-the-life” story. For example, using the earlier prompt, you could generate images depicting the main characters in each scene.

Here’s an example prompt for image generation:

Capture Emily, a 29-year-old woman with long brown hair, wearing a light
blue blouse and beige pants, is preparing food in a bright kitchen with
plants around. She is interacting with her Maine Coon cat, Whiskers,
sitting on the counter. Sunlight streams through a window, illuminating
the cozy and inviting atmosphere.

2. Ensure Consistency Throughout the Images:

When generating images for your storyboard, make sure the image generator tool depicts your characters with consistent visual traits throughout. You wouldn’t want a storyboard where your characters look different in every image, right?

3. Enhance Scene Details:

You can enhance your image generation prompts by adding intricate details to your scenes. For instance, you might create more detailed prompts like this:

Imagine Emily, a 29-year-old with long brunette waves and hazel eyes,
dressed in a sky blue organic cotton blouse and beige hemp trousers,
sitting and contemplating her choices inside a cozy coffee shop
on a rainy afternoon. Include Whiskers, her Maine Coon cat,
snuggling closer to her for comfort.

By using advanced prompt engineering techniques and creating images using AI image generators, you can build an interesting storyboard that brings your narrative to life.

Adapting Stories to Multiverse Settings

One of the coolest things about generative AI tools like ChatGPT is their ability to retell your characters’ stories in different settings, like alternate universes. In these multiverse scenarios, you can adapt a single story to various genres and environments, creating unique narratives while keeping the core elements of your characters intact.

With advanced prompt engineering techniques, you can adapt various storytelling devices, giving your stories fresh and exciting twists. For instance, you can easily transform a contemporary story into something entirely different, like a Shakespearean play.

To do this, I ran this prompt in ChatGPT:

Using Emily and Whiskers' daily chronicle, adapt it to reimagine them as
real-life characters from Hamlet.

ChatGPT then provided a new series of six scenes, transforming the day-in-the-life story into a Shakespearean setting while keeping Emily and Whiskers’ personality traits intact.

The new story included morning revelations in a courtyard, a play within a play, and a ghostly encounter. This multiverse storytelling approach lets you experiment with different styles while maintaining your characters’ philosophical beliefs and backstories.

Automating Content Creation

Once you’ve mastered advanced prompt engineering techniques, you can easily use ChatGPT to automate story creation, allowing continuous content generation with minimal manual input.

By setting up a template of detailed prompts, you can effortlessly generate new “day-in-the-life” stories for your characters.

For instance, after reimagining Emily and Whiskers’ modern-day story into a 16th-century setting, you can instruct the AI chatbot to create alternate storylines.

I entered this prompt in ChatGPT:

Create a detailed daily chronicle about Emily and her cat, Whiskers,
with six distinct scenes set in a Steampunk Metropolis.

Each new setting brings new adventures, keeping your content dynamic and your audience eager for the next chapter.

Conclusion

So, there you have it! By learning advanced prompt engineering techniques, you can really tap into the full potential of ChatGPT for your storytelling projects. Just imagine the stories you can create — relatable characters, intricate backstories, and endless narrative possibilities — all with a bit of AI magic.

If you want to learn more about how to use AI to improve your business workflow and content creation process, I’m here to help! Subscribe to my YouTube channel, @AppyDave, and check out my videos for AI use cases and prompt engineering tips and tutorials.

About Me

Hi! I’m David, also known as “AppyDave,” an AI technology advisor with over 30 years of experience in software development and content marketing. My mission is to help entrepreneurs and content creators harness the power of AI to transform their workflows and enhance their creative potential.