Crafting My Personal Story Grid Editor with GPT-4o
Combining Tech and Technique for Storytelling
I’m really impressed with The Story Grid methodology, but I guess if you’ve been reading my posts over the last week or two, you’d probably already know that.
I’ve been catching up with the early Story Grid podcasts over the last week every moment I can. I realized how lucky the co-host, Tim Grahl, was to have Shawn Coyne, the author of The Story Grid, as his very own personal (and free) editor.
If you are unfamiliar with The Story Grid methodology, this is a great place to start: Story Editing: Definition and Story Grid’s Approach.
What to do? The answer was quite simple: I built my very own personal editor as an OpenAI GPT. Best of all, ChatGPT (4o) provided the instructions I needed to build it.
My AI assistants suggest outlines, topics, or subtleties I hadn’t considered. The actual writing is all human me. It’s fun seeing how the different Gen AI models sometimes give contradictory advice. I ignore most of it anyway.
In 2017, OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Anthropic’s Claude, and all the other GenAI tools we have available today were unimaginable. Today, in the middle of 2024, many of us already take the technology for granted. We forget how difficult and frustrating it was when all we had was Google Search.
Defining The Knowledge Base
For any GPT to function well, it will need training data, which, together with exacting instructions, enables it to operate as we require. If we don’t include quality training data, the results will be, at best, unpredictable, and the quality will be severely impacted.
Keeping it simple, I had The Story Grid e-book, but I didn’t know if ChatGPT could read it. It’s pretty simple to test:
Upload the ePub file in a new GhatGPT4o conversation.
Enter a simple but polite prompt (My mother’s influence. It costs us nothing to be polite.):
Good morning. Please can you read the uploaded e-book and give me a detailed summary of the main points? Thanks.
Within a few seconds, ChatGPT returned a detailed analysis and summary of the entire book. So far, so good, but the book was only one-half of the story (pardon the pun). Next up was to check that ChatGPT to find, read, and analyze the podcast transcripts. I picked an episode as random as a source for the next prompt:
Thank you. Can you extract and summarize the transcript from the Story Grid podcast, the episode titled "Editor’s Six Core Questions Part 1" located as a linked web page from this URL: https://storygrid.com/podcasts/
That was no problem at all; the summary appeared almost immediately. Here is small except:
The episode emphasizes the importance of defining the genre, as it sets the foundation for the entire story. The genre dictates the structure, content, style, and conventions necessary to meet audience expectations.
It should be noted that the GPT is for my personal use and will not be available publicly. I’ve not only paid for the e-book, I also bought the paperback edition. I consider this fair personal use. The last thing I want to do is fall foul of copyright legislation.
Generating and Applying the GPT Instructions
With the Knowledge Base in place, the next step was to generate the instructions. I could have tried to work them out myself, but that would have defeated the entire purpose of the exercise. So, of course, I asked ChatGPT to help; why wouldn’t I?
Based on the uploaded ePub file for the Story Grid book and contents of all podcast transcripts, here: https://storygrid.com/podcasts/. Can you write out the instructions I need to create a new GPT to take the role of my personal Story Grid editor?
The bare bones instruction set returned over seven hundred words. I’m not going to bore you with the details. Essentially, the instructions were broken down into three sections, each further broken down into subsections:
Instructions for Creating “My Personal Story Gird Editor.”
Core Understanding of Story Structure.
Genre Identification and Adherence.
Character Wants and Needs.
Global Story and Scene Analysis.
Feedback on Story Progression.
Practical Writing Tips and Techniques.
Detailed instructions for GPT Training.
Input Data Sources.
Training Data Structuring.
Response Framework.
Feedback Loops.
Example Prompts for Training.
Genre Identification.
Character Wants and Needs.
Scene Analysis.
Great! The only thing left is to tie it all together with general instructions for the new GPT. This was added to the Instructions section in the GPT:
Follow these instructions based on the principles and methodologies outlined in "The Story Grid" book and the contents of the Story Grid podcast. The ePub file for the book has been uploaded to the knowledge. The Story Grid podcast can be found here: https://storygrid.com/podcasts/ . All transcripts may be found on the web pages linked to this URL and should be considered part of the knowledge.
Note that if we lack specificity, again, the quality and reliability will be impacted to the point of being useless. It is best to tell the GPT exactly what is expected from it. It can help if we ask it to play the role of a specific person. But, for the purposes of this exercise, I’m keeping it more generic.
Putting the Editor to the Test
Of course, the GPT is rudimentary at this stage and will require quite a bit of tweaking and fine-tuning over the coming months. I won’t take the answers it gives at face value; cross-checking and verification must be foremost in my mind. However, we can start with a few basic tests.
Question:
Can you remind me of the five commandments of storytelling again? I'm getting a little bit confused.
Answer:
Of course! The Five Commandments of Storytelling are essential elements that every story must include to create a compelling narrative. Here's a brief overview:
Inciting Incident.
Progressive Complications.
Crisis.
Climax.
Resolution.
These commandments ensure that a story is well-structured and engaging, driving the narrative forward in a cohesive and satisfying manner.
I would have been surprised if it had gotten these wrong. It’s time for something closer to home. I uploaded the global synopsis of the book. I was pretty sure that I knew the genre, so it was easy to check. Bearing in mind the synopsis was only four hundred words.
Question:
What would you say is the Global Genre considering the uploaded top-level synopsis?
Answer:
Based on the provided synopsis, the Global Genre of your story appears to be Science Fiction with a sub-genre of Thriller. Here's an analysis to support this conclusion (details not reproduced here:)
Key Elements Identifying the Genre.
Obligatory Scenes and Conventions of the AI Thriller Sub-genre.
Supporting Characters and Roles.
It’s pretty much spot-on. I followed up with several questions and requests about the Story Grid methodology, the podcasts, and anything else I could think of. However, it may be trying to answer what it thinks I want to hear. The last quick test was to ask for its opinion of one of the completed scenes:
Question:
Here is an early Scene from my beginning hook. Can you tell me if the scene works and if it follows the five commandments of storytelling?
A detailed breakdown of the scene followed, confirming that all five commandments had been met. There is a saying, “Flattery will get you nowhere.” But we’re all suckers for it. I found the GPT’s conclusion a bit suspicious:
Conclusion:
The scene effectively follows the Five Commandments of Storytelling. It introduces an intriguing inciting incident, builds tension through progressive complications, presents a meaningful crisis, reaches a climax with Megan’s decision to investigate further, and ends with an unresolved resolution that maintains suspense. This structure engages the reader and sets up the next steps in the narrative, making it a strong and compelling scene.
I don’t really believe it (although I’d like to)… I’ll treat feedback like this with a pinch of salt until I have more independent feedback. First stop: Claude 3.5. See what it has to say about the scene.
Am I Procrastinating Again?
I don’t think so. While the methodology isn’t for everyone writing their first draft, it’s like manna from heaven for a plotter. Instead of blundering around and jumping from pillar to post, it has given me direction.
Over the last week, I’ve reviewed most of the scenes I had written, analyzing them and reworking them where necessary. This has even helped with the overall structure of the novel’s acts and sequences.
The project’s word count hasn’t significantly increased, but that isn’t the point. However, the quality of the scenes has improved greatly. This will reduce the rework required for the second draft, saving time in the long run. Now, I have a roadmap that has simplified my path toward a working draft.
I’m continuing to study The Story Grid every day, if possible, and learning all the time. The one thing I will not do is go back to edit the completed or nearly completed scenes. This is, after all, the first draft. The most productive way forward is to keep the writing momentum going. I’m not going to waste it.
The power of The Story Grid will come once each draft has been completed. The deep analysis tools the Story Grid Spreadsheet provides ensure that the changes required for the next draft will be clearly identified.
This is still vague in these early days, but I’ll keep studying and writing. It’ll all come out in the end.
Final Thoughts
I am constantly surprised by the capabilities I discover, almost every day, about the several GenAI tools I use. I suppose I shouldn’t be.
I know I could use Claude, for example, to bang out each and every scene I’m mapping out in my outline. But the two main reasons I don’t try this are that the quality of the text is good but lacking that special something. I don’t doubt that, very soon, these tools will be able to write large chunks of a book very quickly. However, they will still need a human to come up with the creative part of the project.
Second, of course, it defeats the purpose of why I write. I thoroughly enjoy immersing myself in a good book. Writing, for me, is just an extension of that. Like reading, I don’t know where the story will take me. The pleasure of finding out, being surprised, and knowing that it all comes out of my mind is impossible to convey in words alone.
Enough of my wittering; it’s time to leave the keyboard and go out with my wife for the afternoon. It’s a gorgeous June day. It would be a shame to miss it stuck in my office.
I’d love to hear from you. What are your thoughts on The Story Grid, the use of GenAI tools, or anything else on your mind?
Hopefully, you enjoyed this post. If you want to say ‘thank you, ‘ the best way is to get involved in the comments. And my promise to you…If you get in touch, I will answer! So comment away… (a subscription is also nice)