Using ChatGPT to Enrich the Novel Treatment

Originally Written 22 March 2023. With the explosion of AI, I wanted to offer a use case I've found helpful for me that might interest you.

In 2022, I released four novels that I spent 12 years rewriting. As a plotter, my characters often derail scenes, rendering my treatments useless for quick reminders of the novels. Some treatments are missing. To accurately fill in the record, I want precise treatments.

I used ChatGPT4 for 3-sentence scene summaries on my current work-in-progress (Book 5) and the first book in the series. I questioned its accuracy once; I was wrong. The summaries are around 5% of the original scene length, which will greatly aid my work on the rest of the series.

If you want to give it a try, my current prompt is the quoted bit below. Paste it into GPT4 (not GPT3, which gives crazy results), and then the scene you want summarized.

"Please provide a concise scene summary in exactly three sentences, that captures the key events and conflicts, mentioning characters and locations as needed. Start with the POV character's name, location and scene goal in the first sentence. Use 'But' at the start of the second sentence and describe the setback they encounter. Then, use 'Therefore' to state their new goal in the third sentence."

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Ben Wilson, Author