TRANSCRIPT to Episode 66: Storytelling Revolution – Humans and AI Unite!
This article was first published on Substack.
The TL;DR Summary (approx. 300 words)
In the conversation between Kathrese McKee and J. Thorn, the dynamic landscape of technology adoption is explored. The interview delves into the early adoption of NFTs, cryptocurrencies, and AI, highlighting the risks and rewards associated with such innovations. NFTs are discussed in the context of their initial hype, subsequent collapse due to greed and unfulfilled promises, and the importance of balancing innovation with ethical considerations.
AI, particularly ChatGPT, emerges as a resilient and transformative technology. The interviewee’s experience with his 73-year-old mother using ChatGPT showcases the accessibility and integration of AI tools through web browsers. The conversation delves into misconceptions about AI, including the idea that it’s considered “cheating” in creative processes. The shift from identifying as a “writer” to a “storyteller” is proposed, emphasizing the value of AI in enhancing narratives rather than merely generating words.
The discussion extends to the potential implications of AI-generated content across entertainment industries, raising concerns about the decline of traditional formats like movies, music, and publishing. The interviewee envisions a future where personalized AI entertainment systems cater to individual preferences, potentially reshaping the entertainment landscape. The conversation also underscores the need to adapt and acknowledge the changes brought by AI, urging an understanding that making a living from art is a privilege, not an entitlement.
J. Thorn’s exploration of ChatGPT’s capabilities in the realm of storytelling is shared. He employs code interpreter to synthesize and condense book content, highlighting the iterative process of teaching ChatGPT. The upcoming book “The Scene Archetype Handbook” is discussed, offering insights into the integration of AI-generated content and writing methodologies. Thorn emphasizes how ChatGPT expedites writing processes, enabling a focus on creativity and storytelling.
(Created in cooperation with ChatGPT.)
QUESTION: What do you think about using ChatGPT (or any AI) to aid the writer in developing new stories? Please leave your answer in the comments below.
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Kathrese McKee
Back in April 2018, my husband and I took a trip to Chicago to attend the first ever show Sell More Books Show Summit with Brian Cohen and Jim Kukral inside a comedy joint or a theater. And one of the speaker’s was this guy named J. Thorn, who has long salt and pepper hair and a beard, and he wore a black jacket with jeans and a black, like some kind of rock band t-shirt. He definitely gives off metal rock vibes. Little did I know that J. would become a very important person to me as a mentor and a guide. So I’m thrilled to welcome J. Thorn to the Writing Pursuits podcast. J. is an early adopter. Full stop. Period. He isn’t afraid to jump in to explore such things as NFTs and crypto and ChatGPT. His bio is too long to read here, so I will include it in the show notes. But you should know that J. has published over 2 million words and sold more than 185,000 books. I’m sure that’s more than now worldwide. He is an official member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, the Horror Writers Association and the Great Lakes Association of Horror Writers. He co-founded the Writers Ink podcast with JD Barker and so much more. More recently, J. has published a couple of books—soon to be three—about using ChatGPT as a cowriter. So stick around for a great discussion of this somewhat controversial topic.
INTRO
Welcome to the writing pursuits podcast where authors like you discuss writing craft, author, life and book marketing strategies. I’m your host, Kathrese. McKee. I own Writing Pursuits and write and produce the weekly newsletter Writing Pursuits Tips for authors. In addition, I am a speculative fiction author. Writing Pursuits is for authors who drink too much coffee, endure judgemental looks from their free writing, convenience and struggle for words. If you are a writer seeking encouragement, information and inspiration, this podcast is for you. Let’s get to it. Hey, J. How Welcome to writing pursuits podcast. Thank you so much for being on the show.
J. Thorn
Yeah, I’m excited for a conversation, Kathrese. Thanks for the invite.
Kathrese McKee
I also feel like I just would be like an ingrate, if I did, thank you publicly, for your impact on my writing life and for being my mentor and the whole Three Story Method editing group and so forth. So…
J. Thorn
Thank you, I really appreciate you saying that.
Kathrese McKee
You know, I feel like I feel like we should play that game like the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. But but with the variation like the Six Degrees of J. Thorn, you know, with famous writers b ecause like on that Writers Ink thing, you talk to so many of the people that everybody, you know, dreams about meeting.
J. Thorn
Yeah, yeah. It’s so it’s so hard for me to believe I’ve had some of those conversations, honestly.
Kathrese McKee
I’ll bet I’ll bet like Andy Weir. What?
J. Thorn
Yeah.
Kathrese McKee
James Patterson, Joyce Carol Oates. Have you had any contact with like Robin McKinley?
J. Thorn
I’m sorry, you broke up there for a second.
Kathrese McKee
Robin McKinley? No, I don’t believe I’ve spoken to rob. Now you’ll have to see if Joanna Penn has met Robin McKinley.
J. Thorn
Robin, okay. Okay.
Kathrese McKee
She wrote one of my favorite books, so you know.
J. Thorn
Okay.
Kathrese McKee
But anyway, as long as I’ve known you, you’ve been an early adopter of new technologies like NFTs and cryptocurrencies and now, ChatGPT, MidJourney. And I wondered what makes you think that AI is here to stay?
J. Thorn
Oh, well, first, I will readily admit that when you’re an early adopter, you get burned a lot. That goes with the territory. It’s, um, it’s really a risk reward situation. You know, if you’re in early on something and it pans out, then you you get rewards. And when it doesn’t, you get burned. So, you know, I will say, I don’t feel as though I was burned by NFTs or crypto. I went in really hard on on that a few years ago. But as I, as I said to everyone, and I said it repeatedly, I was basically using casino money, and I defined casino money as money that you’re willing to, to kind of throw away for entertainment. And that’s basically what I did. And you know, a couple years later, although I still believe in the foundational technology of blockchain, I think the way NFTs have panned out or they’re not coming back. I think there’s a lot of greed that destroyed that. There were promises made about secondary royalties. That didn’t didn’t hold up. There are a lot of reasons why the whole NFT thing crashed. And I don’t think it’s going to come back in the form that it was in. So I want to acknowledge up front that if someone has known me and like, yeah, that guy’s always crowing about the newest thing, you’re probably right. But I only have to be right one time.
Kathrese McKee
That’s right. Exactly.
J. Thorn
Right. Right. So and again, I’ve always counseled people and said, you know, yes, you can, you can be an early adopter, and you can, you can go in on this stuff, but you have to be smart about it. And because it’s very high risk, and you can’t play with money that you’re not willing to lose, or time for that matter. Because you may not get it back. Right. So I think your question is a great one. Like, why is this any different? Right? If you if you look, why is AI any different than any number of technologies that have come along in the past, you know, five to seven years? I think the light bulb for me was my mom. Now. My mom is 73, yeah, so 73, and I didn’t even attempt to explain cryptocurrency or NFTs to her. I was like, I’m just not. There’s like, my mom has a phone. She has an iPhone, but she doesn’t even have a computer. So I’m like, there’s just no way I’m even going to, I mean, we’re going to try. Right? Well, when ChatGPT came along,
J. Thorn
I had my mom try it. And and she was able to. No, she’s not going to use it. And she really didn’t understand what was happening. But she was able to with her phone, go to Open AI, create an account and ask it a question. And that to me, that was the lightbulb moment. That was there is no, there’s no training that’s required. There’s no, there’s no onboarding process. I will put an asterisk under that and say I’m talking mostly about sort of developed countries in the Western world. I recognize there are a lot of people globally who aren’t even on the internet yet. Alright, I recognize that. But folks who are like us who are listening to this more than likely don’t have those issues. And you can go the web browser and for free, you can create an account. And you can start using this technology. And it doesn’t require any technical skill. You don’t need to know any coding. You don’t need to be a developer. You don’t even need to speak the tech bro language. You …
Kathrese McKee
Right.
J. Thorn
Use regular words, and you can get instant results from this thing. And I think that to me, was the the lightbulb moment that said this one, this is going to be different.
Kathrese McKee
Well, I have to agree with you. I was … I remember the very first time I opened it up, and I just did a query cuz I was curious. And when it came back with its response, it was like: “Oh, we have opened Pandora’s box. There is no getting this back in the box. It is here. It is just like the internet. You know, once it got past the AOL stage, I guess. This is … This is here to stay. And it will only get more integrated into everything I believe. Like, it’s already in Canva. It’s already in —
Kathrese McKee
What was it the other day? — Beehiiv. It’s already in pretty much anywhere where you’re gonna go online and start composing. They’re just rushing to put it in there to get it integrated, probably ChatGPT or the engine below it. But also, you know, Google’s hurrying and hurrying to try to catch up. So its Bard and stuff. And also, its search page is going to change because of the AI. So I happen to agree with you. I think it’s here. I think it’s here to stay, and you’re right to be an early adopter is a great idea. So in your book, I just finished it — Cowriting with ChatGPT, you go over misconceptions about AI. And I’d like you to just pick the two one or two that are the most pernicious, most mistaken, I guess, are the ones that you hear the most and why they’re wrong.
J. Thorn
These kinds of conversations are pretty rare for me. The reason being is I am not an evangelist on how to convert anybody.
Kathrese McKee
No.
J. Thorn
And so I don’t often have these conversations because I simply talk to people who already agree that this is this is the future because I’m just not going to waste time on people who either don’t care about it, don’t understand it. And that’s nothing personal. It’s just that it’s impossible to change someone’s mind. So that’s it’s not my job, right? Like, no matter if it’s religion, politics, culturally, AI, it doesn’t matter. Like you’re not going to change someone’s mind. They’ll come to whatever they’re going to conclusion they’ll come to on their own. So, I just stay out of those conversations, I don’t I don’t go to places where they have those. However, I think the books are a great opportunity. And what I mean by that is, the books that I’ve been publishing the most recent Three Story Method books have been focused on using AI as a writer and publisher. I think these are important. And, you know, I’m, I’m trying not to let my own ego get in the way. It’s not as though my message is important. I think it’s, I think these books, because they’re some of the first ones that are coming out and because I’m an indie publisher and I can turn them around so quickly and get them out there and get them in people’s hands, it might be the first time people are hearing some of these things in my books.
Kathrese McKee
Yeah,
J. Thorn
and right? And I think the advantage to that is that if you’re curious about AI, but you feel as though there’s a stigma attached to it, you’re not going to go somewhere where you can be identified, you’re not going to join a Facebook group where your profile is public. And people say, “Aha, you’re using AI. You’re the villain!” Right? It’s so
Kathrese McKee
You’re cheating!
J. Thorn
Yeah, right. So books give you the opportunity to maybe learn a little more about it anonymously or in private. And that’s why in the first two books, I’ve included sort of a very small collection of essays in the back of both that for those are mostly for folks who are maybe AI curiousl They’re on the fence. They don’t know. And this is a safe way for them to start learning about it. So that’s the purpose of them. They’re a bit …
J. Thorn
Some of them are edgy, or maybe controversial on purpose, and they don’t necessarily reflect everyone who is AI positive right now. Like, there’s a couple that I hear the most comments about, or, or there’s a few that people asked me about most frequently. One of them is, is not very optimistic, and the other one is, so maybe we’ll we’ll talk about those two. So you have a little bit of balance.
Kathrese McKee
Right.
Kathrese McKee
There you go. Do it.
J. Thorn
Now. The one that’s that people were finding very optimistic, or this resonating with a lot of indie writers specifically, is that I am suggesting we need to shift labels that we need to re identify as storytellers instead of writers. And I think, up until this point, the definition of a writer had to do with the mechanical nature of the activity, whether it was a stylus on papyrus, whether it’s a legal pad, a typewriter, a keyboard, a dictation device, up until this point, we’ve defined writing as the act of generating words. And I’m basically saying that’s not relevant anymore. Because this new tool is a better word generator than all those previous things, going all the way back to the Gutenberg Press. And so therefore, our focus is becoming more on being a storyteller, and directing the tool that generates the words. It used to be a thing to sort of keep track of your word count. I don’t think it’s relevant anymore. I don’t think it matters, right? Because I can sit down, and I can have a scene. And I can tell ChatGPT, “Here’s what I want you to write. And you didn’t, no, you didn’t hit it here. Redo this. Insert this.” And, and I can, I can generate 10 times more words in a day than I could prior to ChatGPT. But it has nothing to do with writing, the physical act of writing. So what I think what I’m trying to explain to people is that it’s never been about the writing, it’s always been about the storytelling. And but we’ve confused those.
J. Thorn
And there are a lot of people whose identity is hung up on being a writer, for better or worse, you know, they want sort of the badge of honor, they want to kind of suffer through the difficult drafting and, and there’s a bit of gatekeeping involved, like, I can do this, and you can’t um … That, you know, and I think that’s, you know, especially, you know what really opened my eyes is learning about how people with disabilities or chronic illness have been able to use AI to generate words when they couldn’t before. Does that make them less of a writer because they physically can’t move their arm to type? I don’t think so. Absolutely not. So I think it’s really more of a focus on not so much the mechanics of what it takes to generate words, but it’s about the ideas.
J. Thorn
I totally agree with that perspective. You have to have the vision. You’re having the vision, you’re just using the machine. It’s a glorified typewriter. If you don’t mind my saying so. word generator, it’s been coached with millions of words. Millions of of of written words and essays and compositions and stories. Maybe not so many stories as compositions, but either way. But it’s, it is a machine that you’re just working with, in my opinion.
J. Thorn
Right.
Kathrese McKee
Now, I get a lot of pushback from one of my daughters because they say… Well, you know, they’re they’re taking now they’re coming from the art perspective, where they’re thinking, well, they’re taking fragments of things that people have hand created, you know, to create the pictures. And so it’s like, “AI is bad!” You know, and I’m like, mmm, maybe.
J. Thorn
That’s a little different. And I’ll give them that, I think the way that the, I think the way that images are generated by by AI, like things like MidJourney and Stable Diffusion, are different than than the words that the learning the LLMs like, like ChatGPT and Claude, they’re, they’re predictors. There. It’s a it’s a statistical algorithm that’s determining the most logical output. And this, this is a big misconception a lot of people have when they say, “Oh, well, you know, AI scraped my books. And it’s plagiarism.” That’s they’re not copying and pasting. They’re learning the algo. They’re learning the math, right? By reading books. They’re not they’re not lifting the content, right? But with images, it’s a little different with images, they are using components of of images, we’ve been scanning, which is why sometimes it’s first of all, it’s why mid journey couldn’t couldn’t draw fingers for the longest time. Because it’s not technically drawing, it’s sort of more sampling. And it also, when sometimes when you do some of these images, they bring in watermarks. And to me, that’s just pure evidence that like they’re using pixels.
Kathrese McKee
That’s a dead giveaway right there.
J. Thorn
Yeah. So I, so my opinion on that is a little different. And it’s, it’s, you know, I’m a little less excited about about that element of it. But I don’t think that applies to the language model.
J. Thorn
True, yeah.
Kathrese McKee
Yeah.
Kathrese McKee
I think what’s happened is like they conflated the AI probably the problem with AI and graphic art, and AI, as a word generator engine, and like you say, a prediction engine. I think that’s what it is, I think it’ll get straightened out. But in the meantime, there’s a lot of like, mudslinging going on that, you know, all AI is evil, and, you know, plagiaristic, and so forth. So, I know that in the end, it’s the human touch that’s going to make the story or break the story.
J. Thorn
I don’t want to, I don’t want to skirt past the other part. The other.
Kathrese McKee
Okay. Yes.
J. Thorn
And that you asked me, this one’s a little less optimistic. And I hope I’m wrong. I don’t think I will be. I basically said that I believe the entertainment industry as we’ve known it is dead. And it’s a dead man walking right now. Excuse the movie reference. But with the actors and writers on strike, I feel it’s, it’s appropriate.
J. Thorn
I really believe that we are, it’s already dead. And is it’ll be a few more years before it completely falls apart. But I’m talking about things like the movie industry in Hollywood, I’m talking about the recording industry, record labels, I’m talking about the publishing industry and authorship, I think it’s gone. I mean, if you if you look at where we are now, and you take it out to its most logical conclusion, what we’re going to end up with is we’re going to end up with a situation where you come home from work and you sit on the couch, and you decide what kind of entertainment you want that evening. And so maybe you’re in the mood to watch something visual, maybe you’re in the mood to read something, maybe you’d want to listen to some some wonderful music. If you’re if you’re our age, you’ll probably pull a book off the shelf where you probably listen to some music that you’re familiar with. But very quickly, it’s going to move to the point where you’re just going to be able to tell the your your personalized AI entertainment system, what it is you want to experience. And you can say to the AI, I want to be in a Jason Bourne movie, and I want to be the protagonist, and I want you to set it my hometown. And I want to be I want to come out victorious at the end and 30 seconds later, you could be watching that motion picture.
Kathrese McKee
Thirty seconds later, you’ve got a gun to your head and you’re being chased through the … Jason Bourne sounds like a dangerous choice.
J. Thorn
Yeah, I mean, right. Like or, or you can be like, hey, I want to be in you know, I want to be in The stand, and I want to be fighting Randall Flagg. You know, write me a book like that with me and again, it you’re going to kind of have it and so I think what that means is there are going to be professions like, like novelists and musicians and movie makers that might become like blacksmiths are today? You know, do people still are there still blacksmith? Yeah, there are. Right? But they’re very, very few. And it’s a very niche thing and only certain people buy it. Like, if you need a new hinge for your kitchen cabinet, you’re not looking up for blacksmith, you’re going to the hardware store and you’re buying the hinge. Right. I really think that’s where we’re headed. And, and quite honestly, like, these industries didn’t exist before the last century, like we, we often think that these things have been around forever, and they haven’t like, You are so right. I’d be when was the first recording? It was literally hundreds. Well, yeah, recordings have not filmed, but nobody else right Edison and up and you had Alan Lomax in the 20s and 30s, who record a lot of the Southern blues, musicians, right. But yeah, but before that, it didn’t hit a musician. Right, right, you go to a concert somewhere, or an entertainment venue or a bar or whatever to hear.
Kathrese McKee
Musician play.
J. Thorn
Yeah, in the author was not a profession. You know, like, we just think that like, these things have always been around, and we assume that they always will be and, and they’re not. Now, I’ve had conversations with folks who have said, well, that’s not entirely true. Because one of the things that humans love is they love to, they love shared experiences. So if I have a personal AI, and you have a personal AI, we’re never going to talk about the art that we consume, because it’s being created for us individually. I can see that to an extent. And there may be very, very few of the entertainers of the kinds we have today that continue to do that, that becomes a commonly shared experience. So I’m using Stephen King just because he’s the most recognizable author, not because he’s the best, right. But if you have a Stephen King type of author, people are still going to read those books that they can talk about him with each other. Or if you have a Brad Pitt style, you know, actor whose likeness gets turned into AI and then replicated for films, and people will always go to see the quote, unquote, Brad Pitt films, because they can talk about, but I don’t think that’s going to be a mainstream thing. I don’t think that’s going to be like a pop culture thing. I think it’s going to be a very niche thing. So, you know, I think the end game is that we’re going to go back to people the way things were prior to the 1900s. I think authors specifically might go back to writing books, because they really love the craft, and they maybe want to share it with some friends and family, or they just want they just want to experience it, but like making a living from it, I just don’t think that’s going to be around for much longer
Kathrese McKee
have to get patrons.
J. Thorn
Right. Right. And that was a model, right? That was a model dating back to two middle ages. You know, it was the more wealthy folks, right, who could to patronize the artists. But that’s that’s how artists made a living is they had benefactors they they weren’t selling mass market mass produce things. And it’s been a great ride. And we’ve been very fortunate to be part of it. But it’s ending.
Kathrese McKee
I was just thinking about and what you just said it was even before that, like there’s two books in the Bible, where, like Luke wrote both of them and he wrote Luke, and he wrote looking acts, and he wrote them, because he had a sponsor. Hey, I’m writing this for you, because you asked me to write it. And I guess he was paid to go do interview the people because he was, here’s my report. Here’s my report on the guy named Jesus. And here’s my report on the early church. This is what happened after that guy died. Yeah. And, and so like, that’s obviously a thing, where, you know, he hired somebody who was very educated a doctor to go find out about these things for him. Right? Yeah. So anyway, it’s, that’s a model that’s been around. So I guess if you can sell your skills, you still have a job. Or you can chat GPT.
J. Thorn
Even that’s why I go back to this idea of being a storyteller. Like, you know, it doesn’t mean people are gonna stop writing. It doesn’t mean people are gonna stop telling stories. It just means it’s not going to be economically viable to do that for 99% of the population. I think that’s what it means.
Kathrese McKee
Writing pursuits is run by Kathrese. McKee, who has been trusted by fiction authors since 2014. To take their writing to a new level of excellence. Guthrie’s is a three story methods certified editor who specializes in story diagnostics, coaching and line editing to help you prepare your story for the journey ahead. For more information, go to writing pursuits.com. The link is in the show notes. And now, back to the podcast.
J. Thorn
Certain people will have no interest in writing a book they never will But the AI is gonna get so good that they’re not going to have to like, right now you have to direct the AI and it’s only as good as what you put into it. Right? But that’s right now. It’s, it’s just getting better and better and better. And like you said that genies not going back in the bottle. And even if like, here’s the other thing, you know, there are people who are, they’re hoping they’re hoping that there’s some kind of ban. There’s a lawsuit, there’s government regulation, even if all the developments stopped right now, the publishing industry is already dead. They don’t know yet. Wow. Okay.
Kathrese McKee
So yeah, I’m not sure I want to hear that. I’m not sure I’m ready to hear. Honestly, I can see that you have a real good point that maybe the largest percentage of what is out there to read will be done with cowriting anyway. at the very least.
J. Thorn
Yeah, I don’t I include myself in this. I don’t think any of us are entitled to, to sell our books for money and make a living, and we’re just not entitled to that. Some people think they are. It’s been a great, it’s been a wonderful gift. And I don’t take it for granted. But it’s not our God-given right. And, you know, and it’s just it’s unfortunate, because I think there are a lot of people who believe it is. And a lot of people who don’t want to accept the reality of where the technology is going. And we could end up with Skynet. Like, we could end up with AI taking over systems, like I’m not I’m not, I’m not a, you know, a unicorn-and-rainbows guy when it comes to AI. I’m very realistic. And I understand that there’s some existential threats. But I can’t control any of that. I have no control over it. Neither do you. It’s happening. And so the only thing I can do, I can make a choice, I can be fearful of it, and I can spoil the rest of the time I have here worrying about what AI is going to do, or I can make the best of it on a day-by-day basis because in the end, it’s going to turn out the same way anyways.
Kathrese McKee
So that was what I was going to ask because you’re you’re you’ve got these two books about writing with cowriting with ChatGPT. And about coaching it through the process, and I’m liking that same boat, I definitely have a few more books that I would like to publish fiction books that I would like to publish. I’m on board for using it at least as a tool. And if nothing else, then editing what comes out. And you know, rewriting it, because that’s where I’m at. I believe Michael Crighton is a lot is is right about books being rewritten, not necessarily written first place, but at least improved. Even if what the machine is able to create is great, I still think it can be improved with like polishing, if you want to take that time. So, the thing that struck me when I was reading was about the obligatory scenes, and how you coach ChatGPT through the creation process.
J. Thorn
It’s been eye opening. And I think too, I will, I will backtrack a little bit on the on on not my apocalyptic scenario with for entertainment and say that it could be years before it gets sophisticated enough to do what we’re talking about, and having a personal entertainment—
Kathrese McKee
I should mention that I should mention that J. Thorn is a horror writer.
J. Thorn
Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, you know, it could be it could be a minute or two before we get to that point. And so that’s why I’m not sort of giving up my keyboard and, and everything right now. I guess I’m trying to make the best of it. I’m trying to use it as a tool. And one of the things that I realized is that I, over the years I’ve created, I’ve generated a lot of educational material on the craft. And I’ve published it, and some of it, I’m sure ChatGPT has scanned and others have it, I have to feed it. So, one of the things that I did, that you’ll never see in the book or in the prompts is all happened behind the scenes. And I think this is the difference between understanding craft and using ChatGPT. And not understanding craft. For both of those books and for one I have coming out in the very near future, I basically fed it all the Three Story Method books, and I quizzed it, and I drilled ChatGPT almost like a student. And I asked it to regurgitate the information, to synthesize it, to explain it to me so that I understood that it knew what Three Story Method was. Once I had that, I had it compile it into like a sort of like a master prompt. And then from a master prompt, I can then use that very surgically. And it’s almost like a shorthand. It’s almost like a shortcode in WordPress where I can I can give ChatGPT a very short amount of instruction, and what it’s basically doing is synthesizing all of that story methodology, including other story methodology that we’ve all used, like the hero’s journey, and the virgins promise and save the cat and snowflake, you know. All of those methodologies, they’re not the books, but the methodologies are out there, like they’re on the internet. Like, it’s not this not proprietary. It’s not behind a paywall or anything. And so I was able to take all of that, and feed that into ChatGPT to get the prompts that you see in those books. And and I have a one coming out where I took that even to the next step when I created scene archetypes. Oh, so those prompts that you’re seeing, that’s the tip of the iceberg. But they’re they’re very high powered, and they’re loaded with a lot of background information.
Kathrese McKee
This is nuts and bolts, but how did you feed it your books? And how did you remember that?
J. Thorn
Yeah, it wasn’t easy. As we’re recording this code interpreter, which is part of the ChatGPT paid account is still in beta. And they just released it a few weeks ago. So a lot, a lot of this, I’m literally doing it I’m, I’m just discovering it,
Unknown Speaker
You’re on the bleeding edge.
J. Thorn
I really am. I’m pushing this, I’m pushing the limits of this. I’m really like from a from a storytelling perspective. I’m doing things I think not many other people were doing that with this. And I’m trying to figure out, you know, how much how much I can get it to use but, but basically, code interpreter allows you to upload text documents. So I would just chunk out parts of the book into text documents. And I would give it a master list of commands. And I would say, okay, read these chapters, and then tell me synthesize that information. And then I would keep it. “Okay, now read these chapters.” Again, it’s like teaching, like, it’s almost like, you know, a student, and I’m saying, “Okay, we’re going to look at this part, and this part and this part.” And then I put it all together for ChatGPT and feed it back into it. So it’s this, constantly …
Kathrese McKee
It’s a loop.
J. Thorn
this circular loop of … Yes, teaching it and then sending it back teaching it and sending it back. So that eventually it gets crystallized to I can take basically I’m having ChatGPT synthesize an entire book down to like a couple of pages. And then I can use that, you know, in a more practical sense, but yeah, that’s all through experimentation. And code interpreter has been the only way I’ve been able to do that. I’ve used like the Ask your PDF plugin. It’s not, it’s okay, it misses a lot.
Kathrese McKee
Right?
J. Thorn
Like, especially if the PDF is a couple 100 pages, like it’s just too much. So by using text documents, and only feeding it a few chapters at a time, you know, it was painstaking. And it was a bit tedious. But, but it worked.
Kathrese McKee
That’s interesting, because I am I keep my … Most of my notes are in Obsidian, which is text based. It does have a little bit of markup, but it’s very slender. It’s like, you know, you don’t have to have the open bracket slash close bracket, it’s two asterisks and didn’t know you want it to be, you know, or no, it’s two asterisks on either side, but it’s much easier to type. So it’s text itself, and you can ignore that. Whereas if you were looking at an HTML document, for instance, with all its language, or whatever, it becomes very distracting. I have a lot of stuff in text. So that’s just one less step that I have to go through. I would have to take my word documents if I wanted to, if I had stuff in Word, and put it into text, then put it into chat to our, to your code thing to have it.
J. Thorn
Yeah. Yeah, an area interest. There’s some, there’s some quirky things that are still in beta. So I don’t really know where it’s gonna end up. And I don’t think it could interpreters really more for for more for like, coders.
Kathrese McKee
Yeah.
J. Thorn
But honestly, for creating apps, so I’m using it probably in an atypical way, which is what I do I find clothes are not intended. But yeah, like, it’s, it’s pretty simple. Like, I figured out that if I designate headings within a plain text file, like if I use a dash line above and below a line of text, and then I tell ChatGPT the section is delineated by by this dash bar like this, and I copy paste the dash bar, then it knows then when it scans the document, it goes, “Oh, wait, yep, that’s a section.” And so that’s, that’s like just one example of how you can take very simple, you know, unformatted text, basically, like I use Notepad for a lot of stuff, the old school notepad and it does the same thing, you know, I just put aput a bracket around it, or I put a dash line above and below. And then and then ChatGPT knows that’s designated, because that’s what you lose with a PDF is like sometimes it’ll, it’ll skim past the heading or it will skim past the chapter title and it doesn’t know it’s into the next chapter.
J. Thorn
Right.
J. Thorn
It’s used. I think this is all stuff by the time I’m, quote unquote, regular of people normally, it won’t be like, you know, wanting to be an issue, they’ll just like, you know, the upload document. It’ll just do it. But like, right now, I’m figuring this stuff out. You know, a lot of it is just trial and error.
Kathrese McKee
I love that. I think that it will only improve and it will only get easier to use. It’s fine it to forge ahead, if you will. But they’ll soon have stuff for, like you say, normies. I got a business computer science degree back when I was like one of the few women that did that. So I don’t consider myself a Normie. I consider myself a nerdy. Anyway. So I thought it was interesting that in your first book, you kind of warned about how discovery writers might might have a problem using ChatGPT that you turned right around. ChatGPT for Discovery Writers?
J. Thorn
Yes, yes.
Kathrese McKee
I haven’t had a chance to read that kind of like tell, tell us about that book.
J. Thorn
I always say that. Like if you’re a lifelong learner. By definition, you should be changing your mind a lot. Otherwise, what are you learning? Right? If you’re learning stuff, and then you keep still, you keep doing things the same way, you’re not really learning. So I get called out on that a lot of people are like, “Well, wait a minute.”
Kathrese McKee
“You said.”
J. Thorn
I did say that. And at the time, based on the knowledge I had, I totally believed it. Shortly after I wrote the first book. And this is something I’m not saying anyone was critical. But I’ve known this. I know that a lot of craft books, almost all craft books are not really for discovery writers.
Kathrese McKee
No they’re not.
J. Thorn
They’re plotters, they’re methodologies that they’re that that are developed to help people who plan novels and I always felt like discover writers kind of get kind of get shafted. You know, they don’t really get the same level of attention. And quite honestly, I mean, I’ve even before AI, written and published dozens of novels, and I was like, I started out as a pure pantser.
Kathrese McKee
I did too.
J. Thorn
You know what? Yeah, so I’m gonna, I’ve sort of fluctuated on the spectrum back and forth. I’ve gone from pure pantser, to hardcore plotter and sort of everywhere in between. And I thought, You know what, this can be fun, like, I’m going to I’m going to try and experiment with ChatGPT, I’m only going to come with an idea. And I’m gonna see if I can just on the fly, create a story. And I decided I was going to document what I was doing, in case it worked. Because then I could finally give discovery writers something that they could play with. And it worked. And it’s one of those one times where you get lucky, like, you know, I’ve tried 10 things, and nine of them failed. But this one thing worked. It it was it blew my mind. And this is this is the crux of that book. I had this moment, where I was interacting with ChatGPT. And I thought, Wouldn’t this be fun if instead of writing the scene together, we performed it. And I heard other people talking about asking ChatGPT to play a role like pretend you’re a movie producer, pretend you’re an attorney. And I was like, Well, why couldn’t ChatGPT pretend to be a character, my story? So I explained to ChatGPT, I’m like, “You’re gonna play this character.” And when this goes back to my HTML days, I said, “When I put the word start in brackets, that’s like the clapboard that’s like, an action. Right? And then you’re gonna, you’re we’re going to interact as characters within the story. And then when I type the word end in brackets, that’s a cut.” And I was like, I don’t know this. This is crazy, right? This is probably not gonna work.
Kathrese McKee
It’s so crazy. It just might work.
J. Thorn
It blew my mind. It was nuts. Like, it was, it was, I mean, it wasn’t perfect. You know, like, I still had to edit what it was saying. But I was basically, I was playing one role, and it was playing another, and that was generating all the dialogue in the scene. And, and the craziest part was, it knew it. I say it knew it as if it’s there. But when I typed end, and hit Enter ChatGPT next comment was like, “Hey, that was a great scene. What are your ideas for the next one?” I was like, “Oh, my God, this is crazy. This is absolutely nuts.” But like, it was so much fun to do that and like, once I figured that out, I’m like, it’s just a simple, it’s almost like an HTML bracket. It’s like just a simple Start and End, and within those within those parameters, and like, I really pushed it, like, I ended up publishing one season of a, of a, like a psychological horror speculative fiction story with it. And at one point, I was like, I’m really going to push ChatGPT. So I had it play the role of a character almost like a grim reaper character. But I told ChatGPT I said, “I’m going to talk to you. We’re going to roleplay in the scene. I’m going to be the character. You’re going to play the Grim Reaper (for lack of a better term), and you’re going to answer me, but you can only answer me using Japanese death poems.”
J. Thorn
Now, you’re probably thinking, what is a Japanese death poem? So a few weeks earlier, I heard about a Japanese death poem book on Tim Ferris podcast. Apparently, it’s a long Buddhist tradition, where, where were these priests in Japan, on their deathbed, they write a cone or a haiku or a poem as like, their sort of parting gift to the world. And sometimes they like write the poem, and they fall over dead. Sometimes, like they write the poem, and they might die like a few few days later. But it goes back centuries, they’ve been doing this for centuries. And they’re called Death poems.
Kathrese McKee
They collect them?
J. Thorn
there. Yeah, there’s like a book of them, right. And some of them go back hundreds of years. And I started reading the book. And it was really, it was really moving. Some of them were very strange and esoteric, others were sort of wise, others were sad, others were joyful. And so so I get to the scene, and I was like, I’m gonna, I’m gonna have the ChatGPT talking just Japanese stuff, poems. And it did. And like, I went back and like, I, some of them, I could find that there were evidence that they are existed, I think some of them it made up in the, in the style of a Japanese death poem.
J. Thorn
Right.
J. Thorn
And all of them contextually made sense, not common sense. And they weren’t 100. They weren’t concrete. But I could infer from what it was saying. I could get the sort of the spirit of its response.
J. Thorn
Right.
J. Thorn
And that was like a mic drop. I was just like, wow, like, I didn’t, I didn’t tell it anything about Japanese death poems. I didn’t explain what they were I just said, the rule is you can only answer in Japanese death poems. And it did.
Kathrese McKee
See, that’s the human element, you came up with something, you could challenge it, and it rose to the occasion. But that’s the human element. You infused your own creativity into it. And I guess if you create a scene and you decide that “Hey, ChatGPT (or whatever you’re going to call it) where you didn’t get this emotion that I’m looking for. This other this person is having this problem in the background. Can you somehow at that, rewrite the scene? Let’s Let’s redo it.” Can you do that?
J. Thorn
Oh, yeah, yeah. There, there were times where I had to rewrite sections, or I had to rewrite passages. There was some times I rewrote it, it for that scene, I rewrote all of its dialogue, because I’m like, it’s just not nailing. It’s just not where I want it to be. And there were other times I didn’t touch it. The dialogue was just spot on. And, and it did get better. Like I did 10 episodes, each episode was about 1000-1500 words long. And as we got deeper into it, it got better and better at it. And I haven’t started the second season yet. But I, again, back to our earlier point, I will take all of season one and I will feed it back into charge up before we start season two, so I’m not starting at zero again. I’m not retraining it very beginning and remember all of it.
Kathrese McKee
Well, I have the same character. So you can say remember that, that so and so is is a Undertaker, who an undertaker who you know is grouchy all the time.
J. Thorn
Yeah. And in my in my Scrivener document, I guess I documented everything. And I kept like character sheets. And I kept like world building information. So anytime I can just feed that right back into ChatGPT and bring it up to speed. Again, I think in a very short amount of time, you won’t have to do that. I think it’ll be able to reference everything that happened in the conversation all the way back to the beginning, even if the beginning is, you know, 50,000 words ago,
Kathrese McKee
That would be lovely.
J. Thorn
who eventually remember it. But right now I just kind of remind it, you know, it’s a little tedious, but it works.
Kathrese McKee
Right? Let’s one of the things my son uses it for is world building. And so like he does Dungeons and Dragons, he’s a dungeon master. So he goes out there and queries with ChatGPT to help him name places, come up with physical geography, and so on and so forth. You know, just to save himself a whole bunch of time. Yeah, I think that’s one of its strengths, actually, is to save you a lot of time.
J. Thorn
Yeah, I mean, that’s, I mean, that’s a whole nother conversation. But even like, the nonfiction books that I’ve been producing lately, I could have done those without AI. They would have taken me a year plus each, and with with AI, I’ve had them done in a matter of weeks.
Kathrese McKee
It seems unrelated. But, but my daughter has been watching the mini series about I think it’s a mini series about Bernie Madoff.
J. Thorn
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Kathrese McKee
I think it’s on Netflix. Not for sure.
J. Thorn
I saw it.
Kathrese McKee
I see a lot of stuff as I walk through the living room. Watching this thing about Bernie Madoff and I happen to walk through one point where they were talking about the fact that he latched on to computers right away. And he revolution revolutionized, basically, the stock market, because he latched on to that, saw the opportunity, and automated a lot of things that used to take a transaction used to take days, or even weeks to finalize, but he managed to shave the time off and shave the time off and shave the time off. And I was thinking that that’s exactly what ChatGPT does. It is, and I hate equating with Bernie Madoff, but bring him in. But it is if you see the opportunity, it is a way to level up, if you will, at least your speed. And then you can worry about the quality. Whereas before you were having to like eke it out onto the paper, or as whoever it was said, you know, open a vein and bleed on the page. But I think that you’re right, that writing is … It’s going to become more like directing.
J. Thorn
Yes, yes. And hence, you’re going to be more of a storyteller than a writer.
Kathrese McKee
So it behooves you to know about your storytelling. That’s great. I love the way that you talked about using Save the Cat! and ChatGPT to kind of come together and, and three C’s actually to come together and write a really tight story and hit all the notes.
J. Thorn
Yeah, exactly. Hero’s Journey, same way. I mean, these are, these are story archetypes for reason, they’ve lasted, again, you know, why reinvent the wheel? You know, ChatGPT has the accumulated wisdom of 1000s, or hundreds of 1000s of years of, of human thought in it. Why not take advantage of that? You know, it’s not, it’s not generating the story. It’s, it’s helping me take my ideas and put them into a framework that I know is going to connect with people.
Kathrese McKee
So I think that that’s, that’s where we’re headed. What’s your next book?
J. Thorn
The next book, and it might be out by the time this airs, because it’s very close to being published. But it’s, so you’re getting an exclusive OR I haven’t talked about this publicly yet. It’s called The Scene Archetype Handbook. I started this probably four years ago. And I set it aside because I realized it would take me probably two years of full time work to do it. And I just didn’t have the time to do that. I could not earn money for two years, right? This. But essentially what I did is I I’ve identified, I think 75 scene archetypes. When I’m calling a scene archetype, the most famous one is the West Wing walk and talk that Aaron Sorkin made popular.
J. Thorn
Okay.
J. Thorn
J. Thorn
Well, in order to this as well, right, like two characters are moving through, they’re walking, and they’re talking. And essentially, what they’re doing is they’re giving the reader or the viewer information, without info, dumping it, right, without telling them, you’re getting sort of background information. And so I’ve identified 75 scene archetypes in different categories. And what I’ve done is I’ve created a reference book, so that when you get the scene archetype, you’re gonna get an explanation of it, you’re gonna get how the three Cs work in the archetype. The protagonist wants and needs, the reader expectations, you’re gonna get three Cs for like, eight or nine different genres. And this is the cherry on top, you’re gonna get a customized prompt for that scene archetype that you can put in a ChatGPT with space for you to put your particular your particulars in there, and have it generate the first draft of a scene for you.
Kathrese McKee
I remember you talking about that idea. What was it? It was not this year, but last year was the last year in October .
J. Thorn
At least two years ago.
Kathrese McKee
Okay. It was two years ago. That’s right. And you were talking about because that was when I went to Cleveland. And yeah, so wow! And now you do it because you have chappy ChatGPT as a as a writing partner, to make it possible.
J. Thorn
And so, so much of it. I mean, it just saved me so much time, like even for every scene archetype. I’ve included three examples of three movies, three television shows, and three books of that particular art archetype. And I had ChatGPT find that for me, because it would have taken me months to find
Kathrese McKee
So long pause so long. But what I was saying is you do have to double check. So that’s like you. I had to totally make something that for me one time and I was ike, “Oh, I know what you’re doing.” I said, “Hey, go back. That’s not right.” And it’s, “Oh, so sorry.” Anyway, yeah. So when is that supposed to come out do you think?
J. Thorn
Oh, it’ll be out in August of 2023? For sure.
Kathrese McKee
Wow, that’s fantastic. So you’re going to put up a pre order page for it.
J. Thorn
I am not going to put up a pre order. That’s a whole nother conversation. But I’ll let you know very, very soon when, when and where you can get it.
Kathrese McKee
I’m, I’m excited because like I said, I just ripped through this book. It was great reading. I’m looking forward to the discovery one, because maybe I can return to my pantser roots that you know, knowing what I know, now that I didn’t know then. And then looking forward to the archetype book, because I can see how that would be just so useful.
J. Thorn
I was really inspired by the Emotion Thesaurus by Becca and …
Kathrese McKee
Angela.
Kathrese McKee
Yeah, Angela. Yeah. So it’s kind of in that vein. I really imagine it being a book that you just you grab off the shelf, you flip to find the one you like. Yeah, like there’s just there’s so helpful and so handy. And so it’s massive, though. It’s like I just format the paperback, the paperbacks, almost 500 pages, and it’s an eight by 10 trim size, so it’s gonna be a monster.
Kathrese McKee
I’ll be doing the ebook. Thanks. That’s what I do with the Emotion Thesaurus. I pull it up on Kindle on the Kindle app on my, my, my laptop when I’m writing. And then if I’m just like, stumped, I go and look at it real quick. And they go, can I use it? Oh, yeah. That’s how it’s gonna be used for me. Anyway.
J. Thorn
It’s yeah, that’s that’s the hope. I hope everyone uses it that way.
Kathrese McKee
Yeah, then you’re gonna have to do a deal with Plottr and get it in there. Yeah. I’m giving you ideas. There we go. All right. Well, thank you so much, J. It’s been a pleasure to have you on Writing Pursuits.
J. Thorn
My pleasure to, Kathrese. Always fun talking to you.
Kathrese McKee
Okay. I’ll talk to you later then. Bye. Bye.
J. Thorn
Bye.
OUTRO
Thank you for listening to the podcast today. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a star rating and follow the podcast. If you’re new around here. I hope you will sign up for writing pursuits, tips for authors, my newsletter that comes out in most Thursdays when health and life permit that link and all the links mentioned in today’s episode are in the show notes and writingpursuits.com. Please join us on Wednesdays for new episodes, and keep writing, my friends. Keep writing!
(Transcribed by https://otter.ai)
QUESTION: What do you think about using ChatGPT (or any AI) to aid the writer in developing new stories?