Hello fans,
today I'd like to share with you a story I came up when I was writing "Galactica 6551". It was dealing with an interesting concept but it did not contribute to the story arc of the season so it did not become part of it. I found it a bit too "light". The events evolved around one and the same character, unlike the previous "ensemble plots" I was developing which are important for the "space opera" genre. For this reason I never thought it to be a comic strip or a short movie, but it would be great stuff for a novel. The key to make it work though was the presentation. I needed to come up with a gripping description of what was going on inside the main character and this is where the problems were. Because of the "light" (as in, "short"
) nature of the concept I had no idea how to tackle it. If it was handled the wrong way it would have turned out boring and dull, so it had to be done "right" (as on Ceta
).
The years passed by and even though the outline of the story was still present in my mind I did not believe I would be able to turn it into a good story because of time constraints. I also feared that I would artificially inflate the plot by adding trivia and stuff that would not be worth telling. In short: I had no idea how to tackle it. So I buried it in my mind and did not bother with it any longer. However, I did not forget about it which I can tell now was a good thing.
Recently everyone was talking about ChatGPT and its amazing capabilities in story telling. I got curious and gave it a try. It is an amazing piece of technology and I cannot wait to see what it will be able to do in ten years. However, my first attempts at producing a useful script or even an entire novel were rather basic and not worth talking about. Nevertheless I found the process intreaguing and quickly found out that you could "abuse" it as a story teller. I produced different short stories, tried various genres and settings to see how it worked and what it was able to do. The technology is highly advanced but you can still see that it is still in its infancy and needs refinement. This is where the human brain comes into play, the best story telling machine ever created. Chattie can give you hints, something to work with, and ideas in case of a writer's block, you have still to use your brain to bring all those ideas together and turn them into one coherent piece.
While thinking about what I could do with it I tried to flesh out several script ideas for a second season of Galactica 6551 but the shortcomings of Chattie prevented creating complex story lines. The program is only able to "remember" about 4,000 words and tends to "forget" everything that was written before. So sooner or later you will reach a point where the program deviates from rules and outlines which were established earlier in the conversation. By accident I found a way to bypass this and decided to put it to a test. All I needed was a suitable story which I could toy around with. So I remembered this one shot I came up about 20 years ago. Since it was never fleshed out and the dialogue was non-existent I thought it was the ideal candidate for practising. I swang into action, fed my thoughts and ideas to ChatGPT and wondered what it would do with it.
Much to my surprise the very first attempt was a success. I started with the story outline since it was the only thing I had stored in my mind for all these years. When I asked it for input it came up with "Unit 4735" as a title. I was struck - this was the perfect designation for a Cylon Centurion and an even better title for the story! First step checked. Then I proceeded creating the first chapter. Chat gave me several ideas to start the story and I picked the one I liked the most. Then I proceeded and fleshed out the single chapters. It went smoothly with only minor hiccups but when I got to the ending I was absolutely mesmerized. I could not believe what unfolded in front of me and I am not kidding when I say that it brought tears to my eyes because it was EXACTLY what I wanted to express but what I was unable to do before because I had no idea how I should do it.
With the whole story written down and fleshed out I thought it would be a nice idea to raise the style and asked Chat to revise the text so that it became more intense. It complied. I edited much of the stuff, smoothed things out, removed illogical parts and doubles and corrected a few things (like the laser colour; Chat made it green whereas it should be blue). What I ended up with exceeded my wildest dreams! What started as an ordinary, well, rather unspectacular story with an interesting twist became one of the best stories of my (hobby) author's career. I am extremely satisfied with it and would like to share it with you here. I hope that you enjoy reading it as I enjoyed creating it.
today I'd like to share with you a story I came up when I was writing "Galactica 6551". It was dealing with an interesting concept but it did not contribute to the story arc of the season so it did not become part of it. I found it a bit too "light". The events evolved around one and the same character, unlike the previous "ensemble plots" I was developing which are important for the "space opera" genre. For this reason I never thought it to be a comic strip or a short movie, but it would be great stuff for a novel. The key to make it work though was the presentation. I needed to come up with a gripping description of what was going on inside the main character and this is where the problems were. Because of the "light" (as in, "short"
The years passed by and even though the outline of the story was still present in my mind I did not believe I would be able to turn it into a good story because of time constraints. I also feared that I would artificially inflate the plot by adding trivia and stuff that would not be worth telling. In short: I had no idea how to tackle it. So I buried it in my mind and did not bother with it any longer. However, I did not forget about it which I can tell now was a good thing.
Recently everyone was talking about ChatGPT and its amazing capabilities in story telling. I got curious and gave it a try. It is an amazing piece of technology and I cannot wait to see what it will be able to do in ten years. However, my first attempts at producing a useful script or even an entire novel were rather basic and not worth talking about. Nevertheless I found the process intreaguing and quickly found out that you could "abuse" it as a story teller. I produced different short stories, tried various genres and settings to see how it worked and what it was able to do. The technology is highly advanced but you can still see that it is still in its infancy and needs refinement. This is where the human brain comes into play, the best story telling machine ever created. Chattie can give you hints, something to work with, and ideas in case of a writer's block, you have still to use your brain to bring all those ideas together and turn them into one coherent piece.
While thinking about what I could do with it I tried to flesh out several script ideas for a second season of Galactica 6551 but the shortcomings of Chattie prevented creating complex story lines. The program is only able to "remember" about 4,000 words and tends to "forget" everything that was written before. So sooner or later you will reach a point where the program deviates from rules and outlines which were established earlier in the conversation. By accident I found a way to bypass this and decided to put it to a test. All I needed was a suitable story which I could toy around with. So I remembered this one shot I came up about 20 years ago. Since it was never fleshed out and the dialogue was non-existent I thought it was the ideal candidate for practising. I swang into action, fed my thoughts and ideas to ChatGPT and wondered what it would do with it.
Much to my surprise the very first attempt was a success. I started with the story outline since it was the only thing I had stored in my mind for all these years. When I asked it for input it came up with "Unit 4735" as a title. I was struck - this was the perfect designation for a Cylon Centurion and an even better title for the story! First step checked. Then I proceeded creating the first chapter. Chat gave me several ideas to start the story and I picked the one I liked the most. Then I proceeded and fleshed out the single chapters. It went smoothly with only minor hiccups but when I got to the ending I was absolutely mesmerized. I could not believe what unfolded in front of me and I am not kidding when I say that it brought tears to my eyes because it was EXACTLY what I wanted to express but what I was unable to do before because I had no idea how I should do it.
With the whole story written down and fleshed out I thought it would be a nice idea to raise the style and asked Chat to revise the text so that it became more intense. It complied. I edited much of the stuff, smoothed things out, removed illogical parts and doubles and corrected a few things (like the laser colour; Chat made it green whereas it should be blue). What I ended up with exceeded my wildest dreams! What started as an ordinary, well, rather unspectacular story with an interesting twist became one of the best stories of my (hobby) author's career. I am extremely satisfied with it and would like to share it with you here. I hope that you enjoy reading it as I enjoyed creating it.
Last edited: