Text-to-Image: A Tool for Writers to Visualize Their Stories
Write your best description and trust your readers to feel the depth of your words.
I got this advice from an author during one of her workshops. And this advice might be true.
But imagine seeing your stories coming to life with just a few words. Words that otherwise take a descriptive depth to be explained, need a simple explanation to convey the message.
Sounds like a dream, right?
Well, not anymore.
Text-to-image is a technology that can generate realistic images from text descriptions. It can help you visualize your stories, improve your descriptions, and spark your imagination.
In this article, I’ll show you how to use text-to-image as a tool for writing, and how it can take your storytelling to the next level.
Also, some great prompts to get started on text-to-image.
Ready to discover the magic of text-to-image for writers?
Let’s dive in!
Benefits of Text-to-image
Text-to-image is an AI (artificial intelligence) integrated technology that can create diverse images of anything you can describe with words, such as people, animals, landscapes, objects, and more.
As a writer, you can use it for:
- Visualising your story: Like worldbuilding or character sketching which requires a lot of description and a keen eye for details.
- Improving your descriptions: This can be pretty hard if you don’t have a clear image of your world, especially in fiction.
- Making your articles or writing attractive: Most writers use images to convey their message. Sometimes, the exact image of what you want to describe isn’t available on image platforms.
Don’t worry! AI got you covered in all of these things.
How to get Started (Basic Prompts)
Starting with AI technology might feel overwhelming at first with a lot of questions.
Which platform is good?
What prompts to use?
And sometimes, when you start, AI might not give the results you want. But don’t give up!
Start with these basic things first. You can also experiment with them to create good-quality images.
Platform: If you are a Microsoft user, you have the feature of Bing AI which is good to create images without getting any extensions.
You can also use Chat-GPT, Canva, SnapGPT, Dezgo, AI input, and stable diffusion.
Most of them are free and some of them are open source.
Basics: You need to have a basic image in mind. You can try visualising your topic and then adding words you want to describe.
For example, The image in the preview has a book which has a rainbow coming out of it. The prompt for that is Rainbow sparkles coming out of a book.
On this base, you can add elements like making rainbow sparkles, close-up angles, or the text on the book.
For example, I used wide shot, realistic image, and sparkles like magic as additional elements.
Details, details and details!
Adding more details to your text can convey your message, but it should be used wisely.
You can add details like a coffee mug on the table, a messy desk or an organised one, people looking out of their cars or windows, a person writing with a fountain pen, etc.
Remember that text-to-image requires fewer words. Lesser the words, more clear the outcome.
If you have that urge to write more descriptions, you can try integrating different elements once your base image is finalised.
Introducing Angles
Different angles can change the entire look of the image.
You can define the angle if you want clear shots of your images. Angles like wide-shot, aerial, and close-up can help define the image clearly and provide context.
For example:
This image has a close-up angle of the book.
While this image has an aerial shot.
Different References for Different Purposes
References are important to determine the purpose of your image.
If you are writing a story, and you need images to help in worldbuilding, you can use realistic images like this:
If you want to show a drawing that your character has drawn, you can use a sketching prompt or pencil colour prompt, and generate results like:
If you want to show the room of your protagonist to show her personality, you can use a prompt to show your ideal room with a description like ‘boho interior design room with a red accent’ to generate an image like:
Define your Artist
While using prompts for generating text results, we often use artists or experts' names to describe the style and tone of our results.
You can a similar feature with text-to-image.
Try integrating the name of your favourite artist to generate an accurate version of the image.
Example: Summer house painting with a beach in the style of Van Gogh.
You can try other artists and create cool pictures in seconds.
Other Styles
You can use some of these types in your prompts to enhance your image.
- Photography
- Digital art
- Realistic art
- Pop art
- Vibrant colours
- Sketch
- Watercolour
- Pencil colour
- Oil painting
- Surrealist painting
- Abstract art
- Product image
- Minimalistic
- Retro
- Renaissance painting
- Pen ink
- Pixel art
- Impressionism
Prompts
Here are some basic prompts. You can modify them according to your requirements.
- Teddy bear working on a computer wearing glasses and have a coffee mug on the desk. Digital art
- A person, sitting under a tree, meditating with his eyes closed. Pen ink
- A ground with wheat crop where some of the wheat plants have black rust on them. (You can check this one here.)
- A robot made of analog stereo equipment, digital art
- The number 2 made out of leaves, on a teal background, photorealistic.
- A computer from the 90s in the style of Vaporwave
- A mixed media portrait of a female African American computer programmer, digital art, screen print, wheat paste poster.
8. Futuristic city with a floating spire in the centre, isometric design
Conclusion
Every prompt is different and generates a unique image. Even the same prompts generate different images.
All you need to level up your text-to-image generation game is to try and experiment with your prompts.
Don’t get left out of this fast pacing technology world, rather use it to step up your writing and imagination.
For more such prompts, try the basic ones and then use integrations to enhance your images.
See you with your next article with lots of AI-generated images.
Till then, keep exploring!
