- selecting tools for stage 1 of the Cybah Stories project
Overview of the Cybah Stories project
The Cybah Stories project is building a set of interesting characters who are all women who come from the United Kingdom and who experience a series of life adventures. In the initial phase the writing will be author driven aided by AI, but the intention is to move this as far as possible to writing that is created by AI tools. Eventually it would be ideal to have an AI tool that was trained on the life experiences of a character, as captured by their stories, and that was capable of completely generating new episodes. We are developing AI images and video in parallel. The images here and in the linked stories are all naturally AI generated.
Available AI Text Generation tools
There are already many AI text generation tools available to use. Often they are based on the same underlying datasets but the teams working on them have adapted them to be specialised for different aspects of text generation. For example, some might be best for blog generation on technical subjects, another might write the best sales letters. This project is only concerned with finding the best AI Tools for the team to use when writing popular fiction that is simply entertaining. At the moment we are experimenting with Writesonic for several of the stories.
Example 1 from the first Melinda Adventure
Prompt given to Writesonic: The experience did at least alert Melinda to think about what might go wrong. She made a mental list of potential areas that might be the cause of problems at the conference, with the sales team at the top of it. They worked hard, were very competitive with each other, and they all seemed to think that practical jokes were good for team building. Karen, the Sales Director, should be responsible but she was as bad as the rest of them. What kind of mischief might they create?
Writesonic Extract 1: Melinda’s mind raced as she tried to think of all the potential problems that could occur. She knew that the sales team would be up to something. They always were. But what could they do that would really cause problems? She thought about the time they had put itching powder in the seats of the conference room. That had been a mess. Or the time they had switched all the name tags so that everyone was sitting in the wrong seat. That had caused quite a bit of confusion. There was also the time they had put fake spider webs all over the conference room. That had been really creepy. And then there was the time they had hidden all the coffee mugs so that everyone had to share. That had been a disaster.
Writesonic Extract 2: Melinda’s heart sank. She knew that they were talking about her, and she knew that she was in for a rough time. The conference ended, and Melinda made her way back to her room. She was tired and wanted to take a shower and relax. As she entered her room, she saw that the sales team had been there. Her bed was covered in plastic wrap, and there were wet towels hanging from the light fixtures. Melinda’s heart sank. She knew that this was just the beginning, and she had to be prepared for whatever they threw at her.
Our comment: In both extracts the Writesonic AI tool has understood the prompt and Melinda’s role in the situation. In the first it has created several relevant and inventive examples of jokes that had been played, and in the second it has seen that Melinda herself might be the target of the practical jokes. The adventure so far is here: Melinda Adventure
Example 2 from the first Alicia Adventure
Prompt given to Writesonic (1): Alicia works as a Gym Instructor in her local town of Oxford. She was brought up just outside Oxford in a rural town called Witney. She had never wanted to go to University. Fitness training has always been a passion for her. One of her jobs was to demonstrate all of the equipment to new members. Little did she know but today she was about to start a new adventure when her demonstration went wrong …
Writesonic Extract: Suddenly, mid-demonstration, the rowing machine went into overdrive and Alicia was hurled out of her seat and across the room. She hit her head on the door and was knocked unconscious. When she awoke, she found herself in a very different gym. It was old and run-down, and the equipment was ancient. Alicia was confused and disoriented, and it was only when she looked in the mirror that she realized that she was in a different time. She was wearing old-fashioned clothing, and her hair was in a style that she had never seen before. Alicia was panic-stricken. What had happened to her? She tried to leave the gym, but the door was locked. She pounded on it, but there was no response. Alicia was trapped. She explored the gym, and that’s when she saw them. The ghosts of the previous occupants of the house. They were a husband and wife, and they were looking for something.
Our comment: When you give an AI an open-ended prompt like this you never know where it will go. This example had been given the additional ‘Tone of voice’ as adventure, drama. Time travel and ghosts seem reasonable and we could just hit ‘Regenerate story’ if we wanted a different direction. Here our decision was to go with the flow and suddenly our ordinary girl Alicia is a time traveller, and why not! We compare it to the Luke Rhinehart novel called ‘The Dice Man’ where, once the hero has taken the decision to follow the result of a dice roll matched against a list of actions, his future is no longer under his own control.
To continue a story using Writesonic, we first summarise where we are in the story as now written according to our own version, as in the following:
Prompt given to Writesonic (2): Alicia seemed to have gone back in time to the 1920s. After an accident she woke in an old-fashioned gym. She was wearing old style clothes and even her hair was different. Nobody is there and the door is locked. And then …
Writesonic Extract: She was about to start screaming for help when she heard voices. She pressed her ear to the door and listened. It sounded like a man and a woman. They were arguing about something but Alicia couldn’t make out what they were saying. She pounded on the door and shouted for help. The voices stopped and she heard footsteps coming towards her. The door opened and a man and a woman stood there, looking at her in surprise.
“Who are you?” the woman demanded.
“My name is Alicia. I think I’m lost. I was at the gym and then I woke up here. Where am I?” The woman and the man exchanged a look.
“I think you’d better come with us,” the man said. He took her by the arm and led her out of the room. Alicia saw that she was in some kind of old building. The hallways were lined with lockers and there were gym equipment and weights scattered around. She was led into a office and told to sit down. The man and the woman sat down across from her.
“Where am I?” Alicia asked again. “What year is it?”
“It’s 1925,” the woman replied. Alicia blinked in disbelief. Had she really gone back in time? But how was that possible?
The adventure so far is here: Alicia Adventure
Example 3 from the first Joy Adventure
Prompt given to Writesonic: Joy and Tom have discovered a beautiful silver necklace with a complex design in its pattern. Carl is trying to get hold of it from them despite the fact it does not seem to be very valuable. Perhaps the pattern on the necklace is concealing a message that Carl needs. What could the message be?
Writesonic Extract: So they went to the jeweler and showed him the necklace. He looked at it for a long time before he spoke.
“This is a very rare and valuable necklace,” he said. “It’s made of silver, but the value lies in the patterns.”
“The patterns?” said Joy.
“Yes,” said the jeweler. “The patterns on this necklace are a code. They’re a message that only certain people will be able to understand.”
“Do you know what the message is?” said Tom.
“I’m sorry,” said the jeweler. “But I don’t. I’m not sure anyone does. But whoever left this necklace here wanted someone to find it and figure out the message.”
Our comment: Writesonic had earlier set the direction of this adventure by suggesting that someone had hidden a pretty hand-painted box containing a beautiful silver necklace in Joy’s shop. We had continued the story on using those themes and were now interested to see if Writesonic could suggest an interesting reason for the meaning of the patterns on the necklace. Sadly this time Writesonic was not able to help. For some reason it also made Carl into a cat. We could give a longer prompt — the downside of that is that Writesonic can use a lot of words simply rewriting the prompt before adding new ideas. The adventure so far is here: Joy Adventure
Example 4 from this Samantha Adventure
Prompt given to Writesonic: Samantha and Julia discuss the colourful boots being worn by girls on the disco dance floor. Samantha wants to design a pair of boots that could be worn by working women. They had to be both comfortable and stylish. She started to list things she would include in her design …
Writesonic Extract 1: Samantha knew that she wanted to design a pair of boots that could be worn by working women. They had to be both comfortable and stylish. She started to list things she would include in her design:
- A comfortable sole that would provide support for long hours on your feet
- A stylish upper that would make the boots suitable for both work and play
- A range of colours and patterns to choose from
Samantha was so excited about her idea that she could barely sit still. She knew that she had to make it a reality.
Writesonic Extract 2: She started to list the features she would include in her design:
“They would have a soft, comfortable lining, a supportive arch, and a tough, durable sole.”
“And they would be stylish!” added Julia. “Maybe we could add some embellishments, like sequins or beads.” Samantha was getting excited about the idea. She could already picture the finished product in her mind.
“I think we could definitely make a prototype,” she said. “Let’s get to work!” They spent the next few hours brainstorming ideas and sketching out a design. By the time they were finished, they had created a beautiful and unique pair of boots
Our comment: Writesonic has definitely got the idea here and added real value. The ‘tone of voice’ we gave it was ‘aspirational, drama’. At the moment Writesonic publishes two versions each time you give it a prompt. In this case both contain useable text and ideas. The adventure so far is here: Samantha Adventure
Summary: Writesonic passed the important first test we had set, which is to add value to our writing process. Provided that we supply well structured prompts it will generally provide new ideas that are relevant. As we evaluate other tools we will be able to better judge its relative strength including how well it fits into the workflow, and whether it will be able to understand longer and more complex prompts. Of course, we also look forward to seeing it develop as a tool.