Worldbuilding with ChatGPT

Write a Novel with me using ChatGPT — Part 7!

My fictional small town and its textile mill, as it would appear in 1913, generated by DALL.E

See how things start to take shape? At the beginning of this project, I had no emotional attachment to this novel, only a sharp curiosity in seeing where AI can take my writing. This was an experiment after all, and in another life, I was a mechanical engineer with a Master’s Degree in Biomedical engineering. I love data, I love experiments and above all, I love order.

A pretty strange creative am I, indeed! But we’ve all seen Stranger Things… (snickering at what my teenager would roll his eyes at. I’m also a mom, so mom jokes are my forte).

Now that my characters are practically breathing at the back of my neck, begging me to take them on this journey, I feel emotions starting to build up in the back of my mind for them, especially Emily.

But before I can drag her through Hell and rip that shard of glass at the center of her being, I need to build the stage for her story.

Now that I have a general outline, a protagonist and a set of supporting characters, I am ready to build the setting of my story.

Worldbuilding Using ChatGPT and DALL.E

All I know from my outline is that I am using a small town setting. Since I live in New England, I am familiar with it, I chose to set my story there. Easy choice, since I will be able to create a believable small town and the people who live inside it. It will be a fictional town, since I always find it’s better this way!

Now, let’s ask ChatGPT to build a small fictional town along with a description and general localisation.

As you can see, ChatGPT rounded the creation of a believable small town in Connecticut pretty well, including the textile mill that is now abandonned and the center of the haunting.

I will be changing only the name of the founding family to Hawthorne, after the mayor and one of the antagonistic forces in my novel.

Since we all love a visual aid, I did ask DALL.E to create a few images of the key sites of the town, which will be invaluable when I start writing.

The Abandonned Mill of Seabrook Mill

Now, I had a whole lot of trouble — and wasted time — asking DALL.E to create an abandonned mill that would fit the historical type from those who would be present in at the turn of the century in a small Connecticut town. For some reason, the bot gave me a variety of nice old, abandonned looking brick building with chimneys, etc., but couldn’t wrap its virtual mind around the concept of 4 stories high, which is the maximum height of building of this type during that time. It was super frustrating, in a similar fashion as what happened when I asked it to create portrait of my characters, which all were way too similar.

BUT… this is just an inspiration so here is the haunted abandonned mill of Seabrook Mill, my fictional small town.

Abandonned mill created with DALL.E to be used as a reference and inspiration.

Below are actual images from abandonned mills in Connecticut. As you can see, the mills were pretty close to the image provided, except for the pesky addition of so many stories. I will have to remember those facts when writing the story, but I still like the look and feel for the image generated by DALL.E.

Here are real images from the Library of Congress of textiles in a small Connecticut town.

Historic American Buildings Survey, Creator, Edward P Taft, and Osmund R Overby, photographers by Robinson, Cervin, and Jack E Boucher. Ponemah Mills, Main Street, Taftville, New London County, CT. Documentation Compiled After. Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/ct0092/>.

Historic American Buildings Survey, Creator, Edward P Taft, and Osmund R Overby, photographers by Robinson, Cervin, and Jack E Boucher. Ponemah Mills, Main Street, Taftville, New London County, CT. Documentation Compiled After. Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/ct0092/>.

I am also asking DALL.E to produce a map of the town, both historical and modern, to help create a clear idea in my head of the setting for my story. This is something I seldom do when I write fiction, mainly because I am not gifted at drawning and it is time consuming. AI makes it possible in a jiffy, so I am grateful for this.

Here is the historical map I have as a reference for DALL.E

Historic American Buildings Survey, Creator, Edward P Taft, and Osmund R Overby, photographers by Robinson, Cervin, and Jack E Boucher. Ponemah Mills, Main Street, Taftville, New London County, CT. Documentation Compiled After. Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/ct0092/>.

Here is the first version of the map of Seabrook Mill as it would have been in 1913.

Map of the fictional town of Seabrook Mill as it would have been in 1913

This map is very useful for me to plan and draw inspiration from for the town of Seabrook Mill as it would have been in 1913, which will be an important year in the future.

Conclusion

Asking ChatGPT to produce facts and create fictional settings was a breeze. It gave me reliable, if broad, on my fictional small town as well as the mill that was its lifeblood in the early 1900s, which is when the historical sin was commited that lead to the haunting. I’ve decided the year was 1913, given my protagonist’s age.

On the other hand, asking DALL.E to create images that are both accurate and attractive was an exercise in frustration. In the end, I didn’t end up with something I am satisfied with, but I am going to push through, because in a novel, words are more important than images.

Next: malevolent spirit and original sin, here we come!