ChatGPT & MidJourney: Useful Tool or Potential Handicap?

[RAVENEYE]

Feb 2, 2023 0:30:32 GMT -6 Mazulla said:

Feb 1, 2023 22:24:19 GMT -6 pelwrath said:

Midjourney is showing under Authorized apps but I don’t see the sailboat anywhere else.

Do you mean authorized apps in Discord? If so, you should be able to click it and start posting prompts in one of MidJourney's channels.

Also, if you don't want to have to keep track of your images each time in MidJourney's open channels (there are so many posts to contend with), I recommend keeping track of one of your images, then long-press on it and select an "Envelope" emoji. The MidJourney bot will send you a private message in Discord with those images. You can then use the private message to enter prompts between just you and MidJourney. (Maybe I'm dumb and there is an easier way than this, but it was the easiest way I found to get a private message to open with the bot)

Hmm, this is over my head. One can have a private message with the MJ bot without a subscription? 

Anyway, some of my results are sooooo bad that there's no way I'm posting prompts to MJ's Discord where everyone can see the awful. Some were so bad I ended up deleting them, cuz I didn't want to look at them either.  I hope this AI is learning from my mistakes. Eesh, therefore I've been using my own private Discord server to post the prompts. 

And it's doubly nice that only the images you like well enough to upscale show up in the community feed of MJ's website. (freebie users can see samples, but only subscribers can see the entire feed).

[Mazulla]

@raveneye You do still need a subscription to generate images, but instead of posting in public channels in the MidJourney app (which can get super chaotic with so many posts), you will basically have your very own private message to generate images.

So you would:

1. Long-press on a generated image

2. React to it with the "Envelope" emoji

3. MidJourney will open and send that image to you in a private message

4. From that message, you can generate more images as normal, but privately.

[RAVENEYE]

Feb 2, 2023 13:25:49 GMT -6 Mazulla said:

@raveneye You do still need a subscription to generate images, but instead of posting in public channels in the MidJourney app (which can get super chaotic with so many posts), you will basically have your very own private message to generate images.

So you would:

1. Long-press on a generated image

2. React to it with the "Envelope" emoji

3. MidJourney will open and send that image to you in a private message

4. From that message, you can generate more images as normal, but privately.

Is long-press the same as upscale?

[Deleted]

I've played around with ChatGPT a bit. I actually wrote a story with it. I told it about the story I wanted, about the charaters I wanted and what was supernatural about them, and asked it a few questions. The answers were extremely insiteful and helped me figure out some directions for the story. The book is one I've had in the back of my mind for years about a Private Detective named Conroy Quinn who can hear thoughts. After talking to it for a bit, explaining what I wanted, I gave it this promopt: "Conroy is a hardboiled detective. He is sarcastic and doesn’t care about being polite, but he does want to help people. Write a scene where Conroy gets a cup of coffee on the way to the police station."

This is what it gave me:


Conroy walked into the small coffee shop on the corner, the bell ringing as he pushed the door open. The smell of freshly brewed coffee filled his nose and he couldn't help but smile. He approached the counter, his eyes scanning the menu.

"Give me a black coffee, large, and make it quick," he said, his voice gruff.

The barista, a young woman with a nose ring and dyed purple hair, raised an eyebrow at him. "Rough night?" she asked.

Conroy let out a sigh. "You have no idea," he replied.

He leaned against the counter, drumming his fingers as he waited for his coffee. He couldn't help but overhear the thoughts of the people around him, snippets of their worries and concerns filling his mind. A businessman worried about a meeting, a mother fretting about her child's school grades, a couple fighting about money.

The barista handed him his coffee, and Conroy handed her a bill, "Keep the change" he said, before taking a sip of the hot liquid. The coffee was just the way he liked it, strong and bitter.

As he walked out of the coffee shop, he couldn't shake off the feeling of being surrounded by people's problems. He knew he couldn't help everyone, but he couldn't help feeling a twinge of guilt. He would just have to focus on the case at hand, and do what he could to help the people that he could.

He took another sip of his coffee and made his way to the police station, ready to tackle whatever lay ahead.

[Deleted]

Sorry, didn't mean to double post, however.

I wrote the entire thing with ChatGPT over the course of two days. It wound up being almost 9,000 words.

It's...not great. It's very generic. I can go in and ask it to rewrite a scene with a better prompt, and it will, and it does so in about ten seconds, but the pacing is too fast, and there's so much I would need to add. That 9,000 words would probably become 50,000 by the time I was done expanding on all of it.

But I technicaly have a first draft written. It's a tiny first draft. To be honest, it felt less like writing and more like directing the story.

But what I will say it does better than me is description. I asked it to describe Conroy's office, telling it that it's on a high floor in a tall building so Conroy can get away from people's thoughts, and asked it to put something in the scene that makes the reader think Conroy sometimes sleeps there, and this is what I got:

Conroy walks into his office, a small space located on the top floor of a tall building. The walls are painted a pale gray and adorned with a few framed certificates and licenses that Conroy has earned over the years. A large wooden desk sits in the center of the room, with a few scattered papers and a computer on top. A comfortable-looking couch sits against one wall, and Conroy heads straight for it. He collapses onto the couch, letting out a sigh of relief as the noise of other people's thoughts fade away. He notices that the cushions are slightly indented, a sign that he's been sleeping on it more than he'd like to admit. A small kitchenette is located in the corner, with a coffee maker and a small fridge. A window on the other side of the room offers a view of the city, but the blinds are closed, blocking the sunlight and muffling the sounds from the street below. Conroy takes a moment to collect his thoughts and plan his next move.

End Scene.

It's insane. No, it won't replace writers just yet. But maybe one day, I'll be able to talk to it, or a program like it, about a story, input a detailed outline of a book, complete with all the characters and whatnot, and hit "enter", and it'll just give me my story.

Also, as for security, you own everything it spits out, because it's your prompt. The creators don't own what ChatGPT produces. They do, however, keep records of everything right now because they're in the testing phase and they need it to help with making it better. So take that for what you will.

[Valhalla Erikson]

My biggest concern when it comes to ChatGPT is that it prohibits aspiring writers to not put in the work and the research to establish their story. For example, say you're a cook and you have an AI that does all the cooking and prep work that goes into it for you. You just have to put in the right recipe. It isn't without its faults though.


If you're going to use it to help you build the world of your story, then it's the best platform to use. I've been using it to help me create a fantasy pantheon for my novel. Without giving everything away the pantheon is loosely inspired by Norse Mythology.



Just don't fully count on it to help you write a story. Depending on the story. My style of writing is that I like to incorporate adult themes into my stories and they're the kind of themes that violate the platforms rules. That and there's the issue of the characters sounding clunky and repetitive writing. ChatGPT is useful in some areas but in other areas you just have to do manually.

[Deleted]

It can do some amazing stuff. It can help start a scene for you, or write a scene you're not sure how to go forward with. Or it can give you options on twists and potential conflict later in the story. I have an old book about zombies and superheroes, and after explaining all the ins and outs of how it works to the program, I asked it to give me some twists that could arise, and it did an amazing job incorperating the various aspects of the setting, giving more than a few suggestions I hadn't thought of. Descriptions are great, and you can ask it to rewrite it in a different style. I had it restart a book a few times in a few different genres, and it was great. Just tell it "Rewrite that scene as if it was written by Steven King", and it'll do it. I had a scene for Conroy where he has a dream, and I asked it to write his dream as if it was written by Steven King, and it was wonderful.

But if you push it too hard, it gets repetitive, and winds up breaking itself. It's best used as a tool to help you move forward, help plot a book and give some insights going forward. Not necessarily to write the entire book for you. You still have to do the hard part of writing. But it CAN help with just about everything else.

I haven't tried using it as an editor, yet. I imagine I could put a short peice I've written and ask it to do a line edit for me, but I haven't tried. If it can, then line editors might be out of a job.

It's also really, really good at writing synopsis or blurbs. I asked it to write a query letter for the book to be given to a literary agent, and it was amazing. I asked it to write a blurb to go on the back of the book, and it was amazing. Short things like that, it does wonderfully. There are so many ways this can help authors get moving.

[RAVENEYE]

Feb 10, 2023 19:18:00 GMT -6 @tglassy said:

Sorry, didn't mean to double post, however.

I wrote the entire thing with ChatGPT over the course of two days. It wound up being almost 9,000 words.

It's...not great. It's very generic. I can go in and ask it to rewrite a scene with a better prompt, and it will, and it does so in about ten seconds, but the pacing is too fast, and there's so much I would need to add. That 9,000 words would probably become 50,000 by the time I was done expanding on all of it.

But I technicaly have a first draft written. It's a tiny first draft. To be honest, it felt less like writing and more like directing the story.

But what I will say it does better than me is description. I asked it to describe Conroy's office, telling it that it's on a high floor in a tall building so Conroy can get away from people's thoughts, and asked it to put something in the scene that makes the reader think Conroy sometimes sleeps there, and this is what I got:

Conroy walks into his office, a small space located on the top floor of a tall building. The walls are painted a pale gray and adorned with a few framed certificates and licenses that Conroy has earned over the years. A large wooden desk sits in the center of the room, with a few scattered papers and a computer on top. A comfortable-looking couch sits against one wall, and Conroy heads straight for it. He collapses onto the couch, letting out a sigh of relief as the noise of other people's thoughts fade away. He notices that the cushions are slightly indented, a sign that he's been sleeping on it more than he'd like to admit. A small kitchenette is located in the corner, with a coffee maker and a small fridge. A window on the other side of the room offers a view of the city, but the blinds are closed, blocking the sunlight and muffling the sounds from the street below. Conroy takes a moment to collect his thoughts and plan his next move.

End Scene.

It's insane. No, it won't replace writers just yet. But maybe one day, I'll be able to talk to it, or a program like it, about a story, input a detailed outline of a book, complete with all the characters and whatnot, and hit "enter", and it'll just give me my story.

Also, as for security, you own everything it spits out, because it's your prompt. The creators don't own what ChatGPT produces. They do, however, keep records of everything right now because they're in the testing phase and they need it to help with making it better. So take that for what you will.

Actually, this is one of the better ChatGPT stories I've read. Most are told like fairytales. This one, though, is something one can work with. Still summary-like and short on personality, but that'll be fun for you to work in. Pretty cool. I'm really eager to play with it, and see if it can give me some solutions to plot-problems that I wouldn't have thought of before.

And the blurb/summary writing thing makes it doubly useful to try.

[Valhalla Erikson]

When I asked for it to help me construct a setting for the titular town in my web novel I was impressed with the results.

History:

Shepard was once a small boomtown in the heart of Oregon, but over the years it has grown into a thriving mini city. The town is known for its unique blend of Victorian architecture and 1920s charm, which give it a unique and timeless feel. The supernatural and the fantastical have always been a part of Shepard's history, and as the town has grown, so too has the supernatural community.

Key Locations:

Bifrost Diner - This classic American diner serves as a gathering place for both humans and supernatural beings alike. The warm and inviting atmosphere makes the Bifrost the heart of Shepard's social scene.

The Dog Park - This ominous park is surrounded by a strong supernatural aura and is rumored to be haunted by dark and dangerous creatures. Despite its reputation, the park remains a popular spot for those seeking thrills and adventure.

The Magistrate's Office - This imposing building is home to the powerful and enigmatic Town Magistrate, Sebastian Kain. The Magistrate's Office serves as both a symbol of the Magistrate's authority and a hub for the supernatural community in Shepard.

The Paragon Agency - Led by former superhero Cody King, the Paragon Agency provides a vital service to the people of Shepard by protecting them from supernatural threats and maintaining order in the town.

The Coven's Cottage - This old, creaky building is home to the witches of Shepard, including Izumi "Izzy" Miyazaki and her sister, Ikanori Miyazaki. The coven is known for their mystical knowledge and powerful magic, and they play a crucial role in the town's supernatural community.

The Victorian Manor - This grand and imposing building belongs to Anabelle Frost, the leader of the town's vampire community. The manor is a place of luxury and excess, and is a symbol of the vampire's wealth and power.

The Student Council - This powerful and mysterious organization is made up of students of fantastical and supernatural origin and is led by Ikanori Miyazaki.

Shepard Academy - A prestigious school for supernatural students, Shepard Academy is known for its rigorous academic programs and its close connections with the supernatural community.



Culture:

Shepard has a rich and diverse culture, with a gothic and macabre feel that sets it apart from other towns. The supernatural is a celebrated aspect of the town's identity, and residents often participate in fantastical activities such as séances and spell-casting. The town is also home to a thriving art scene, with painters, writers, and musicians exploring the darker aspects of the human experience.

Despite the diversity of its supernatural community, including vampires, witches, werewolves, and other creatures, the groups work together to maintain the delicate balance of power and to protect the town from outside threats. Life in Shepard is never dull, whether facing supernatural dangers or simply enjoying a night at the Bifrost.

---

In midjourney I provide a prompt of a victorian mixed with 1920s culture type of city. Here is what it provides.

[Deleted]

Couple things:

First, I just used it to help me with my book, Morpheus One, which I wrote...goodness...it's probably been close to ten years ago, now. Maybe not quite that long, but close. Anyway, I wrote it as a NanoWriMO book, and got two thirds of the way through by the time I hit 50k words, and stopped. Then the next year I picked it up again for NaNo to finish...but had a heck of a time doing it. The last third is an absolute mess, and I've never taken the time needed to fix it. Mainly because there were a few things I wanted to introduce that I just wasn't sure if it would fit.

So I just went over the book with ChatGPT, treating it like a person and explaining my plot and what help I needed. And it was great. It learned the whole plot, and helped give me some ideas for moving forward. In fact, one of the aspects I wanted to include, but wasn't sure if it would go over well, ChatGPT actually suggested before I had a chance to tell it about that aspect. Which means my original idea wasn't as weird or out of left field as I thought. And it's also given me some ideas on how to redo that last third of the book. So that's something.


Second: The MidJourney, with AI generated art, is immensely useful for book covers. Combine that with ChatGPT doing blurbs and query letters, and all of a sudden indie authors have a ton more resources to do the things that always seem like a pain but are necessary for getting your book out there.

Third: A few weeks ago, I was planning a DND game with some friends that I was going to run, and all I knew was I wanted to use this one creature, a Quickling, in the one shot. So I asked ChatGPT, "Write an adventure for a level 1 party of four characters using DND 5e that includes a Quickling."

And. It. Did. And it was wonderful. It gave me a complete adventure, including background, challenges, and multiple possible endings. I ran the adventure and it went great. Do you know how much people pay for stuff like this?

[RAVENEYE]

Feb 12, 2023 21:49:15 GMT -6 @tglassy said:

Couple things:

First, I just used it to help me with my book, Morpheus One, which I wrote...goodness...it's probably been close to ten years ago, now. Maybe not quite that long, but close. Anyway, I wrote it as a NanoWriMO book, and got two thirds of the way through by the time I hit 50k words, and stopped. Then the next year I picked it up again for NaNo to finish...but had a heck of a time doing it. The last third is an absolute mess, and I've never taken the time needed to fix it. Mainly because there were a few things I wanted to introduce that I just wasn't sure if it would fit.

So I just went over the book with ChatGPT, treating it like a person and explaining my plot and what help I needed. And it was great. It learned the whole plot, and helped give me some ideas for moving forward. In fact, one of the aspects I wanted to include, but wasn't sure if it would go over well, ChatGPT actually suggested before I had a chance to tell it about that aspect. Which means my original idea wasn't as weird or out of left field as I thought. And it's also given me some ideas on how to redo that last third of the book. So that's something.


Second: The MidJourney, with AI generated art, is immensely useful for book covers. Combine that with ChatGPT doing blurbs and query letters, and all of a sudden indie authors have a ton more resources to do the things that always seem like a pain but are necessary for getting your book out there.

Third: A few weeks ago, I was planning a DND game with some friends that I was going to run, and all I knew was I wanted to use this one creature, a Quickling, in the one shot. So I asked ChatGPT, "Write an adventure for a level 1 party of four characters using DND 5e that includes a Quickling."

And. It. Did. And it was wonderful. It gave me a complete adventure, including background, challenges, and multiple possible endings. I ran the adventure and it went great. Do you know how much people pay for stuff like this?

Holy moly. That ChatGPT can do all that blows my mind. I'm gonna have to start playing around with it. For sure. I need new ideas to fix some plot issues in a follow-up story to my Falcons Saga. If I can just figure out a few details, I'll be excited to finish it. Right now there's nothing but dread and overwhelm and all the old ideas that won't go away. Ugh.

[Caulder Melhaire]

Well, hell's bells

neil-clarke.com/a-concerning-trend/

So much for me resubmitting to Clarkesworld in the immediate future. As I was planning to do.

One more pitfall to be aware of when scouting potential markets, it seems. How many effing idiots are pumping out unedited AI tripe in an attempt to get a quick buck 🙄

[RAVENEYE]

Feb 21, 2023 10:16:51 GMT -6 Caulder Melhaire said:

Well, hell's bells

neil-clarke.com/a-concerning-trend/

So much for me resubmitting to Clarkesworld in the immediate future. As I was planning to do.

One more pitfall to be aware of when scouting potential markets, it seems. How many effing idiots are pumping out unedited AI tripe in an attempt to get a quick buck 🙄

Holy crap. That graph blows my mind. I have so many irate thoughts on this I can even express them all. Mostly, this is effing insulting. The editors of Clarkesworld and other zines of the same echelon are extremely discerning, and the very idea that any hack with an AI actually thinks they could squeeze a shitty machine-written tale into their publications is just ignoramous bullshit.

Secondly, thanks a lot for sabotaging legit authors' opportunity to break into those exclusive markets and actually GET PAID a decent fee for their actual storytelling talents.

As if getting into these zines wasn't hard enough. 

[Valhalla Erikson]

The only way I use Chat GPT is if I need to create a Worldbuilding Bible for my Novel. And even then, I usually do the bulk of the work by incorporating characters and establishing the world while the AI tweak a few things to make it look more professional. It's one thing to use an AI like say MidJourney to help you produce a book cover but it's another to use ChatGPT as a means to write a novel for you and you do hardly any work to earn your accomplishment. It's a spit in the face to legit authors who had to put in the work to craft their story.

[Deleted]

With as far as AI has come in the last two years, in five years they'll have AI's that can write whole books from a single prompt. If you AREN"T using it to help with your writing, then you're going to be left behind.

I wrote a whole story with it. Almost 10,000 words. It was more like directing than writing. It isn't great, but it's cohesive, and I could make it better if I took the time. I likely won't, cause I have no follow through, but now that story is out of my head and on a Word Document. It never would have gotten there without it.

Though, to be honest, I probably won't use it that extensively again. PROBABLY. The main reason I say that is because I actually like writing my thoughts down. I might use ChatGPT to help me plot a book, to write a blurb, or querry letter, or to even write stories here and there, but when I used it to write a story...it wasn't MY story. I mean, it was my plot. It was most certainly my plot. And a lot of what it wrote is very close to what I would have written. But it's not...it scratches a different itch. Does that make sense? It feels like directing, more than writing.

I can see why publications will need to change in order to deal with the influx of new submissions. I can tell ChatGPT to write a 500 word piece and give it an outline of what I want and it'll be done in ten seconds. And that's just right now. In five years, it'll be worse. And I feel for them and I feel for authors (as I am one) who are now going to be competing with that...

But...you know...scribes lost their jobs when Literacy became popular. My mom has had a book in her mind since she was a teenager, and never got it on the page because she couldn't get the first paragraph right. I had her put a prompt in to ChatGPT, and it wrote her first page. And she was delighted. Her thoughts, and they were her thoughts, were now written down, and she had a place to start. She's 62 years old, and finally has her first page written down. And I dare any of you to degrade her because she didn't write it herself. It was her prompt, it was her direction, it was her story. The program just helped get her idea on a page. Cause that's what it does. It doesn't just write crap. You have to tell it what scene you want. You have to explain the characters, the setting, the plot. It'll do it's own thing if you let it, but it's so much better when you keep creative control and it just does the hard part of writing.

Some people struggle with perfectionism and will never get their story on a page because they can't get passed the crippling doubt. Well, now those poeople can take their idea, give it to ChatGPT, and say "Write the opening scene." And then their story is on a page. And that's great for them. And I might use it for those stories I have in my head that, let's face it, will never actually make it on a page. And I'm not going to feel guilty for that. It has been a long time since I've given up on the whole publishing thing. I write for me. I come up with ideas because it's who I am. I don't know if anyone will want to read what I write. But I do need to get these stories out of my head. I hate how so many of my babies will never be born. Or will be stillborn, because I have no followthrough. ChatGPT got me out of that funk for a bit. It helped.

And I'm currently working on two things, editing an old manuscript I never finished but is the closest to being complete, and worldbuilding an entirely new story because I come up with a new idea every three weeks and I can't help but work on it. I figure if I do just a teeny bit on each every night, then maybe one day they'll be done, lol.