Background:
I went with the short story route and my first approach was to ask chat GPT to randomly give me a theme to base my short story around and it gave me the theme of “Rediscovering Childhood Memories.” I then prompted it to write a story based on that theme and center it around one main character and to choose the name for the main character. It proceeded to write the story with a main character of the name “Amelia”. The story was light and fitting to the theme, so I played around with the N+7 method but it really didn’t make sense to what it generated so I discarded that. I then played with the lipogram method and figured quickly that using this method is really not good as it doesn’t really follow the instructions of removing a letter or and I even told it to rewrite the story without using a certain word and it still did use what I told it to not use. So I then discarded that and thought of including a tone into the story so I prompted it to rewrite the story utilizing a horror tone. For this it was a successful trial as it did a good job of rewriting the story with that tone in it but what I noticed is that it took away the ‘innocent and happy’ memories of childhood in the story when it was prompted to turn the story into a horror tone and turned it really dark and almost trauma dumping. So I went back and prompted it to rewrite the story while keeping the childhood memories of the character innocent and special and have a happy ending at the end. This prompt helped direct the story to what I asked and just for funsies I ended it by prompting it to turn this story into a song which is below. This exercise helped me learn how chat gpt often needs to be reminded again of what exactly you want as the more you prompt new things, sometimes things you priorly prompted will get overwritten. I found it best to be very clear on what you want and how sometimes chat gpt will get confused if you prompt sometiming you told it to not do priorly. There was a lot of editing and rewriting with this story so it shows how much of AI still needs to be revised and not just something you can just prompt to do, there still needs human touch for clarification and direction to a story.
Title: “Whispers of Innocence”
(Verse 1)
In a town cloaked in shadows, there is Amelia,
Her life is filled with worries, lost in the game.
Her days were consumed by a relentless race,
Her childhood’s sweet laughter had vanished without a trace.
(Chorus)
One haunting night, a call from the past,
Lucy’s voice, eerie, inviting her so fast.
To the hometown, they’d once left behind.
(Verse 2)
Reluctantly, she embarked on this eerie quest,
To a foggy town, where shadows never rest.
The oak tree standing, ancient and dark,
Where whispered secrets stirred a forgotten spark.
(Chorus)
In a weathered chest, secrets of their youth,
Letters, drawings, and a twisted truth.
Their innocence tainted, by a sinister force,
Yet their friendship held, of course.
(Bridge)
Amidst the horror, they laughed and cried,
As the darkness around them seemed to subside.
They ventured deeper, the cursed woods they’d explore,
To confront their fears, to close the dark door.
(Chorus)
With a diary’s guidance and friendship,
Banishing the darkness, breaking the norm.
The town square bathed in an ethereal light,
Their innocence restored, the curse taking flight.
(Verse 3)
Beneath the oak tree, now vibrant and bright,
They’d conquered the darkness, embraced the light.
Haunted memories, they’d forever defy,
As the morning sun rose in the sky.
(Chorus)
Back to their lives, in the city so wide,
Carrying the memories of that haunting ride.
With a bond unbroken, they’d cherish the past,
In the face of darkness, their friendship would last.
(Outro)
As years passed, to the oak tree they’d tend,
A symbol of childhood, a bond that won’t end.
Innocence endured, a story of might,
Even in the darkness, they found the light.