Full transcript
0:00Okay, today we're going to do something
0:01a little bit fun and we're going to be
0:03jumping off the back of a previous video
0:05that I did where I talked about taking
0:08all of your brainstorming ideas and
0:10turning it into a coherent story dossier
0:13for your book. And in this video, we're
0:15taking things to the next level and
0:17taking that story dossier and turning it
0:19into a fully fleshed out outline,
0:21complete also with information for your
0:23characters and your world building. Now,
0:25it's worth noting that people don't
0:28necessarily like to use AI at every
0:30level, even those that use it heavily,
0:32like myself. And I find myself enjoying
0:35the outlining process the most. And so,
0:37often I won't even use this or if I do,
0:40I will be rewriting significant portions
0:42of it. But this is something that can at
0:45least help you organize your ideas
0:47because sometimes we authors tend to
0:49have everything a little bit scattered.
0:50And this will sort of streamline
0:52everything to work in with a coherent
0:55template. And so hopefully this will be
0:57useful for you. Let's dive in. All
0:59right. This is the previous automation
1:00that I had did where I created a brain
1:03dump to story dossier uh uh automation.
1:07And the way it worked is I brought in a
1:09bunch of templates for different tropes
1:12that we want to see in this particular
1:14genre. The plot, the characters, the
1:15world building. And just in preparation
1:18for this video, I created a sample
1:20dossier
1:22uh for an urban fantasy with that is
1:25Celtic mythology inspired. And the
1:27premise is the harbor of Iron Bay is not
1:29just a graveyard of ships, but the
1:30prophesied sight of a modern set uh
1:32second battle of I'm not even going to
1:35try and pronounce that. Uh Mave is a
1:38scavenger who dives for scrap copper
1:40unknowingly representing representing
1:42the Tuidan gods of Krath. and she finds
1:44a cauldron of plenty buried in the silt,
1:46but instead of food, it produces Awin, a
1:48distilled immortality that revives dead
1:50and turns the living into hollow husks.
1:52Anyway, it goes on and it created the
1:55main cast of characters. It created the
1:58some of the factions and minor groups.
2:00Uh, it gave me a codeex of different
2:02world building elements that's needed.
2:04But the what the dossier does is it kind
2:06of just spells out all of the different
2:08needed elements. It doesn't really flesh
2:09them out any more. We're just kind of
2:11getting a list of what we need. Uh,
2:13here's the magic system elements and
2:15some in info needed for the outline. All
2:19right, so that's what this automation
2:21did. And I did a whole video on this.
2:23Um, but in this one, we're going to use
2:26this automation which generates an
2:28outline. And actually, this is kind of a
2:30threeparter that I've broken up into two
2:33really. Um, first we collect all of our
2:36documents here. Then we run these steps
2:39which does the characters, fleshes out
2:42the characters more. And then these
2:44steps which fleshes out the world
2:46building more. And then this last step
2:48here which is separate
2:51uh and I'll get to why it's separate in
2:54a minute is where you actually do the
2:57outlining. So let's start with figuring
2:59out like what are what the heck are all
3:01these docs over here that we're pulling
3:02in. First of all, there's a it's
3:04triggered by a form. And the form has
3:07two fields. First, you enter in what the
3:09title of your book is if you have one.
3:10If not, you can just put like Celtic
3:13mythology urban fantasy 1 or something
3:15like that, you know, uh which is fine.
3:17It it'll be okay with that. And then it
3:19has a place for author notes. So, if you
3:22want to put in some of your brain dump
3:23ideas or just anything to inform it
3:26while it's generating your character's
3:28world building and outline, you can put
3:30that in the author notes section. But
3:32you you're also welcome to leave that
3:34one blank as well. Uh and then it runs
3:36through getting all of these docs. Uh
3:38these first few these first four are
3:41specifically docs that are templates for
3:46an urban fantasy. And I've actually
3:49developed this. There's a a book I
3:51published recently about how to uh write
3:54an urban fantasy. I made that book by
3:56doing a deep AI analysis as well as my
3:59own analysis because I'm somewhat
4:00familiar with the genre into bestsellers
4:03in urban fantasy and specifically
4:05standard urban fantasy. And from that
4:08got all of this information about what
4:09are the tropes that you need to hit,
4:11what is the standard plot template, like
4:14if you were to take the average of all
4:15of the chapters from all of the books
4:18and figure out what happens in each
4:19chapter, that's the plot template. Uh
4:22same with the characters and the world
4:24building. So uh from that I created
4:26these four templates that I'm using. Now
4:28you don't have to use these or you can
4:30create your own just by asking
4:31perplexity or some kind of search model
4:34to say what are the main tropes of urban
4:36fantasy and then you can put those in a
4:37doc and put them here or I I do have
4:40these templates available inside of my
4:42story hacker gold group and we did just
4:45close that group um uh at the end of the
4:48year. So to get in you'd have to join
4:49the waiting list again. But in addition
4:52to this automation, which you can also
4:53get the exact JSON files to load this
4:57into your own NAN account, you also get
5:02all of the templates from all of the
5:05genres that I'm currently studying. And
5:06I've got a lot so far. Uh, and there are
5:09going to be many more coming. Anyway,
5:10that's just a note there about the
5:12templates. And then we have a grab the
5:14story dossier. So, this is where you
5:16want to get the story dossier that was
5:18generated in the previous automation uh
5:20which I have here and uh put the Google
5:24ID for that right here. And by the
5:26[clears throat] way, someone pointed out
5:27to me and they're correct that you don't
5:29actually have to grab just the doc ID. U
5:32you can just put the whole URL in there.
5:34I don't know why I was giving myself
5:37more trouble of putting in just the doc
5:39ID, but uh you can just grab the whole
5:41URL and it will know the difference. Um
5:45and just so put the whole URL of your
5:47Google doc just in that space and it'll
5:49grab that uh story dos.sca and then you
5:52want to get these three docs. Now these
5:54three are blank docs that I will create
5:57in my Google Drive account uh where the
6:01information that we're about to generate
6:02will go. So for instance, I've created
6:05one just here called sample outline.
6:07That's going to be for the purposes of
6:08this video and it's completely blank.
6:10Right? So that's what these three docks
6:12are because that's what we're creating
6:14in this thing. We're creating a new
6:16character doc, a new worldbuing doc, and
6:18a new outlining doc. And then from
6:19there, we run into the steps that create
6:22the characters and the world building.
6:24And these function pretty
6:26self-explanatory. The reason there's
6:28three steps here is that I have a
6:29critique step where I first generate the
6:33characters and then I run it through a
6:36critique to say, okay, how well does
6:38this hold up? uh based on what the
6:41authors has outlined in the brain dump
6:44and the dossier. Um does it meet good
6:47storytelling standards? Does it fit the
6:49templates that we were given, etc. And
6:52and then I have it rewrite it with those
6:54changes in mind. Um so the initial
6:58character prompt looks something like
7:00this. I have it pull in the genre
7:02tropes. I have it pull in the character
7:04template. I have it pull in the dossier.
7:06And then as well as the notes, any
7:08author notes. Um, but you might not have
7:10anything there, but at the very least,
7:13we'll we'll pull those in. And then
7:15under the instructions, it says, "Given
7:16the above brain dump information, genre,
7:18tropes, and story dossier, I want you to
7:19create a fleshed out list of all the
7:21important characters needed specifically
7:23for this book. For each major character,
7:25I want you to have the following: a
7:27physical description, their primary role
7:29in the story, their most appropriate
7:31MyersBrigg profile, Inog and Clifton
7:34strengths, their core motivation, what
7:36is their heart's desire that is driving
7:37them most of the time, a brief
7:39explanation of their background before
7:41the start of the story, an interesting
7:42quirk, hobby, or something that makes
7:44them unique. This should be something
7:45that doesn't necessarily fit with the
7:47story, but makes the characters more
7:48interesting. Dialogue style, how do they
7:51talk? and dialogue examples. And I say I
7:55specifically want examples on what they
7:57sound like when they're relaxed,
7:58stressful, thoughtful, or excited. Uh I
8:01often find myself rewriting these uh
8:03because human written dialogue is
8:05usually better than AI written dialogue.
8:08Um and I want it I want the examples to
8:10be human written so that it gets a
8:12little bit more natural when it's
8:14writing dialogue later. Uh but I put a
8:17place for that. And then for minor
8:19characters, just have one to two
8:20sentences for each that gives us a brief
8:21understanding of their background, their
8:22core desire, and their b and their
8:24relationship to the plot. And then I
8:26tell it how to format that information.
8:29And off we go. And then again, like I
8:31said, the critique step goes through the
8:34output from the character step and gives
8:38it a critique. And then the rewrite step
8:40takes that critique and implements it.
8:42Okay, so that's what we do. And the end
8:45result looks something like this. Uh,
8:47now this is still in markdown, so it
8:49might look a little funny, but uh,
8:52essentially we have, okay, here's our
8:54character Mave Okonnell. Mave has the
8:56perpetual damp, windchapped look of
8:58someone who lives in the water. Her skin
9:00is unnaturally pale, and translucent
9:01with a network of iridescent scarring
9:03scales creeping up her neck and spine,
9:05which she hides under thick wool scarves
9:07and a modified rebreather unit. Her hair
9:10is dark, heavy, and slick, while her
9:12eyes are a shifting murky teal, often
9:14bloodshot from the strain of breathing
9:16air. She moves with a labored heaviness
9:17on land but possesses a terrifying fluid
9:19grace underwater. And then we have role
9:21in the story. She's a protagonist. Uh
9:23here are her personality profiles. Her
9:26core motivation is to earn enough money
9:28to undergo a ritual that will strip the
9:29foran taint from her blood, allowing her
9:31to remain human and live a mundane life
9:33on dry land. Uh she has some background
9:37of uh how she got to be the way she is.
9:40her quirk, which I actually like this
9:42quirk. She collects pristine vintage
9:43postcards of deserts [laughter] because
9:46she really doesn't like being trapped
9:49by the sea the way she is and like
9:51having to having to be uh this like
9:54almost mermaid hybrid thing. Uh so the
9:57Arizona, the Sahari, the goi, she's
10:00assess obsessed with places that are dry
10:02and devoid of the ocean, fantasizing
10:04about a life where she isn't drowning in
10:05humidity. Uh, here's her dialogue style.
10:08Breathless and raspy on land, often
10:11punctuated by the hiss of her
10:12rebreather. Capable of only short
10:14eclipsed sentences and underwire
10:16underwater via comms or when wet, her
10:19voice is smooth, commanding, and
10:20cynical. She uses technical driving
10:22jargon as a shield against emotional
10:24intimacy. And then we have samples of
10:27some of her dialogue. And then we move
10:28on to the next character, Declan. And
10:32uh, it just goes on like that, right?
10:34So, we have a ma like full profiles for
10:37all of the major characters. And then if
10:40we scroll down to the bottom, we have a
10:42list of minor characters that are not as
10:46fleshed out and they don't need to be as
10:48fleshed out. And we have like Mad
10:49Sweeney, the frantic twitchy leader of
10:50the Red Caps gang who wears caps died in
10:53blood. He serves as a chaotic third
10:55party trying to steal the Owen drug to
10:56sell on the street. So, just things like
10:59that that uh they aren't like major
11:01characters, but we got a list of them as
11:03well. All right. So, um if now that I've
11:07explained that, the world building
11:08section is pretty much the exact same
11:10process. We build out everything based
11:13on the template and the information
11:15provided, including in the dossier and
11:17your brain dump info, and then it
11:20critiques that and rewrites it and then
11:22sends it to the world building doc. Uh
11:24the world building prompt
11:27this looks something like this. We give
11:29it the tropes, the world building
11:30template, the dossier and your author
11:32notes. I say given the above brain dump,
11:35genre and dossier, I want you to create
11:37a fleshed out list of all important
11:39setting and worldbuilding elements
11:40needed specifically for this book. I
11:42want you to organize all the world
11:43building elements into categories. Which
11:45charact categories you use will depend
11:47on the genre and what you already have
11:49available to you in the outline in
11:50dossier. However, some of the characters
11:52you might include are highle world
11:55building, settings and locations, magic
11:57systems and technology, groups and
11:58races, gods and deities, etc., etc.,
12:00etc. And the reason I do this is because
12:03some books don't have extensive world
12:05building. Uh, if you have a romance,
12:07then your world building is going to be
12:09less about world building and more about
12:11the setting. Uh, so you would only have
12:13things like setting and locations here,
12:16maybe culture, population and politics,
12:20geography, but other than that, you're
12:22not going to have much um that's more
12:25fantasy or sci-fi. So, I try to make
12:27this one a little bit more versatile.
12:30So, it can work for a fantasy sci-fi
12:32type thing or any kind of supernatural
12:36story, but also can work for more
12:38contemporary real world type stories as
12:40well. And then from there it critiques
12:42it. It rewrites it. Sends it to the
12:43world building dock. And for this
12:45particular example, this is what it came
12:46up with. Um, highle world building. We
12:50have the masquerade. Uh, the undertoe's
12:52law. The supernatural secrecy of Iron
12:53Bay is ruthlessly enforced by a silky
12:55crime syndicate known as the Undertoe.
12:58Instead of magical glamours or memory
13:00wipes, they maintain the veil through
13:01brutal intimidation, blackmail, and
13:03deposing the witnesses of the harbor's
13:05depths. Humans are led to believe that
13:06the magical Owen drug is a synthetic
13:08opioid that and that creature attacks
13:11are industrial accidents or shark
13:12maulings. The syndicate uses the city's
13:15heavy pollution as cover. Strange lights
13:16are dismissed as gas flares and
13:18monstrous mutations are blamed on toxic
13:21waste. And it goes through and gives us
13:23a whole bunch of info about all the
13:25different settings. uh the magic system
13:27here, groups, races, and social
13:30structure, artifacts, and objects,
13:34and some of the history and lore uh
13:36surrounding this whole thing. That's the
13:39the main part of this first step, which
13:41is creating the character doc and the
13:43world building dock. The reason I have
13:45this separated from the outline section
13:47is because I find you might want to
13:49pause and make sure that your world
13:52building sheet and your character sheet
13:54are fully fleshed out and are exactly
13:56how you want it. And you might need to
13:57add a lot of stuff or change a lot of
13:59stuff. Uh or take those docs, put them
14:02into a chatbot and interact with it a
14:04little bit more to flesh it out further.
14:06what regardless of whatever you want to
14:08do, you want to make sure your character
14:10dock and your world building dock uh as
14:12well as your dossier honestly, which you
14:14should have done before even starting
14:16using this automation is about as
14:19fleshed out as you want it to be before
14:20you actually start writing. Now, I know
14:22for some people, in fact, I just spoke
14:24to a member of my group about this, um,
14:27who isn't is more a little bit more of a
14:29discovery writer, and they're not the
14:32kind of person that wants or can handle
14:36having all of this fleshed out before
14:39they start writing. And that's totally
14:41fine. This is kind of just the way I do
14:43it. And, uh, if if you are a more seat
14:46of by the seat of your pants kind of
14:48person, an automation might not be the
14:50best for you. Uh something like
14:52Novelcrafter where you can have a lot
14:53more fine-tune control over things as
14:55you're going along might be a better
14:57fit. That's totally okay. This is just
14:59how I do it these days. I I try to make
15:02sure everything can be condensed enough
15:04into just the world building and
15:06character info we need for that book and
15:09then use that to create my outline. And
15:11then I do usually as I'm going through
15:14and writing the book, uh, I will be
15:16tweaking the outline a little bit as I
15:18go because I do tend to sort of get into
15:20the story at that stage and realize, oh,
15:23you know what, it actually might be
15:24better to change this or that. And so
15:26I'll change I'll write a few chapters at
15:28a time and sort of flesh out the
15:31outline, change it up a little bit as I
15:32go. And that's totally okay as well. But
15:36let's assume that you've gone through
15:38this character sheet, you've gone
15:39through this world building sheet, and
15:41you fixed it up exactly how you want.
15:43Same with the dossier. Uh, and you're
15:45ready to start your outline. Now, the
15:47outline I have here as blank. And that's
15:49because we're going to be doing a couple
15:50things here, demonstrating how this
15:52works. So, first of all, the way I do
15:55this is all of these initial docs here,
15:58you can actually separate these from the
16:00character sheet and then reconnect it
16:02down here with the outline. That way
16:05it'll still pull in all of these docs
16:08uh so that you can get the updated
16:10character doc and the updated worldbuing
16:12doc, but now it can apply just to this
16:16outline section, if that makes sense.
16:18What we're going to do is now we're
16:20going to take a look at this outlining.
16:21You'll notice that there is no critique
16:24step or rewrite step on the outline. And
16:26the reason for that is I've actually
16:27found it often makes it worse. And and
16:29that's something I'm toying with these
16:31days. A lot of the models these days
16:33like Gemini 3 and Cloud 4.5 Opus are
16:36really really good the first time they
16:38go and [snorts]
16:40you're not often going to get better
16:42results by doing a critique round at
16:44least at this stage. Um because it's
16:47often gets things right in the first go.
16:49Now, when you get to the actual writing,
16:51it does help to have a critique uh to
16:53try and strip out certain things uh very
16:56specific things. But at this stage, I
16:58actually found in the outlining, you
17:01know, with a decent model, you can be
17:03absolutely fine with just one step for
17:06this. However,
17:08uh the question is, do we want to do the
17:10entire outline all at once or do we want
17:13to take it a step at a time? And for me,
17:16I've left this ambiguous. You can
17:18actually choose which one you want to
17:20do. And it could be one chapter that you
17:23want to outline. It can be 10 chapters.
17:25It can be uh 40 chapters. It could be
17:27whatever you want. So, let's look at
17:29this prompt right here. All right. So,
17:31we've got a bunch of stuff happening in
17:34this particular thing. P. First of all,
17:37we are pulling in practically
17:39everything. We're pulling in the tropes
17:41template, the dossier, the world
17:43building, the characters. Actually, I
17:46don't think we probably need the
17:47dossier, honestly, because we've got the
17:50characters in the world building.
17:51Actually, no, there are some
17:52instructions on outlining in there. So,
17:54we'll keep that. And these are
17:56specifically the docs that were created
17:59in the previous step, not the templates
18:00in this case. We do pull in the trope
18:02template and the outline plot template,
18:05uh, but the characters and world
18:07building. This is the stuff that was
18:08created in the previous steps. And we
18:10pull in the outlining template. We pull
18:12in the author's notes if there are any.
18:16And then we pull in what I'm just
18:17calling the story so far.
18:20And this is going to look at your
18:22outlining doc. And if there is anything
18:24already in your outlining doc, it will
18:26know what it has written in the past.
18:28Now, if we're just getting started with
18:29chapter 1, there won't be anything
18:31there. But let's say you only generated
18:34chap a single chapter. Now, it will it
18:38will be able to look at that and say,
18:40"Okay, how do we continue on from that?"
18:42So, we pull in that as well. And then
18:44here's the thing that I will change
18:46depending on what step of the outlining
18:49process we're in. Um, and I have a
18:51section here called chapters to outline.
18:54And in this case, I say just chapter 1.
18:56So then the instructions say using the
18:58above all of this stuff generate a fully
19:02fleshed out outline for the chapters
19:03asked for by the user in the chapters to
19:05outline for this book called and then it
19:08inserts the name of the book that it
19:10pulls from the forum. Make sure to use
19:12the outline template to inform you on
19:13the kind of things that should happen in
19:15the chapters you are outlining. The
19:16summary for each chapter should have
19:18specific details rather than vague
19:19illusions to what should happen. Write
19:21it as though you were going to hand it
19:22off to a ghostriter to write the first
19:24draft. Make sure you follow the template
19:26extremely carefully. Uh, and then here's
19:28some information on formatting. And off
19:32we go. So,
19:34I've asked it to just do chapter 1 at
19:36this point. So, let's go ahead and run
19:38this and see what happens. So, I'll hit
19:40execute workflow. And now it's running
19:42through all of these different things,
19:46grabbing the contents of each of those
19:48docs. And now it's writing our outline.
19:51All right. Now, it is finished. So, if
19:52we go to our outline, we'll see. Oh,
19:55yep. We've got our first chapter listed
19:58here. May Connell is deep underwater in
20:00the rust belt of Iron Bay, scavenging
20:02copper cabling from a sunk destroyer.
20:04And as we're going through and reading
20:06this, we can uh change anything that we
20:09want, anything that's not consistent
20:10with your vision and so forth. The scene
20:13establishes Forian Tate. She feels
20:15stronger and more alive under the
20:16crushing pressure, her lungs filtering
20:19oxygen from the water with ease.
20:20However, a shifting bulkhead pins her
20:22collection bag. To free it, she uses a
20:24forbidden burst of hydrokinesis, the
20:27artificial touch, to bend the metal with
20:30water pressure, a terrifying display of
20:32competence that causes the scales on her
20:33neck to itch and spread. She
20:35communicates via comms with MK uh with
20:38Mark V or Mark uh the jazz singing ghost
20:42inhabiting a brass diving suit on her
20:45surface barge, establishing their banter
20:47and her isolation. Upon surfer seeing
20:49the status quo is shown to be painful.
20:51She immediately begins to suffocate in
20:52the open air. Frantically attaching her
20:55uh runic breather mask to survive. While
20:58counting their meager hall of iron coins
21:01is insufficient for the cure ritual. The
21:04routine is shattered when the winch
21:06drags up the salvage basket. Tangled in
21:09copper wire is not debris but a hollow
21:11husk. A reanimated corpse leaking golden
21:13owen. The creature attacks with
21:15supernatural strength, forcing Mave to
21:16pull it down with a pry bar. Put it down
21:18with a pry bar, signaling that the rot
21:20in the harbor has reached her doorstep.
21:23So, yeah, that's a pretty decent from
21:25what I've read of the dossier and
21:27everything, that's pretty decent.
21:28Chapter one definitely fits with the
21:30template. So, uh if it didn't fit with
21:33the template or or your vision, you
21:36could change it however you like. Um for
21:38the sake of time, I'm not going to spend
21:39too much time on that. But now I just go
21:42back into this outline and change one
21:44little thing where I say just chapter 2
21:47through 10. Or maybe we'll do two and
21:49just two and three just so I can
21:51demonstrate this quickly. Uh and then
21:53hit execute workflow again. And this
21:56time when it goes through and is running
22:00this whole thing, it will not only have
22:03all of the information it had before,
22:05but it will also be able to see the
22:07story so far and know that we've already
22:10done chapter 1 and it knows what
22:12happened in chapter 1. And so now as it
22:16runs, it'll do chapter 2 and three. And
22:19we should, as this automation finishes,
22:22we should see chapters two and three pop
22:24down here in the outline. And there it
22:27is. So, uh, we got chapter 2, we got
22:29chapter 3, and you can see it picks up
22:31immediately after chapter 1 here, uh,
22:35where it begins immediately, uh, action
22:37begins immediately on the barge deck as
22:38the husk convulses, spewing golden
22:40vicious awin that smokes when it hits
22:41the iron plating. Mark the sentient
22:44diving suit suffers a glitching memory
22:46relapse muttering about the great leak
22:47of 42 confirming this isn't a new
22:49phenomenon. The cleanup is interrupted
22:51by the arrival of an undertoe sleek
22:53craft and so on and so forth and so
22:57basically if you wanted to you could do
23:00the entire outline all at once that
23:02sometimes can be a little bit messy and
23:04you end up having to change quite a lot
23:05of it as you go. So having a a way of
23:08also just doing this as we go is a great
23:13way of doing this as well. So that's
23:14just something to keep in mind there.
23:16Hopefully this was a useful tutorial for
23:19you. And again, if you want to get your
23:20hands on this, it's in my StoryHacker
23:22Gold group, which you can find a link to
23:24down below. Again, you'll have to join
23:26the waiting list for now. Uh but there's
23:28a lot of cool stuff coming. So, go check
23:30it out and I'll see you in the next