Full transcript
0:00All right, so the last couple of videos
0:01I put out have all been about setting up
0:03Naden and getting everything ready. And
0:05I figured a lot of you just want me to
0:07get to the juicy meat of the thing and
0:09actually show you guys some automations.
0:12So today I'm going to start with a one
0:13that I consider pretty essential. Even
0:16though it's not the kind of thing that
0:18you would intuitively think about, but
0:19this is something I think every author
0:21should use. I call it the summary plus
0:24document. And this is the kind of thing
0:25that I use in multiple automations. So
0:29this is an automation that I run on my
0:31book prior to running a lot of others.
0:34So think of it as just like a pre-step
0:36to a lot of other automations, one that
0:38can be plugged into many different
0:41functionalities
0:42uh in in different automations. So
0:44enough of me yapping. Let's actually
0:46take a look at what it looks like. So
0:48this is the automation in a nutshell
0:50here in Naden that I've built out. And
0:52what this does is it creates what I call
0:55a summary plus document. So, this is not
0:58a summary document. That would be too
1:00simplistic. This is a summary plus
1:03document, but there is a really big
1:06reason why, well, a couple of reasons
1:08why I use this in other automations. But
1:11firstly, let me kind of explain to you
1:12what happens. What we do, if we look
1:15over here on the left here, it starts
1:17with just a simple click. So, I just hit
1:18this big button that says execute
1:20workflow. And then it goes into this
1:23step, which is to get a summary plus
1:25document. And what this is is a it's it
1:28starts out as a blank sheet that I put
1:32together in Google Docs. So, let me just
1:34show you what this looks like. So, I
1:36have this this uh book here. It's called
1:38Spoils of Anwin. It's the first in my
1:41Rise of King Arthur trilogy. And by the
1:44time you see this, it'll actually
1:45probably have been published. But this
1:48is uh this is kind of an epic fantasy
1:50Arthurian thing with a young King Arthur
1:52who hasn't yet become king. uh painted
1:55as a reluctant hero. And so I have the
1:58book here. I've recently finished going
2:00through it and proofreading it and
2:01everything. And now it is ready for
2:05publication, but I want to be able to
2:07create a summary plus document of it so
2:09that I can use that in some of the other
2:11things that I'm going to be developing.
2:12And I'll I'll get to like why this is
2:14important in a second. But then I've
2:17also created this document here called
2:19spoils of Amwin summary plus. And this
2:22is just a blank document for now. All I
2:24have to do is go ahead and take this ID
2:27number right here in the URL, uh, which
2:29you can find just between the last two
2:32forward slashes here. It's this little
2:34string of numbers. That's the ID number.
2:35You take that. I go to my automation, go
2:39to this little node right here where
2:42it's getting the summary plus doc, and
2:43make sure that doc ID is copy and pasted
2:47into this uh, little space. Okay. So
2:50what this does is it retrieves that
2:53document for use for later and then I
2:56have it download a file and this file is
3:00the full book that I want to summarize.
3:04So I likewise have to go and grab the ID
3:06from this document and then just double
3:10click on this download file node and
3:12make sure it's included here in this ID
3:15section of the node. And what this does,
3:19I've set this up so it is downloading
3:21the HTML of this document right here.
3:25And what that does is allows us to look
3:27at the formatting of that document.
3:30You'll notice, for example, that we have
3:31chapter 1 here. This is an H1 heading.
3:34As you can tell by up here where it says
3:36heading one. Uh, if I change this to say
3:39heading 2, it would now be an H2
3:41heading. But I want this as an H1
3:43heading. primarily for later when I'm
3:45formatting the book. It's easier to
3:47upload a doc into Attekus or Vellum or
3:49one of those if your chapters are listed
3:52as H1 headers. So, that's why I keep
3:55them at H1's. But when you're pulling in
3:58a document into NADN, typically it only
4:02looks at the plain text. It does not
4:04bring in formatting like the the H1
4:06headers. So, it'll just say chapter 1,
4:08but it won't know that chapter 1 is a
4:10header. And so I'm downloading this as
4:14HTML so that it can tell where the
4:18headers begin, right? Uh, and that also
4:21allows it to also view like what is
4:24italicized, what is bolded, and and
4:26stuff like that. And whoops, I had the
4:28wrong one. But all right, so we download
4:29the file uh with this node, and then it
4:32goes into this little code node that
4:35I've set up that returns HTML content.
4:38So it just makes sure that it takes this
4:40downloaded file and presents the HTML
4:43content uh for analysis essentially. And
4:46then this one's really important because
4:48this node is a piece of code that I
4:50developed uh that I I essentially
4:52vibecoded this uh I am not a coder by
4:56any means but I do sometimes put in
4:58little snippets of code here with the
4:59help of AI to assist in this process. So
5:03this if you guys can hear that's my
5:05that's my little girl. She is squealing
5:08right now. It's her bedtime. Um, but
5:11this is a node where we split everything
5:14up by headers. So, remember how I said I
5:16want it to know where these H1 headers
5:19are? That's because here it's going to
5:22split up the document based on those
5:24headers. So, it's going to look through
5:25the document and say, "Okay, everything
5:27between where it says chapter 1 here and
5:30the next H2 or H1 header, which is says
5:33chapter 2, it's going to look at all the
5:35content in between that and it's going
5:37to split that up into its own section.
5:39And then from there, it runs a loop on
5:43every single one and it goes one by one
5:45through each chapter. So, that's why
5:47it's important to split by headers is
5:48because it runs this prompt on each
5:50chapter. And as it goes through this
5:53prompt, it runs a single prompt on each
5:56one. Then it takes the results of that
5:58prompt and dumps it into the currently
6:02blank summary plus document. And then it
6:04repeats that process, dumps the next one
6:06into the summary plus document, dumps
6:08chapter 3, then chapter 4, then chapter
6:105, etc. So let's talk a little bit about
6:13why we're doing this. Why would you want
6:16a simple summary prompt run on every
6:20chapter of your book and then just put
6:22into a new document like this? Well, the
6:24fact of the matter is this might not be
6:27necessary for forever, but as of right
6:29now, if you were to put your whole book
6:32into a prompt, like let's say you wanted
6:34to develop some marketing materials, you
6:36wanted to develop a book description,
6:40a list of quotes, um, you know,
6:43headlines and stuff like that. Let's say
6:45you wanted to do that. If you put your
6:47entire book into that prompt to say,
6:49"Hey, here's the book. Make me marketing
6:52materials out of it." it's not going to
6:54do a good job. In fact, it would often
6:55it will often do a very poor job because
6:58what happens when you have an enormous
7:00prompt like that where 99% of your
7:02prompt is just the entire contents of
7:05your book, what you're doing is you're
7:06essentially watering down your prompt.
7:08Additionally, even though a lot of these
7:11more modern models like Gemini 3 and the
7:14Cloud 4.5s, even though they are
7:16technically capable of reading an entire
7:19book, that doesn't necessarily mean that
7:21they're actually able to understand the
7:23whole thing. In fact, the larger you
7:25give it, the more it's like looking for
7:27a needle in a hay stack. It's not really
7:29able to sort of comprehend the entire
7:31thing at once, if that makes sense. Not
7:34in the same way that it can do with a
7:36smaller chunk. So what we do is we run
7:39it through this summary press plus plus
7:41prompt and what this does is it con a it
7:45condenses the chapter uh the actual
7:48words of the chapter to a summary and b
7:51it kind of highlights key moments in
7:54that chapter that we might want an LLM
7:57to know if it's creating marketing
7:59materials or creating a story bible or
8:01whatever we want to do with it after
8:03this. So, with that in mind, let's look
8:04at the actual prompt that I'm using for
8:07this summary plus document. Now, this
8:09runs again on each individual chapter.
8:12And I will pause right here in case some
8:14of you want to screenshot this and uh
8:17and transcribe it. I'm not going to be
8:19including this below, but you can if you
8:21join my story hacker gold program, you
8:23can get the JSON files for this entire
8:25automation. So, you can make it your
8:27your own. But essentially what we have
8:29here is it says here's the chapter or
8:31scene you will analyze and then inside
8:33of some XML tags I bring in the full
8:36chapter that it's going to summarize and
8:38then once again it's much easier to
8:40handle a single chapter than an entire
8:42book all at once. It's also cheaper.
8:44Given the above section text, please
8:46follow these steps. Make sure to answer
8:48all the questions for each step. First,
8:49a summary. Create a five to six sentence
8:52summary of the events of the chapter or
8:53scene. Use character names instead of
8:55pronouns. Summarize the directive events
8:57of the scene only. Do not provide
8:58commentary of the scene. If there are
9:00multiple scenes within this chapter,
9:02split your summary into sections to
9:03identify the different scenes and what
9:04happens in them. New scenes are usually
9:07defined by a change in location, time,
9:08or perspective. And if there are many
9:10scenes in a chapter, you can write more
9:12than the above prescribed 5 to six
9:14second sentences because sometimes you
9:15have chapters with multiple scenes in
9:17them. Personally, I like to to write
9:19approximately one scene per chapter
9:21because I feel like that keeps the
9:22reader reading because the chapters are
9:25a little bit shorter. Uh, but that's
9:27just me. Uh, number two, characters.
9:29List every character who appears in the
9:30scene and only those that are actually
9:32in the scene. Describe what their
9:34actions they take. Uh, what happens to
9:36them, any physical descriptors mentioned
9:37in the scene. That's for later. If we're
9:39creating, say, a story bible and we want
9:42a physical description of the character.
9:44It can then scan through all of the
9:46different chapters where that character
9:47exists. And if there are any physical
9:49descriptors mentioned in that chapter,
9:51it can collect all of those to create
9:54its thing. As well as indications of
9:56their demographics. If a chapter
9:58mentions their age, for example, for
10:00each character, list what is their
10:01deepest heart's desire, aka the thing
10:03they want most in the scene. Then we
10:05have setting. Write out key settings of
10:07the scene. For each setting, tell us
10:08how, if that particular setting
10:10contributes to the story in a meaningful
10:11way, how does it enhance or serve the
10:13plot? How does it enhance or serve the
10:14character development? This should be no
10:16more than three to four sentences.
10:17Conflict. Identify the main source of
10:19conflict or tension in the scene. This
10:21should be one to two sentences. Tropes.
10:23Are there any tropes that are clearly
10:25evident in this scene? Limit it to
10:26three. Key quotes. What are the top
10:28three quotes or passages in this chapter
10:30or scene or quotes that would make great
10:32marketing material? List them out
10:33verbatim. Note, do not include any
10:35preamble or post comment uh post summary
10:38commentary of the scene. Just provide
10:39the headings and the summaries as
10:41outlined. format your output in markdown
10:44as follows. And then I just give it some
10:46detail about how it formats each of
10:48those things. I make sure to do it in
10:50markdown because markdown is a a
10:51language that AI is uh very capable of
10:55reading. It's also relatively easy for a
10:57human to read as well. So I have it do
10:59it in markdown and that's it. So what
11:01it's doing is is not just creating a
11:03summary of what happens in the chapter,
11:04but also listing out every character in
11:06every scene. Uh all of the setting
11:08elements, all of the conflict, the
11:10tropes. And what this does when you
11:12create the entire document, you've now,
11:14first of all, the document is
11:15significantly shorter than the whole
11:17book, which means that the AI can
11:18understand it a little better, but it's
11:20also condensed. Think of it like uh
11:23juice from concentrate, right? You get
11:26you get it in just a little bit of
11:27concentrate. And now the AI is able to
11:30understand that better than if you had
11:32given it the entire book. So, let's
11:34actually run this and see what it looks
11:35like. Now, I've already hooked up the
11:38summary plus document and the downloaded
11:40file here. So, all we have to do at this
11:42point is just say execute workflow and
11:45let it run through each of the steps.
11:47Right? So, it's now on to the first
11:49chapter one. And it's using GPD5 mini
11:51for this by the way, but honestly any of
11:53the smaller models will do this job
11:57pretty well. A summary is an easy task
11:58for AI. That's why I give it a
12:00inexpensive model. Otherwise, my bill
12:03for this would get pretty high. But
12:05since I use a small model like GPD5
12:07mini, you could also use Gemini 2.5
12:09Flash or Claude 3.5 high or 4.5 HQ. Any
12:13of those will work just just fine. I'm
12:14just happen to be using GPD5 mini for
12:17this. Give it a second and it'll be done
12:18with the first chapter. All right. So
12:21now you can see by this tiny little two
12:23right here in the loop node here that
12:26it's now on to the next uh chapter. So,
12:30if we go and look at our summary plus
12:31document, you'll notice it is no longer
12:33blank. And we already have this thing
12:36and it's formatted in markdown as you
12:38can tell by the the double pound sign
12:40here in front of chapter 1. And uh and
12:43then we have summary. So, here's the
12:44summary of the scene and then here's in
12:47information about each of the characters
12:49in that scene. Um only the ones that
12:52actually appear in the scene. I don't I
12:54noticed it was giving me a lot more
12:55characters when it would uh just when
12:59the scene would mention a character and
13:00I really don't want that. So, we just
13:03kept it to the characters that are in
13:04the scene. We have the setting,
13:06different things about the setting, the
13:08conflict, the tropes, which you got spot
13:10on here, the reluctant king, uh the bard
13:12who won't shut up, and the missing
13:14relative/ inciting uh family
13:17disappearance.
13:18uh quotes like you know I was a grain of
13:20corn once or who so pullth out this
13:22sword from this stone is duly boon king
13:23of Britain keep talking and I'll stick
13:25you into the stone that's a good one
13:27right there and it's already finished
13:29chapter 2 so we can scroll down and see
13:32it's working on that uh as it works on
13:35chapter 3 you will see that pop up right
13:37here any second now and boom there it is
13:40chapter four actually it had already
13:41done chapter three so there you can see
13:44it uh it'll just continue to do this for
13:46the entire book And granted, there's
13:49still quite a lot of words here. And I
13:51found that this process will still take
13:54up maybe 25 like the the summary plus
13:58document will be maybe 25% in terms of
14:00word count of the original book roughly.
14:03It depends on how many chapters you
14:04have. uh but uh that's still way better
14:10for an AI to understand and it'll cost
14:12you a lot less if you are using this
14:14summary plus document to plug into other
14:17documents. So let's talk about why I do
14:19this and what are some of the
14:21applications that I could use for it
14:23later. The main benefit is that I can
14:24now use this to create all kinds of new
14:28ideas and stuff from uh from this
14:31document. The two main applications that
14:34I use this for the most are for creating
14:38marketing material. So, taking this and
14:39plugging it into a marketing uh
14:43automation that will create my book
14:45description, uh my ad headlines, maybe
14:48some some YouTube content, you know, the
14:51possibilities are endless there. And
14:53especially when I give it things like
14:54the tropes and the quotes, it can use
14:56those to actually help it in uh creating
14:59those marketing materials. The other
15:01major application for this particular
15:03document is plugging it into a uh story
15:07bible automation. So taking an uh taking
15:10this document and using it to create
15:13kind of like wiki articles about each of
15:15the characters, each of the settings,
15:18your your magic system, etc. But really,
15:22this is a document that I just recommend
15:23keeping around just for the purposes of
15:26like what if you want to plug it into a
15:28notebook LM hub where you can be like,
15:31what color is this person's eyes again?
15:33You know, and you can look that up. Or
15:35if you just want to refresh yourself on
15:37the plot or something like that, you can
15:39do so by plugging this into any AI
15:42project and using it to help brainstorm
15:44your next series or whatever it is that
15:46you need it to do. I just find it's
15:48really helpful to have not just a
15:50summary of what happened in your past
15:52book, but a really detailed outline of
15:56not just the plot, but the characters
15:57and the world building and the conflict
15:59and all of that. So, there are multiple
16:01applications that you could use this
16:03for. And that's the reason why a lot a
16:05lot of people aren't talking about this
16:07because it's not a product by itself.
16:09It's just something I use to uh create
16:13other things. So that is the summary
16:15plus document in a nutshell. Hope this
16:17was useful for you and we'll have way
16:20more of these automations to share with
16:22you in the near future. Again, if you
16:25want to get your hands on this exact
16:26automation and not just try to figure it
16:28out for yourself, you can do so at the
16:30story hacker gold membership. The reason
16:32I keep that behind a payw wall is that
16:34it is kind of a complex topic and often
16:37requires a little bit of help and
16:38coaching. So we keep that there so we
16:40can, you know, work with you a little
16:42bit more directly. Hope this has been
16:44useful for you and I'll see you in the
16:45next