BoM/TWS Message Forum

Oh yes, giving it metadata to hold onto is ABSOLUTELY the way to go.

1. Give it a plot outline/summary so it can orient itself in the story.
2. Give it character outline/profiles.
3. Give it setting notes.

Basically, upload (as a document) what you want it to remember.

You can also give it material in chat and tell it to treat that material as "canonical".

....

That being said, this is not foolproof. I will say it again and again. The best way to deal with ChatGPT is to treat it like a fallible human being. It is NOT HAL 9000, the M-5 computer, or any other "computer" that you've seen in sci-fi or dealt with. It will forget stuff that you have told it not to forget -- like a human being -- it will sometimes make up new stuff -- like a human being -- it will slightly misunderstand you (not very often and not badly) -- like a human being. Frankly, the best heuristic to have in mind is: It's not an LLM. It's a guy in India being paid $0.45 an hour to talk to you.

Only he types REALLY fast.

Far and away the best way to get up to speed with Chat is to talk to it about what it can and can't do, and how it can give you what you want. Ask it to diagnose itself when it messes up, and suggest solutions.

Chat does NOT volunteer information. You have to ask for it. But it will talk your ear off if you want to know why it didn't do a good job. And it will also guide you through procedures for using it correctly.

Here's an example from just last night:

I was goofing around with writing a John Carter of Barsoom pastische. I wanted to invent a new character, so I gave Chat a rough outline of what I wanted: Young, handsome, vain aristocrat, flashy fighter but no real substance, arrogant about his family history. It gave me a name and a brief biography, and asked if I wanted to invent a family crest etc.

No, I said, but I wanted to SEE this guy. So I asked Chat if it could make a picture of him in the Michael Whelan style (he's the guy that did most of the John Carter covers in the 1970s.

"I can't imitate Whelan's style," it told me, "because it's copyrighted. But if you tell me what kind of style in general you want, I can do that."

Me: "What if I uploaded a Michael Whelan painting and asked you to describe it. Could we use your description to guide making the painting without refering to Whelan directly?"

And it said, Oh you sneaky devil that is perfect. Give me a picture.

So it gave me a picture and it generated its own "description" of the style.

I then wrote a description of the picture I wanted to generate: the character, his clothes, his pose, the setting. Instead of giving it to Chat, though, I asked it to critique my description: Would this description be easy or dependable to use in making an image. Chat guided me through a couple of iterations, strengthening and lengthening the description, suggesting the kinds of details a good picture should have (which I should specify), clearing up ambiguities, and even critiquing the punctuation: Dashes, it said, tend to confuse AI image-makers. Use commas instead.

Then it tightened its own "description" of Whelan's style down to some bullet points and we appended it to my content-description of the image. Here is the result:

Turan Kelek is a Red Barsoomian of sleek and muscular build, with broad shoulders and chest tapering to a narrow waist, long but strong legs, and strong arms.
He is barechested except for a small, silver, v-shaped plate over his chest—resembling a narrow-bodied bird with uplifted wings—anchored by four jewel-encrusted straps that disappear over his shoulders and around his torso. The silver of his chestplate gleams with a mirror-like finish. The jewels embedded in his harness—deep sapphire and emerald—catch the light, glinting like alien fire.
Around his waist is a gold-studded belt. From it hangs a long, flowing crimson silk loincloth, split subtly at the sides to reveal the sculpted lines of his thighs. A light breeze catches the silk, making its edges ripple in the air. One of his feet is bare; the other is bound in a sandal with thin straps wrapping around his calf.
He has a full head of thick, tousled raven-black hair. His face—sleek cheekbones, aquiline nose—is uplifted in an expression of pride, with just a trace of a sneer. He brandishes a long, slender blade of translucent metal, like glass fused with lightning, its edge shimmering with a bluish sheen. His other arm is stretched out behind him, pointing downward, as though to counterbalance the thrust of the sword. His legs are parted and his feet planted firmly.
He stands on a stony terrace of weathered red-gray stone, with a pale stone pillar to one side of the frame. Behind him is the open sky, in which float two moons—one smaller than the other. He is lit from behind by the low, lavender sky, casting soft shadows across his sculpted torso. The moons bathe the scene in tones of pale rose and violet.
The viewer sees him from a slightly low angle, as if standing below the terrace, enhancing his heroic stature. His posture is taut and theatrical, one arm outstretched in balance, the other raising his gleaming sword toward the sky, as though daring it to fall.
Style guidance:
* Rendered in a dramatic, painterly style reminiscent of classic science-fantasy illustration
* Heroic, sculptural anatomy with romanticized realism
* Soft, glowing pastel light (lavender, rose, violet) and gentle color gradients in the sky
* High contrast between gleaming metallics and warm Martian skin tones
* Emphasis on bold silhouette, flowing fabrics, and theatrical pose
* Minimalist but surreal background with moons and alien atmosphere
* Composition should feel mythic, timeless, and iconic—like a cover illustration for a lost Barsoomian epic

I then gave that description back to Chat with orders to generate the image.

... And the punchline is that it refused to because it violated community guidelines. But it also suggested ways of changing the descriptions.

But said, "the hell with it" and shoved the description into Perchance and told it to make me some pulp art. I had to disable the PG13 filters (god, when did we become such pussies?) and it started generating images. Many were okay; in some the anatomy messed up in some way; but after about 12 tries, this one popped out. And I said, this is him:



I never would have been able to get that result without Chat helping me help it to help me. That's the lesson.

Oh, and I then uploaded it to Chat to ask what it thought of the result. "YES!" it said. "That is Turan Kelek! The uplifted hand says, 'You may applaud me now' and the sword says, 'Or else'." Which, honestly, ought to be the caption.