Using Google Gemini for Story Generation
How to Use AI in your Creative Process
Google’s AI, Gemini, formerly known as Bard, is a land of many possibilities. Hence, it is near impossible to make a compressive guide that can cover everything Gemini can be used for. But since I specifically use Gemini for more creative projects, I decided to make this guide about how to use Gemini in your story generation process. Here, I will show you some of the components that Gemini can effectively help you out with.
Outlining
When I ask Gemini for help on outline creation, I tend to first ask it what it knows about the genre I’m writing in and what conventions are found in it. This will help the AI have a deeper understanding of the genre before I ask for more specifics. I personally am a cosmic horror writer, so I tend to ask it questions such as:
What do you know about the cosmic horror genre?
What conventions are used most in the cosmic horror genre?
How can I elevate my cosmic horror story?
What cliches exist in the cosmic horror genre?
Of course, fill in the blanks with your favorite genres you like to write in and add more questions if you’d like.
Then after the pre-prompting ask it (politely) to use the knowledge it curated above to create an outline for your idea. If you liked a specific idea it gave you, feel free to emphasize that idea in your prompt!
An example prompt I wrote is this:
Using the knowledge above and specifically, using ways to elevate the cosmic horror piece and avoiding cliches, please create an outline for a cosmic horror story about a town that has been infected with an alien virus that turns everything into creatures made of bubblegum.
If you already have an existing piece that you are stuck on, you can also ask it to use its knowledge to make an outline continuing the story. You can either copy and paste the story after your prompt or link it if it’s too long. You may have to do additional prompting if you want it to focus on a specific detail that it missed out on in its initial response. But utilizing Gemini for continuing a story might help you find ideas you didn’t think of before.
I personally plugged in two paragraphs of one of my stories that has a split narrative. One POV is that of Regina who is first being introduced to the hostile planet her boyfriend, Mavi, lives on. The other POV is that of Gorgias, Mavi’s brother, watching his itchy mother bake a cake for the pair’s (Regina and Mavi’s) arrival. An explosion occurs in the distance.
The AI decided to lean into the Mother character, much to my surprise, and made her skin condition a side effect of a disease that makes her thirst for the blood of men. The cake was a lure to get these men to step into the explosive trap Mother set up. It was very surprising to me as I would have never thought of this.
However, the AI made a mistake and although it did register it was a split narrative, it thought Regina and Mavi were on a different planet.
This mistake made me realize a reader could very well make the same mistake. So, it not only gave me decent grounds for continuation but also a way to revise my ideas.
But also keep in mind that the AI will not give you the most perfect outline either and you will have to revise, even add in details you want.
Lastly, speaking of revision, you can ask it specific questions on how to revise your outline if you have one already (not written by the AI). This is especially useful for plot holes that you may be stuck with.
Story Idea Generation
Have no ideas to generate an outline with? The AI can help to give you some ideas for a story or help you to refine ideas you already have. The beginning of idea generation is also very similar to the pre-prompting I mentioned in the outline section. Asking questions about the genre, as specific as you can, will help Gemini give you more specific ideas that aren’t cliched in nature. This is especially important if you have zero ideas but know genres you are comfortable with. If you have specific, vague recollections of what you want to be included in your story such as theme, characters, landscape, etc., include questions about what the AI knows about these things as pre-prompting as well so the idea description can have more accuracy to your vision (if you can, of course).
For example, I have a vague idea of a story of a scientist from New York who was chosen to be a part of the first colony on Neptune; I want the story to deal with grief and long-lasting trauma.
If I were to have Gemini create a story idea about this, I’d first pre-prompt asking what it knows about Neptune and also what it knows about stages of grief, long-lasting trauma (PTSD), and anything else related. That way, it can incorporate the ideas it came up with into the idea and so that way it’s more accurate. If you were to do a dry prompt of this idea, it would definitely be vague. Of course, if you have no problems with this and just want a broader idea to get started, pre-prompting might not be a step you want to take. But pre-prompting allows for you to avoid cliches and vagueness.
The same steps can be taken if you want to explore more specific ideas within your story. You can ask it to give you ideas for alien life on Neptune using the knowledge it has on the planet and sentient life in general. It can give you names for a cocky pilot. It could even give you ideas for characters that would inhabit this story (though it will already do this without prompting for it when you ask it for an idea). Anything, really, just as long as you know the questions to ask beforehand to make the results more specifically geared towards what you want.
Writing the Story
If you were wondering, Gemini can technically write a whole novel for you, one chapter at a time. The chapters will be pretty short as well. My recommendation is to use Gemini for parts of the writing process you are stuck on and not writing the whole shebang. That’s because Gemini’s writing style is — well — pretty bland and your own style is 100% better, I can tell you that much. There is also a pacing issue since the chapters it writes are so short. However, having it write the next chapter based off what you already have if you are stuck might help with your own idea generation; so, I won’t completely throw that function out the window.
But Gemini does best if you are stuck on smaller parts of your story. How should I describe this object? This character? How can I make this scene feel more real? Where should this scene take place? What would be an ideal date for these two types of characters? You can share what you already have in order for the AI to get to know your story and so it can answer these questions accurately. If you don’t feel comfortable sharing your story, however, you can simply give the AI a summary through pre-prompting, trying to encapsulate as much of your idea as possible.
Overall, Gemini is a tool that can be utilized for when you are stuck or uninspired, a good one at that. You have to work for good results, but the results might help you continue your story.
