When writing with AI, one of the first terms we come across is a “scene beat”. Whilst the definition varies depending on what you are writing, think of it as a set of instructions for the AI to write a moment in time in your story.

In theory, this can be as small as “Polly went home” or as long as a detailed description of what happens in an entire scene. As with everything, there is a balancing act when writing with AI.

While there is a limit on how much AI output we can get in one go, we can split our instructions into chunks to increase the length of a scene. Regardless, there are a few things to consider:

• How much detail is needed?
• How do we structure our beats?
• What information do we need to put in them?

This cookbook is designed to take you through the building blocks of scene beats. These, when combined, can help you build up scene beats that work for you. Whether you are a heavy plotter or a discovery writer, there are recipes out there that can adapt to your writing style, and will help you make the most of your work with AI.

These lessons are grouped in two ways: the type of beat (i.e. what you put into the beat), and the desired output (i.e. how much text, the type of prose that you would like in the output). Both are sister-lessons, and you can use a mix of techniques to get your desired prose.