Novelcrafter
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Level up your Beats and Instructions
Level:
Beginner
Lessons:
4 Lessons
Types of beats Lesson 2 / 3

Detailed beats

Carefully curated beats to give prose that closely follows your vision.

Reading Time
approx. 3 min
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The opposite of the simple beat, detailed beats are for those of us who like to micromanage every aspect of a scene. We are directing every move, giving our opinions on how lines are said, and telling the AI when to describe setting or objects.

These are great for when you have a clear idea of the scene in your head, and you want the AI to bring that to life, adding in minimal creativity (in terms of plot - we’re happy for it to describe that green chair if it really wants to).

Depending on what you write, you may find the output is not that much greater in length than the input, but that the prose is polished, and follows your story.

Setup

In a detailed beat, you may consider including details about:

  • Setting
  • Characters/motivations
  • Key actions
  • Key lines of dialogue
  • Beginning/ending of the scene (this stops the AI from straying too far from your original vision)
Example

Bob clutches the phone as they wait for Jane to return home from work. They catastrophize the situation, wondering if this is tied into why Jane has been more withdrawn recently. They resist the urge to turn on the phone, warring between their respect for Jane’s privacy, and their burning desire for answers. [Slowly build up the tension - from small actions, to larger moments. Bring up memories and how they tie in, and show how irrational Bob is feeling. They are self-aware, but that doesn’t mean they stop.]

When Jane enters the house, Bob stands, ready to confront them. Only… Jane has red-eyes, their makeup is ruined, and their clothes torn. They run into Bob’s arms, seeking solace. As Jane sobs, Bob sneaks the phone back into their pocket. [The wind is taken from Bob’s sails here. They don’t know what to do, how to respond, and have all of this pent up tension that they can’t do anything with.]

You may have noticed that I used square brackets in this prompt to further instruct the AI. This is a great way to add in stage directions or other background information for the AI. You aren’t limited to only summarising the scene.

Common pitfalls/troubleshooting

  1. “Not many words were written.”

    If you have included a lot of detail in your beat, then the AI is going to follow your lead.

    If you want elaboration of details or descriptions, then tell the AI to do this in your beat. You need to be specific in your instructions for where creativity is allowed.

    Think of it like asking a human to write out a beat - if they don’t know that you want lush descriptions and to focus on what’s happening outside the window, then they won’t mention it!

    If this is still an issue, consider if your prompt is asking for enough words. The system prompt (the one that is built-in to Novelcrafter) asks for 400 words at a time. If you wish for more, then you will need to change this.

  2. “The pacing feels off.”

    Look at your beat, and see if the pacing is reflective of your beat, or if the prose is clustered towards the front or back of the beat.

    It may be that you need to split the beat into two parts. Or that you need to amend your beat and tell the AI to slow the pacing down.

  3. “The result just… isn’t good.”

    You need to be flexible (and patient!) when working with AI. Sometimes just hitting ‘retry’ will give you a vastly different result!

    We recommend that you section the old prose before generating new (rather than pressing retry and losing the old prose).

Variant: Forms

Even if you do not structure your beat as prose, and instead use a form or list layout, this can still be considered a detailed beat.

Many authors like to separate aspects such as POV character, goals, location, conflict from the general descriptions, to ensure that they are front and centre of the AI’s context when writing.

Others prefer to take a more rambling approach, dictating what occurs as it appears in their head, describing the scene like a narrator.

There is no right or wrong way, and using a form-like structure may help you as the human writer understand the features of your scene, in order to better evaluate the writing output (it’s like a checklist you’ve pre-written!).

This lesson was taught by:

Profile image of Kate Robinson

Based in the UK, Kate has been writing since she was young, driven by a burning need to get the vivid tales in her head down on paper… or the computer screen.