Novelcrafter
Course cover image
Level up your Beats and Instructions
Level:
Beginner
Lessons:
4 Lessons
Expected output Lesson 1 / 1

Scene Beat

For when you want to generate an entire scene in one prose generation.

Reading Time
approx. 4 min
Previous lesson

If your goal is to generate an entire scene with a ‘beat’, then you are going to have to be more specific in your beat writing, and perhaps dabble in some custom prompting. The general purpose prompt will not work for this.

Most people will write these as a detailed scene beat, to ensure you get the direction you want, but you might also (as a discovery writer) give the instruction to “continue the story for 1500 words”.

The content of the beat is flexible, the technique is more in how you set it up.

These are best to use if you have a clear idea of the scene, and want to have AI write the scene cohesively, without needing to spend time “joining” parts together. They are much harder get responses “right” however, and requires much more input on your end to get a result that you are happy with.

Setup

A custom prompt—the general purpose prompt is designed to write ca. 400 words. Unless your scene is super short, you will likely want more content. See here to learn how to edit your prompt.

  • You aren’t limited to just changing the wordcount. You can add in a structure to the scene that you want the AI to follow, or instructions for rough wordcounts, then you can add them.
  • You can also add in different AI models.

If you change the prompt to provide more “words before”, this will also educate the AI on how long your scenes are.

For those of you who are just dipping your toes into AI-prompting, here is a version of the default prompt that I have edited for you:

Choose your words prose generation

Learn how to add this prompt to your account here.

What to include

Discovery writer: see simple beat.

Plotter: see detailed beat.

Example

Simple scene beat

Example

Delilah investigates the broken power system in the PDACC and finds evidence of sabotage. She is questioned by the investigator, but holds back key information, wanting to clear something up herself first.

Detailed scene beat

Example

Delilah navigates the trecherous ducts of the PDACC, squeezing through the vents in order to get to the power hub. She scrapes herself along the way, swearing. [describe how horrible this experience is, and show that Delilah isn’t afraid to complain the entire time]

Before Delilah reaches the hub, she begins to smell something acrid, and her suspicions are raised. She moves more cautiously now, creeping forward until she finds the damaged system. It doesn’t take her long to realise that this couldn’t be accidental. The damage looks like someone has torn out the cables and set fire to them, rather than a fire causing the resultant damage. [Delilah is a competant mechanic, despite her age; show that she investigates in a methodical way, and is conscious of health and safety.]

She takes her time, working thoroughly as she tries to repair the device, and gets a partial fix, but is stopped by a shiny object; an earring she recognises–

There is commotion from below. Delilah is ordered down by her supervisor, where she comes face-to-face with Perrin Astor, the investigator in charge of searching out sabotage. [Delilah is caught off guard, now in a situation she is not strong in (talking to others) and has to improvise. Show this without making it obvious - she tries to hide her weaknesses!]

Astor doesn’t wait, questioning her immediately (trying to catch her off guard). Delilah is surprised that his questions are well-informed and precise, contradicting her assumption that all upper people didn’t care to learn outside of their own spheres.

Delilah answers his questions dilligently (although if Zora’s face indicates it, she’s not ‘polite enough’), but holds back on showing him the earring. Delilah isn’t sure why she doesn’t give this obvious clue to the investigator, but something about it is familiar. Astor seems to be suspicious (although that could be his default state), but he eventually allows her to leave, requesting a report.

Delilah leaves, feeling uneasy knowing that she has the attention of powerful people, and worrying that he knows she was hiding something.

Even a quick glance shows just how different these two beats are - whilst both describe the scene, one goes into much more detail. Now, if I wanted to, I could also combine parts of the dialogue beat with this, adding in snippets of Astor and Delilah’s conversation. If I was unhappy with the original generation, this would be a viable option to improve the prose output.

Common Pitfalls/Troubleshooting

  1. “Not many words were written.”

    If you have included a lot of the detail, 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.

    Check that you have changed everything you need to in the prompt. AI has dubious counting skills, and so you may need to put a number much higher than your desired target to get a full scene out. Some models can be coaxed to write 3-4000 words, but it takes experimentation.

  2. “The pacing is off.”

    Double-check how you have written the pacing in the beat: do you give enough attention to everything, or do you spend longer focussing on one aspect? The AI might reflect your own biases in these instances.

    You can also use square brackets to tell the ai where to [slow down] or [quicken the pace].

  3. “There isn’t enough dialogue/description/thought.”

    1. Take the time in edits to go into the prose, and use the expand prompt to add more dialogue/description/thought. You can do this by adding square brackets and asking it to [expand the dialogue/description/thought.]

    2. You can also add instructions in the scene beat where you want more dialogue/description/thought, to direct the AI to where is important.

    3. Add the dialogue/description/thought in yourself. If you know that you want a character to say a certain line, or you want a longer description for the car then add it in. Don’t be tied down by the AI generation.

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.