- Level:
- Novice
- Lessons:
- 18 Lessons
Improving AI Output for Scene Beats
Discover actionable tips for fixing bad AI generations, rewriting your beats, and getting exactly the text you want.
- Reading Time
- approx. 3 min
In our last lesson, you generated your first AI prose using a scene beat. But a blank beat box can feel just as daunting as a blank page. What should you write? How detailed should you be?
In this lesson, we’ll walk through tips for writing highly effective scene beats.
Key Takeaways
- Specific, focused beats produce better prose than vague or overloaded ones.
- Including emotional tone and clear boundaries helps the AI match your vision.
- A detailed Codex improves the consistency of AI-generated prose.
- When the output isn’t right, try rewriting your beat before blaming the model.
Writing Effective Scene Beats
A detailed beat often improves the quality of the AI’s output. A guideline to follow is to give as much information as you would need to give a human writing partner to write the same prose.
- Be specific about what happens. A vague beat like “Mia talks to someone” generates vague prose. For a more directed result, try:Example
Mia chats with Old Pete at the counter about the missing mail. He’s dismissive at first, but lets slip that he saw something odd last night.
- Include emotional direction. Tell the AI the exact mood you want to achieve. If you want a tense moment or a cozy atmosphere, include those details in your prompt.Example
Mia discovers the letter hidden in Sparky’s bed. She’s amused at first — classic Sparky — but as she reads it, her stomach drops. The letter was meant for the victim.
- Keep beats focused. One beat should cover one moment or a short sequence. If you pack an entire scene into a single beat, the AI might rush the pacing. Writing multiple beats one after another allows you to cover smaller pieces of the scene carefully.
- Set boundaries. Specify any restrictions in your beat, like avoiding new characters or a certain tone.
Making the Most of Your Codex
When the AI generates prose in the manuscript, it accesses mentioned Codex entries and the prose already written in the scene. A complete Codex yields more consistent output.
If a character’s Codex entry describes them as soft-spoken and anxious, the AI is likely to write them that way. If you leave those details out, the AI will guess, and it might guess incorrectly.
Whenever I notice the AI getting a character’s personality wrong, I update their Codex to correct any phrases that might be causing confusion. As the Codex serves as a direct manual for the AI, clear entries lead to better text.
When the Output Isn’t Right
The AI occasionally generates something that is close, but needs adjustment. Here are a few approaches:
- Retry with the same beat. The AI won’t produce the exact same text twice (although often it can be very similar). If the first attempt missed the mark, a retry might succeed.
- Rewrite the beat and try again. If multiple retries fail, try being more specific in your scene beat instruction, or break the beat into two smaller prompts.
- Apply and edit by hand. The AI sometimes gets the structure right but the voice wrong. In that case, accept the generation and rewrite the parts that need tweaking. This can be much faster than aiming for a perfect generation.
- Ask for variety. You can generate multiple beats for the same moment and pick the best parts from each. This mixing-and-matching approach, also known as kit-bashing, is very popular among Novelcrafter users. The Beats Cookbook course covers this in more detail.
Mixing Human Writing with AI
You can mix manual writing with AI generation in whatever way suits your workflow. Many writers find a rhythm that combines both:
- Write dialogue by hand. You know exactly how your characters speak!
- Use beats for descriptive passages or transitions. The AI can draft something for you to polish.
- Start a scene manually to set the tone and voice, then use beats to maintain the pacing.
Find what works for you. The best approach is whichever one keeps you writing.
Closing Thoughts
You now have the tools to generate prose effectively: clear instructions, a complete Codex, and strategies for when things don’t go as planned.
In our next lesson, we will put your planning features and Write interface together. We will walk through writing a complete scene from start to finish.
This lesson was taught by:
Kate
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.