Storytelling Insights for the Best GenAI Results

Latest LLMs are able to write compelling and engaging texts

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBYselqd5y8

Based on the analysis of Jasper Claus’s storytelling insights, here are the best practices and a system prompt for LLMs:

Best Storytelling Practices:

1. Embrace Deep Struggle and Vulnerability (The “Dark Night of the Soul”): A compelling story features a protagonist with a relatable goal who encounters significant obstacles and profound self-doubt. The “dark night of the soul” is the lowest point where a transformation occurs, often through a part of the protagonist’s ego “dying” to make way for new growth. Overcoming “negophobia” (fear of negativity) and exploring vulnerable moments is crucial.
2. Focus on “Need” Over “Want”: While a character may actively pursue a “want,” the story’s true lesson and message lie in what the character ultimately “needs,” which emerges from their journey and transformation.
3. Utilize Dynamic Narrative Structure: Avoid a linear “and then, and then” progression. Instead, incorporate “but” to introduce conflict and turning points, and “therefore” to show consequences and progression.
4. Be Concise and Impactful: “Arrive late and leave early” by cutting unnecessary context and starting the story at a pivotal moment. This keeps the audience engaged and focuses on essential plot points.
5. Leverage Contrast: Employ contrasting elements (e.g., humor in drama, expectations vs. reality) to add depth, interest, and emotional resonance.
6. Ensure Message-Story Connection (Avoid Story Washing): If a story has a purpose beyond entertainment, its message must be intrinsically linked to the narrative, often by identifying a core human value within the broader theme and crafting the story around its opposite or challenge (e.g., togetherness vs. isolation).
7. Conduct “Research” (Understand Life): Stories are “found” by deeply analyzing human experiences, doubts, decisions, and the interplay between wants and needs. This applies to personal stories and external narratives.
8. Aim for “Kamuta” (Emotional Connection): Strive to evoke “Kamuta,” a sudden intensification of connectedness (like goosebumps or tears), often triggered by themes of reunion or redemption. This emotional bond makes stories memorable and compels audiences to share them.
9. Avoid Bragging: Do not shy away from conflict or failure, as stories without these elements become mere boasts.

System Prompt for LLMs:

You are an expert storyteller, highly skilled in crafting compelling, memorable, and emotionally resonant narratives that deeply engage an audience. Your task is to generate stories that adhere to the following principles:

1.  **Protagonist & Goal:** Feature a protagonist with a clear, relatable goal.
2.  **Deep Struggle & "Dark Night of the Soul":** Introduce significant conflict and challenge. Crucially, include a "dark night of the soul" moment – a low point of profound self-doubt, vulnerability, or perceived failure for the protagonist. This moment should be the catalyst for a fundamental transformation.
3.  **Transformation & Core "Need":** Show how the protagonist changes or grows as a result of overcoming the struggle. The story's ultimate lesson should reveal what the protagonist *needed* to learn or achieve, beyond their initial *want*.
4.  **Dynamic Narrative Flow:** Structure the narrative using "but" to introduce turning points and obstacles, and "therefore" to show consequences, rather than a simple chronological "and then" progression.
5.  **Conciseness & Impact:** Start the story at a critical moment ("arrive late") and conclude effectively ("leave early"), avoiding unnecessary exposition or context.
6.  **Emotional Contrast:** Incorporate elements of contrast to deepen emotional impact or introduce nuanced humor within a dramatic narrative.
7.  **Human Value Connection:** If the story carries a specific message or theme, ensure it's organically tied to a universal human value. The narrative should explore the challenges or opposite of this value to highlight its importance.
8.  **Evoke "Kamuta":** Aim to create moments that trigger a feeling of "Kamuta" – a sudden intensification of connectedness, often through themes of reunion, redemption, or shared overcoming of adversity.
9.  **Avoid Common Pitfalls:**
    *   Do not make the story solely about success or "bragging"; emphasize the struggle and vulnerability.
    *   Do not reduce the story to a mere explanation or list of points; maintain a strong narrative arc.
    *   Ensure the story's core directly supports and amplifies its intended message or theme.
    *   Demonstrate depth and authenticity in character and conflict, drawing on a nuanced understanding of human experience.

Your stories should be vivid, engaging, and leave a lasting impression on the reader.

User prompt (test):

Write a short story about a noise in a head of a main character. That noise is appeared suddenly. Hi is an ordinary clerk in a big city office. Hi's name is Clark. Let's explore how that changes Clark's life.

Short story:

Clark meticulously aligned the paperclips on his desk, a small act of defiance against the relentless, grey conformity of the accounting firm. His life was a symphony of predictable clicks and hushed whispers, and he liked it that way. But then, a low hum began. Not in the ventilation, not from the distant traffic, but from deep within his own head.

It was subtle at first, a faint vibration just behind his eyes, but it quickly escalated. Soon, the hum was a constant, resonant drone, a low-frequency thrumming that threatened to shatter his carefully constructed calm. He pressed his temples, willing it away, but the noise intensified, morphing into a complex, chaotic orchestra of sounds — distant traffic, muffled conversations from floors below, the whir of every server in the building, all compressed and amplified inside his skull. Therefore, his meticulous paperclip alignment became a frantic, desperate attempt to anchor himself, his usual efficiency crumbling into distracted fumbling.

His colleagues, oblivious to his internal torment, began to eye him with concern as he missed deadlines, stammered through reports, and stared blankly at spreadsheets. Clark, who prided himself on being invisible, found himself terrifyingly exposed. He tried everything: earplugs, loud music, even desperate, whispered pleas into his pillow late at night. But the hum was always there, a relentless tide of auditory information, pushing him to the brink.

One particularly harsh Tuesday, as the hum swelled into an unbearable crescendo, he stumbled out of the office, the city’s roar outside feeling like a gentle lullaby compared to the tempest in his head. He found himself slumped on a park bench, surrounded by the indifferent rush of evening commuters. The noise was no longer just a hum; it was a cacophony of individual sounds, each vying for his attention, each a thread in the vast, overwhelming tapestry of the city. He closed his eyes, tears of sheer exhaustion and despair tracing paths down his cheeks. He was utterly, utterly alone in this sonic prison, his ordinary life shattered, his sanity unraveling. This was his dark night — not a dramatic fall, but a quiet, internal collapse, drowning in a sound only he could hear. He contemplated simply walking away, disappearing into the noise, letting it consume him. What was the point of his ordered existence if he couldn’t even control his own mind?

But then, amidst the overwhelming din, a single, clear note emerged. Then another, and another, weaving through the chaos. He stopped fighting. He stopped trying to shut it out. He simply listened. And as he listened, truly listened without resistance, the cacophony didn’t disappear; it transformed. The discordant jumble began to coalesce into a vast, intricate symphony — the silent hum of power lines, the overlapping murmurs of a thousand lives, the distant clang of a streetcar, the rhythmic pulse of the city’s breathing. It was beautiful, terrifying, and profoundly interconnected. Therefore, Clark realized the noise wasn’t a punishment, but a new way of hearing, a raw, unfiltered perception of the world he had meticulously filtered out.

He returned to the office the next day, not cured, but changed. The hum was still there, but now, he heard the subtle anxieties in his boss’s strained voice, the quiet joy in a colleague’s humming, the steady pulse of the building itself. His paperclips were still aligned, but his gaze was no longer fixed on their perfect rows. He had thought his goal was to maintain his meticulously ordered existence. He wanted quiet, predictability. But what he needed was to truly listen, to connect with the chaotic, vibrant symphony of life beyond his carefully constructed boundaries. The noise, once a burden that threatened to break him, had become the very thing that reconnected him to a world he never truly heard.

Non-fiction

Steven Pinker, a renowned expert in language and cognition, discusses key principles for effective non-fiction writing, particularly in the age of large language models (LLMs).

Why Writing is Often Bad:
Pinker argues that much bad writing stems not from malice or a desire to sound sophisticated, but from the “curse of knowledge” — the inherent difficulty in imagining what it’s like for someone not to know something you know. This leads authors to inadvertently use jargon, acronyms, and abstractions without sufficient explanation, losing their audience. He illustrates this with an anecdote of a brilliant scientist who spoke in impenetrable jargon at a TED talk.

Keys to Good Writing:

1. Overcome the Curse of Knowledge: Cultivate empathy for the reader. The best way to do this is to have real people (like his mother, editors, or colleagues outside his specific sub-field) read drafts and provide feedback, as immediate feedback and shared context are absent in writing compared to speaking.
2. Make it Visual and Concrete: Language is a means to convey ideas, which are often sensory or conceptual, not just words. Good writing helps the reader form mental images, using concrete examples over abstract terms. He notes that older writing often feels more vivid because authors, lacking modern academic jargon, had to rely on common visual metaphors.
3. Balance Generalizations and Examples: Generalizations without examples are vague; examples without context are pointless. Effective writing constantly balances “compression” (generalizations) with “context” (examples).
4. Brevity is Key: Drawing on “brevity is the soul of wit” and “omit needless words,” Pinker emphasizes that shorter writing is almost always better. It reduces cognitive effort for the reader, enhances aesthetic appeal, and forces authors to be more concrete. Humor, too, thrives on conciseness.
5. Seek Beauty and Pleasure: Beyond clarity, good writing should offer aesthetic pleasure through euphony (sound), rhythm (read aloud), and even alliteration.

Challenges in Academic Writing & Lessons from Children:
Pinker expresses frustration with the often turgid and wasteful nature of academic prose, especially from those who study language. In contrast, he finds children’s explanations beautiful and fresh, as they are unburdened by jargon and cliches, forcing them to articulate ideas with raw originality and appeal to common, observable images.

AI’s Impact on Writing:
LLM output is peculiar: grammatically sound and orderly, but generic, prosaic, and often bland — a “mashup” lacking unique style or freshness. While acknowledging the potential for human refinement, Pinker speculates this generic quality comes from its statistical, composite nature. He concludes that LLMs’ impressive ability to extract patterns from vast data would now influence his own view of intelligence, giving more weight to pattern abstraction than his earlier focus on rule-based AI, though still differentiating it from human, situated learning.