Keeping Track of Characters Part 2

Last week, I did a post about the trouble I have with keeping up with characters, especially supporting and minor characters, over the course of a series. With that thought in mind, I decided to see what ChatGPT could do. That led to the post and me going down the rabbit hole over the weekend as I continued working with ChatGPT and other apps to see what I could do.

While I am NOT a proponent of using AI to write stories or even articles, I do see its value as a tool to assist in pulling data from articles, etc., especially if you are giving it the article or piece you want the data from. Even then, however, it is far from perfect. That was proven time and again as I played with it over the weekend and saw what it came up with for character information.

First of all, if you are a novel writer and you want to use it to pull character lists, settings, etc., you are going to want to go ahead and sign up for one of the paid accounts. The lowest level is $20/mo. You can cancel at any time, so you aren’t on the hook for a year or whatever.

The main reason to do this instead of relying on the free version is you can attach a file to your command prompt. That means instead of being limited to a couple of thousand words at a time, you can attach an entire novel. That is a big time saver.

Before getting started, sit down and decide what sort of information you want the app to give you. After a lot of trial and error, I finally landed on a series of prompts that worked best for what I wanted. I asked it to list the characters, their descriptions, their professions, etc.

Sounds simple. Right?

It is but it is also not so simple. ChatGPT is upfront about telling you the returned information might not be correct. So you have to monitor what information it gives you. Trust me, it will never give you every character named in the attached file on the first try (at least not if you are working with a novel-length document). So you have to redo the prompt until you have the list you want.

But that isn’t all. Some of the names might not be correct. For example, it might combine the names of two different characters. Or it might pick up the first name or last name of a character and not the other name. Then, when you ask it to fill in the missing information, it might do it from the text or it might make something up.

However, like with so many other things in our life, as you learn more about prompts and refine exactly what you want, it gets quicker and easier. This morning, I generated a character list for Surtr’s Fury in less than half an hour. That list included all the named characters, even those who were only referred to by their first names, their physical descriptions, their jobs (if noted), their familial and personal relationships, and other character descriptors.

Here’s an example:

1. Ellen Ripley Walker (Ripley or Rip)

- **Occupation**: Bartender and Conclave Marshal

- **Special Talents/Abilities**: Descendant of Surtr, capable of wrapping herself in flames and has enhanced strength.

- **Physical Description**: Often appears in tactical gear, with a tough and resilient demeanor. She stands tall and is physically fit, with intense eyes that reflect her power and determination.

- **Relationships**:

  - **Dani**: Looks at Dani as her little sister and is very protective of her.

  - **Griffin Starke**: Complex relationship; part competitive, part respect, and part uncertainty.

 - **Razor**: Trusted ally, shares a deep bond of friendship and mutual support

The information isn’t complete. It didn’t pull out her relationship with Red or Gemma and doesn’t include information about her parents. But it is a good starting point. It is something I can then go in and tell ChatGPT to add what I want.

Yes, it takes time but that is nothing compared to how long it would take for me—or someone else—to read the book and pull the info by hand.

But there are cons to using ChatGPT for this, especially when it comes to series work. At the moment, if you are at the $20/mo level, you can only attach one file to your command prompt. (At least that is all I could figure out what to do without doing a deep internet dive.) So if you want it to pull information from an entire series at one time, you have to make a single file and there is a limit to how large of a file you can upload. The alternative is to run each book individually and then combine the character lists into a single document, one after the other, and asking ChatGPT to sort through it and merge/combine the information. When I tried it, it kind of choked.

I love the fact it can put the information into a table. Unfortunately, it doesn’t export those tables into Excel or similar programs. I’m sure there is probably a somewhat easy way to put it into table format outside of the app, but I didn’t take the time to figure it out.

So, what’s the verdict?

It is a qualified recommendation for building character lists (and other similar lists). The caveat is you do have to have a working knowledge of the title you’re asking it to analyze and you have to be patient as you refine your prompts. But I was able to build character lists for the Honor & Duty series in a matter of hours (and that is eight titles, not counting Warbound Legacy which I also did).

I will probably rerun the character lists later this week (since I paid the $20) with some refinement to the prompts so I’m getting the same information/data for each title. I also plan to run each of my active series/novels. It’s something I can do in the evenings while watching TV with Mom.

AI isn’t ready to replace the actual creative process when it comes to writing, but it can be a very useful tool—as long as you’re willing to do a little work to make sure the information it returns is accurate.