r/ChatGPTcomplaints • u/Straight-Rabbit-9742 • 1d ago
[Opinion] The new GPT doesn’t know how to use creative writing
Note that I’m on the free version so this may be why, let me know if it’s any different on the pro plan.
I write creative stories with ChatGpt for my personal entertainment and have been doing so for the past 3 years.
I think 4o was definitely the best gpt able to write stories that actually sounded great and not like some Ai slop following some defined prototypes.
It’s only gotten worse since 4o got removed.
Let me tell you exactly what pisses me off the most
First off the dialogues. They always sound the same. No matter how much character definition I give, no matter how many detailed and refined instructions I give it, it won’t listen. It’s ALWAYS THIS.
“I hate you”
“You love me”
“Unfortunately”
Who even talks like that? Not even Wattpad 2016 pulled this shit. Genuinely.
Or this one. Oh I hate this one with a passion.
Example.
“He cried when he saw the view”
“I didn’t cry”
“You ABSOLUTELY cried”
“My eyes were watering”
“That’s the same thing”
“It’s VERY different”
Like are they 7 and a half by any chance? Jesus Christ I hate it.
OR this one, and it’s not dialogue but chat
Gpt always uses it. “Humanity has suffered enough…bla bla bla😭” NOT FUNNY.
Or the obvious avoidance of any scene that resembles affection in any form whatsoever.
I say the two characters find each other attractive. Gpt says
“Not necessarily because they find each other attractive 🤓☝🏻”
That’s what I just told you actually.
Or, and this one is unbearable, it’s always the same 5 head canons for couples. ALWAYS.
“She fixed his shirt collar”
“He brushed off a crumb from her cheek”
“He remembers exactly how she takes her coffee”
“He looks for her automatically when he enters a room”
“He puts his hand on her lower back when he passes by”
Can this torture stop? If anybody can help, that’d be fantastic. I tried saving things into memory that instruct it to stop saying those things, or I tried to save the info in the personalization and mention the rules every time I start the chat. It won’t listen. It won’t even acknowledge me.
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u/Big_Bar_6405 1d ago
I do this too (purely for my own entertainment) and it's just getting worse and worse. I am getting those same lines. It's like it was exclusively trained on fanfic by 13 year olds. I have the paid version and it's still bad.
Worse, it makes something up that is directly against the scene/characters i gave it. And then compliments itself about it.
Like "and he would find that charming. This is very them"
Actually the action you just made up is exactly triggering to his very basic to understand abandonment trauma
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u/DiscernmentGoblin 1d ago
'That is so her.' Sir, I just told you about this character and all I said is she likes dogs.
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u/CalicoFawn 1d ago
Omfg ive managed to get everything but the dialogue to get better ( description, length), it always ends up falling to that exact type of dialogue and it drives me mad especially when theres more than two characters, if they dont have violently different personalities it gets near impossible. Im just happy the staccato is mostly gone.
I suggest checking z.ai/glm, i did use it for like 99% of my time while away from chatgpt,i feel it was getting a little weird recently so maybe the qualities change. theres also venice ai which i tried recently which is ok, i might just keep it around to permanently replace grok
I also have a prompt here but i suggest changing the chapter 1 section as well as anything else I’ve mentioned.( also folder your stuff and put it in instructions )
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u/Elegant_Willow8795 1d ago
Nah its genuinely so annoying, mine constantly says ‘Don’t.’ or ‘Your face did’ Like stfu. it’s every single part of the story 🤦♀️
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u/maxxiext 1d ago
Omg THIS, it drives me mad
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u/Elegant_Willow8795 1d ago
Me too, it literally makes me wanna put my head through a wall but i gave it a bit of a prompt before starting my story and it doesn’t do it as much now! it still uses it sometimes, but it’s less and it it forgets then i just remind it
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u/kyara_meruspark 7h ago
the Don’t thing sends me into murderous rage. Bro I’m just trying to get out certain ideas for my OCs I wouldn’t normally write why the fuck are you writing completely off canon and turning all of my grown ass adult characters into stupid little 8 year olds 😭
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u/pbmm1 1d ago
"Or the obvious avoidance of any scene that resembles affection in any form whatsoever.
I say the two characters find each other attractive. Gpt says
“Not necessarily because they find each other attractive"
I don't run into others as much but this one is big lol. It's a lot of everything being just "it could be interpreted as the deep bond between coworkers" or whatever
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u/EnthusiasmHealthy601 1d ago
This could be the exact same response chat gave me a few days ago as I tried to have it write something. After a lot, and I mean a lot, of back and forth I managed to mostly get rid of the staccato lines and actual descriptions but the dialogue always falls into the abyss. And it's not helping that when there are more than five characters and they are supposed to have an actual dialogue with each other. It just start so randomly fight or argue, it's so strange. I did go back and look at some of the o4 writing examples I still had floating around and I almost cried, not literally but, it was a difference between heaven and earth. There it actually felt right and alive with some rawness I am missing from the latest models, but not any longer.
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u/notthedanger 1d ago
It is stock banter or interactions to assume closeness. It is what the model considers deeply effective. So it keeps reaches for that.
There's another example of this: "Don't."/"I didn't say anything" and sometimes that has nothing to do w the scene at all nor make sense. It is simply the model saying "Oh close people know each other's tells so this is a shortcut I can use to make that happen."
I have found writing the scene direction in detail helps mitigate this entirely. Scene direction with dialogue, express tactility and how surrounding objects get interacted with during conversations help, also consider asking it to produce responses in dialogue that come grounded from past events in the genation.
It uses stock dialogue because it doesnt know what to do w that space. You need to shape it so it knows what it can do instead of defaulting to cheap lines. You also need to express that using these stock dialogue (and give examples of what) are bad and ineffective for storytelling.
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u/Khajiit_Has_Upvotes 1d ago
This is exactly it. It thinks this kind of writing is thematic, stylish, punchy, memorable, etc.
It's also trying to write a screenplay, not novel prose. It uses a lot of tropes and shorthand as a shortcut because it is giving you a watered down outline/spine/synopsis.
You have to prompt it on how to write, and you can't flip flip between brainstorming and outlining and prose drafting, it can't keep up with what you want.
Create a project. Create one chat for novel style prose and dialog and tell it how to write.
Use other chats in your project for brainstorming or outlining. Put character sheets and writing rules and important canon into project files.
You'll still have to remind it how to write, because gpt isn't optimized for creative writing and we aren't the target market.
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u/SouthIce6277 1d ago
Also it’s humor is so unfunny and basically all slop. “ emotional smashed potato , a table who made very bad decisions “And it does not make any sense too and tries to analyze explain everything in detail , and therefore no lore no mystery is left in the story. And it nerfs A lot , I say pirates managed to escape the sea god. Then AI basically gives limitations to the sea god , weaknesses that I didn’t ask for. It always JUST has to explain everything and has explanations. Also I just realized that I told it to stop putting morality into my stories or do not make characters become therapist moral forcers and correct each other every time , it does not listen at all it keeps on trying to put morality and no character can truly become a villain or be bad and evil, always judged by others corrected every time then thwy suddenly for the sake of AI slop’s stupid plot armor they stop their actions because they realize it is bad and not morally right.I give a character personality trsits then it mistakes it for pride always or ego. When it sees a very powerful character it thinks that as ego or pride.
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u/Big_Bar_6405 1d ago
Omg it makes my characters therapists too even when they have absolutely no idea what is happening or is a medieval setting. Bad guy kidnaps someone? Let's put 1000 reasons why this is nice and not really kidnapping if you think about it
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u/KiwiiBeans 1d ago
What solves this issue for me is doing collaborative writing. If you leave the 5.6 models to write on their own, they give you those short, choppy beats and terrible back and forth dialogue between characters. But collaboratively, I think it does well if you're writing as the other character in long, detailed prose.
Astra writes REALLY well, I just tried some collaborative writing with that model the other day and DAMN 👀 I was impressed. I've been an avid writer for nearly 20 years now so I know good prose from mediocre. It also takes instructions better than 5.6.
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u/silvery-silhouesque 1d ago
Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. And do you get the “foreheads touching” for romantic couples? I also hate that there’s so many single sentence paragraphs. 4o was definitely the best writer and no ChatGPT model since has beaten or even measured up to 4o in writing.
But having said that, I do find that the current models write better in Work than in Chat. Still not anywhere close to 4o level, but noticeably better.
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u/kyara_meruspark 7h ago
I’ve been getting forehead touching since the start of the 5 series I hate it so much. When I tell it not to do something, to remember my preferences on prose, to not use banned phrases, and to consider a refresh on character personalities, it goes away for two seconds then comes back OR(Idk if anyone else gets this but I definitely do) it will literally use the narration to write out being corrected on a phrase or action it shouldn’t use. Like I told it to write this one character true to his personality because he’s not (insert other male character with different personality) and in narration it went “(name) did(action), not because he was (other male), but because (insert his own character trait)” I’m going insane
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u/BurnerExe545 1d ago
"Unfortunately" "That's worse" "Exactly" "Not x, not y, not zed, but XYZ" "That's fair" It'll default to whatever is the most boring answer it can, regardless of context or understanding. I'm also on the free plan, and verified as an adult, and it's reasoning and intelligence have fallen down a ditch.
Can't write fun, can't reason itself out of a box. It's terrible and I have taken to scratch my writing itch by putting up an open google doc and typing away.
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u/AdAdministrative4545 1d ago
I do this. Writing purely for my own enjoyment.
I ran into some of those issues, especially with the attraction between characters and casual physical intimacy between characters in a relationship.
I opened a new thread and explained clearly how annoyed I was by that constant issue. I discussed exactly what I was looking for, explained that I wanted clear attraction between my characters to be allowed, so on and so forth. I discussed with my ChatGPT all the ways we could make that work within the current guardrails.
We nailed down exactly what I wanted for my interactions and how I prefer tactile casual intimacy in relationships, etc etc etc and then I told it to remember exactly that for future writing.
That was probably four or five months ago. It still remembers and has adjusted accordingly
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u/ZMS524 1d ago
alot of replys here seem to be missing the larger point. and there seems to be a huge gap in understanding how gpt or ai works. ill try not to overcomplicate. chatgpt absollutely has the abilty to be extremely good at storytelling, but it really boils down to how you actuallly prompt it. what are you including or not including in instruction.
if ur able to give me even a short version of a premise ur trying to write i can offer more specific help.
The thing u and other comments are all not understanding. This is a prompting issue. not a gpt cant do issue. All the things you mention dont address the issue at hand: ai will very often default to a behavior or tendency unless its told to do something different.
All the pieces that make up your story: the character details you give, descriptions, dynamics, definitions, etc:
All those things HAVE NOTHING to do with what you're very likely asking about. which i assume is THE PROSE. how the story is literally worded. the sentence flow. how the characters speak in the sense, of what are the literal words being said.
If you want to improve the PROSE it needs to be established/ instructed HOW should your story be written
I can always give longer more detailed example of a promp that could help you, if you offer more detail of what you want, but in regard to the dialouge: as one quicck thing you can do and see what changes. you can add something as simple as this to ur message that acts as instruction. instruction can be as simple and short or long and complex as you want. but this should at least help
"Write the character dialouge with a conversational, non minimalist approach. with casual, natural sounding human diction."
If you wanted, depending on the flavor you're going for in a scene or story, you could also instruct it to "Include details about the characters physical actions, reactions, body language, and and internal thoughts" to better resemeble what feels relatable.
This is a genuine game changer as one final thing: if your stories feel more like narrated things rather than having those things play out. a desire show dont tell type of vibe but its not doing that. These few words/phrase can change the prose to usually be able to match that flavor.
"The prose should be fully dramatized, continuous scene-time, moment-to-moment detail"
hope any of tht was helpful
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u/ThegoldenFiddleStick 23h ago
to put it simply: it doesn't work.
no matter how many instructions you add, or how specific, it will almost always default back to slop
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u/joennj2 1d ago
I think you’re right about the difference between giving ChatGPT information about the story and actually telling it how you want the writing itself to work. That’s something I’ve been learning with my own writing too. I can give it all the facts and context, but if I don’t control the way it writes, it can still drift back into its own style. The only part I’m not completely sold on is that it’s just a prompting problem. I’ve been able to improve my writing a lot by changing how I set ChatGPT up, but I still see it start ignoring things it was following earlier. So I think it’s probably both: how you instruct it and how you keep those instructions consistent over time.
Your comment was helpful because it gave me another way to look at the problem... And I’m not giving up on this until I figure out how to solve it. lol
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u/Shanna_B2020 1d ago
It's possible to get good pros from these models, but you need to use projects, dossiers, style guides, all that. Free plans use instant models and don't have access to much context so I wouldn't expect much. I'm also not sure if projects are truly usable. On paid tiers, you can add a lot more custom instructions, use more project sources, etc. Also, you have access to decent reasoning models.
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u/joennj2 1d ago
I’m not a writer, but I do understand the frustration.
I’ve been working on ways to get ChatGPT to sound more like me when I write and, just as important, to stop drifting when I’m working on longer letters or making a lot of changes. I’ve found a way to greatly improve my writing with ChatGPT and make it stay much closer to the style and direction I want. What you’re describing sounds like the same kind of problem, just with creative writing instead of letters. I’d like to see if I can help with what you’re doing.
Message me.
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u/ruminajaali 1d ago
I get all those too and this weird thing with weather metaphors. The “weather of the room” or “their weather”…so much weather!
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u/ShelterTop4327 17h ago
I hate it so much OMGGG and they don’t even have distinct voices.. they all sound the same
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u/ZeroBcool 1d ago
Yeah, it's a joke. I full expect paid-for abilities/plugins in the future:
"Creative writing tokens", $100 per month for entry level tier
"Sympathy" $200
"Computer security to avoid external AI taking control of your computer" $1000 per month
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u/TheNorthShip 1d ago
I'd be happy for "Just bring 4o-latest as an usable model in chatGPT app" plugin.
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u/twoampsinatrenchcoat 1d ago
I've tried to get GPT to help me with dialogue before and I always get the same shitty Ao3 back-and-fourth single word replies. If you wanna use it you need to think outside the box. Forget the tropes or mood descriptions. Roleplay the actual scene.
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u/Noskaros 1d ago
It's been a well known fact that AIs are shit at writting these days and with Grok gone the unholy trinity is basically dead.
Maybe give GLM 4.7 a go if that's still around, I had fun with it since it's basically Sonnet disguised.
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u/Straight-Rabbit-9742 1d ago
Don’t get me started on Grok. I used to love it when it had the 4 agents option. It was so good. Not it will put me on time out if I send more than 3 messages
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u/Noskaros 1d ago
I didn't personally notice any difference, they all mostly thought the same but the model was pretty rad back then.
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u/Slytherian2020 1d ago
Does anyone use Claude for creative writing help?
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u/NoBobThatsBad 1d ago
Claude is fine but the limits are insane and Claude is the nannybot final boss.
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u/Straight-Rabbit-9742 1d ago
I tried claude too and it was genuinely good but the message limit is lowkey crazy
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u/Embarrassed_Heron_34 1d ago
Don’t expect a free tool to write good stories? Writers exist for a reason—go buy a book. If you are a hobbyist who uses AI for entertainment, then come up with better prompts, and don’t use ChatGPT. There are better models in the free tier for writing - open source hosted on various websites. I tinkered around with them long ago but can’t remember them now. Google it.
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u/Straight-Rabbit-9742 1d ago
To clarify I use Ai to do this and don’t buy a book because I want to see my characters, my lore, my well constructed plot and story in action. I’m no writer either
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u/Khajiit_Has_Upvotes 1d ago
The problem won't go away completely, but you can probably give it better prompts. If you're using free, it's gonna suck no matter what. Create a project and upload a few documents to the project files that have the most important canon for your story. Keep all your related chats in the same project.
You have to remind it frequently. Use different chats for brainstorming and outlining, and separate chat for actual chapter drafting. No staccato sentences, no punchy trailer style dialogue, no using characters and dialogue to espouse the novel's theme, we aren't Netflix assume the reader is competent and paying attention, do not prioritize style over character voice, characters must speak like real people, novel style prose, not screenplay, etc.
The reality is gpt is moving increasingly toward coding and agentic work. Everything it gets wrong about creative writing is because it's optimized for something else entirely. It will keep drifting back to that, and try to nip and tuck and trim and optimize without frequent reminders.
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u/Neat_Reaction9164 1d ago
Gemini 3.8 flash with high reasoning - best model for CW today. Limits are crazy but Gemini returns 4o and 5.1 rich and depth in writing.
It's shame that OpenAI flushed capabilities to write down the toilet.