Writing Authentic Short Stories with AI Assistance

1. Introduction: Welcome to this class on creative writing and AI. My name is Robert, and I'm passionate about different forms of human expression. Creative writing, particularly focused on short stories, holds a special place in my heart because it lets me explore worlds built by a mix of experience and imagination, and I can transform abstract ideas into concrete words on a page. My own creative journey, I have discovered that AI can serve as an incredible brainstorming partner and idea developer when used thoughtfully. And that's why I'm excited to share this with you. In this class, we will discover how to use AI as a creative tool that enhances, not replaces your unique voice. What we will explore is not about letting AI guide for you. It's about finding ways to spark creativity, develop ideas, and craft meaningful stories that remain authentically yours. By the end of this course, you'll understand how to blend traditional writing methods with AI assistance. I'll tell you practical ways to start developing new ideas into stories. I'll be guiding you on using AI proms to explore new creative directions. Most importantly, you'll discover how to maintain your own voice and vision throughout the entire process. This class is great for beginners in creative writing, AI tools or both. You'll come out of here with a solid foundation no matter your starting point. Throughout our lessons, we will explore practical techniques for gathering inspiration from life, crafting first drafts, and then refining your work with AI assistant. Learn specific methods have developed to enhance your writing while preserving its personal and human touch. We will focus on creative writing for short stories, but keep in mind that these skills can transfer to many other writing styles. The most important thing is approaching this class with an open mind and a desire to write something meaningful. I am still learning and refining these methods myself, but I want to share what has worked for me so far. Remember, writing is deeply personal. The point here is to help you gather inspiration and discover elements that connect with you so you can apply them to your own unique style. Let's begin this creative journey together. 2. Class Project: Your Creative Journey: Hi. Today we will be diving into something really exciting, your class project. Let me share something personal here. Sometimes I still don't feel very confident about sharing what I grade. I feel like I have so much room for improvement, but I am still trying my best to enjoy the process and learn from it. I know that some of you may be in the same boat as me, and because of that, I want to emphasize that the project for this class is not about the final piece of grading. It's about the journey. This still will require some effort on your side. You can immediately notice when someone has relied too much on AI and the personal voice is lost. For example, we got this paragraph. The morning sun cast golden rays across the dewy landscape. Birds orchestrated a symphony of melodious songs. Nature's beauty unfolded in perfect harmony, creating a scene that touched the soul with its ineffable magnificence. This text uses very poetic and complicated language, but it reads too mechanical, maybe even too perfect, technically correct, but lacking personality. No, compared to this one. The sun was barely up when I stepped outside. My coffee was still too hot to drink, but I welcomed the heat. A bird landed nearby, probably searching for breakfast crumbs. It reminded me of morning spent at my grandfather's house. This second example includes specific details and personal connections. It creates a scene through individual experience rather than generic description. I still got some assistance from AI while writing it, but I was careful not to overdo it. It still has my words and human touch. That's what we're aiming for. I want you to try finding that balance for yourself. Let me guide you through what this class will look like and how this is connected to your project. We will start with capturing ideas and observations from your personal experiences. Next, you will grab those ideas and convert them into a first draft. You will learn to work with AI as an assistant to improve your grating, how will share prompts and teach you technical basics to help you get the best results. Then the final part will bring everything together. You will take what you learned about writing and AI tools and make it your own. This means going beyond the basics, trying new approaches, and paying attention to your creative growth. You complete a class, I would love for you to share insights about your experience in the project section. Sharing your actual grading is optional. I encourage you to tell us about your journey. What techniques worked best for you. How did you adapt the methods to fit your style? What surprised you about working with AI? Your findings might help other students find their path. This project goes beyond a simple assignment. It's an opportunity for you to track your growth and be inspired by it. Remember, there's no right or wrong way to do this. Only requirement is that you stay true to your creative voice while exploring these new possibilities. Let's move forward and learn how to spark those personal writing ideas that we will later develop. 3. Everyday Inspiration: The Writer's Toolkit: Hi, welcome back. In this section, let's explore two elements that I consider essential in writing, gathering inspiration from our daily experiences and finding creative energy in the tools we choose to write with. Writing starts long before we sit down at our desk. It begins with living, experiencing things, and paying attention to the world around us. It is very important to actively seek inspiration rather than waiting for it to find us. This is particularly important in this class where we want to use AI as a creative tool without losing our own style and creative voice because, well, to protect your voice, you first have to have one. Very good starting point for this is to think of yourself as a collector of moments. Every day has so many potential stories waiting to be discovered. That strangers kind rat the coffee shop, the way sunlight catches raindrops on your window, the sound of someone you love laughing, these moments matter because they are real. They are human and they connect us. I have learned that the more personal our ideas and observations, the more relatable our writing becomes. When we share what truly moves us, what makes us pause and think, we create work that resonates with others. Your unique perspective is your greatest asset as a writer. Inspiration we gather from every day or the moments I'm encouraging you to notice go away very fast. That's why it's very important to have a quick capture method. It could be a small notebook, your phones, notes app, or voice memos, whatever feels natural to you. When something catches your attention, capture it immediately. Don't wait. Don't trust your memory, write it down. In fact, if you don't do this already, I invite you to do it right now. Write down a meaningful moments you had today or yesterday. It can be an image that comes to your mind or an idea that you encountered unexpectedly and made an impression. Can use this to develop our writing later, but don't even think about that step right now. For now, it's just a matter of not letting these thoughts go away. Now, briefly, I want to talk about tools. I love my typewriter whenever I'm doing this creative writing practice, and I'll explain why. It has many limitations, of course, but I like to see them as advantages. One of the biggest issues for creative people is professionalism. We try to get things right the first time, which often is paralyzing. But the thing is that in the first stage of the creative process, it's super important to work without too much self editing. What we want is to put ideas out there first, and later we can give them shape. Typewriters add friction to the editing process. You need corrector tape or you have to mark up pages by hand. If you make a small typo, even that can be trouble to fix. So this friction makes it easier to accept imperfection and just keep writing, even when it's messy. This tool slows you down in a helpful way, and it's also very physical. Pressing keys, hearing them click, and watching words appear on paper puts you in the moment and keeps you present. And when you're done, you have proof of your work, something real that you can hold. Handwriting, the process and the idea behind is very similar. And I actually jump between both methods. While it's easier to edit yourself when writing by hand, it also slows you down enough to be immersed in the act itself. And by the way, both typewriting and handwriting are great ways to escape distractions. In today's world, we're constantly pulled away by devices and screen notifications. Stepping away from this lets you focus more deeply. Believe that finding the right tool, especially when making writing a physical act puts you in the right mindset and can inspire you to write more. There's a world of different options in regards to paper, pen, and typewriter models, but finding something that fits you does make a difference. This might sound silly, but as human beings, we're drawn to physical objects, having tools you enjoy can provide extra motivation to write, and for me, any motivation to do this is a good thing. I have to say that if you hate the idea of using a tape writer or grabbing my hand, don't force yourself. I just wanted to tell you that this has made a big difference for me. But if you are against both approaches, that's perfectly fine. For those cases, I am writing on my computer. I also have a keyboard that I love, and I will share about this in the resources of the class. My advice here is not just about the tool. It's about finding things that will help you develop a ritual. Pick a quiet corner, set aside specific minutes on your day, choose your favorite tool or method, and just show up consistently. This routine tells your brain it's time to create. Gathering ideas throughout your day and setting up your grounding space. You are already making progress. You will no longer face a blank page, something many graders fear. No, instead, you will start with a rich collection of moments, observations, and possibilities. You are building a foundation of raw material that we will shape as we go along in our class. That's all for today. Next session, we will start writing, so get ready. But for now, start noticing, start collecting, start being present in your world. Your stories are already out there. You just need to catch them. Remember, inspiration is not something that simply happens to us. It's something that we're actively pursuing through observation, preparation, and practice. See you in the next one. 4. Your First Draft: Welcome back. In this section, I want to dive into what I consider one of the most liberating parts of the entire writing process, the first draft. This is where we let our ideas flow without blocking them. We're trying to silence any self judgment, and we're giving ourselves permission to put anything on the page. Last section, I emphasized capturing ideas and experiences. Now, take out those notes or that small pocket notebook. Read through your observations, but do not overthink it. Notice what feelings surface, what memories appear. Pay attention to sensory details, sounds, smells, textures, anything that comes alive in your mind. Your notes serve as personal writing problems. They are showing connections unique to you. This process bridges imagination and experience. Every creative idea, no matter how fantastical, grows from seeds planted by our lived experiences. This might be direct observations or fragments buried deep in our subconscious. Through writing, we can explore this. Set yourself a concrete goal for this first draft. One page about 250 words works well for starting out. Some writers prefer timing themselves. You can try this for 20 to 30 minutes, pick what feels better for you. The key is to keep writing until you hit your target without stopping to edit. You can try this exercise. Pick one observation from your notes. Write about that moment, but at an element that didn't happen. Maybe at a new character, stranger or the weather's suenly changing. The point here is to let reality and imagination dance together on the page. Another approach you can try is choosing three of your separate notes. You can write connecting them into one scene. Don't worry about logic. Try to do this as a stream of consciousness. Think of it as emptying your mind on the page. Whether you are using a typewriter, a pen or if you're on your computer, you just have to keep your hand moving. These exercises will help you discover unexpected narrative paths. Now, if you already have a story idea in mind, that's perfect, too. Focus on getting the core narrative down in one or two pages. Remember, this draft isn't about perfection, it's about possibility. You are creating raw material to shape later. Finishing, take time to read through your work. Often, when riding with this freedom, we surprise ourselves with unexpected connections or ideas. Getting familiar with what emerged will help us develop it further using AI tools in our next steps. In our next lesson, we will explore AI prompting basics, and I'll share my favorite tools for this process. We will prepare everything so you can use AI as a creative partner in developing your ideas. For now, focus on getting those thoughts on paper, knowing that refining them comes later. 5. AI Basics & Setup: I. Up until now, we have focused on the artistic and creative aspects of this work and how it connects with you. In this lesson, I'll show you some important basics of working with AI. You will learn what you need to know to get started and how to set everything up for what follows. This part gets a bit technical, but I'll keep it simple. Don't worry. If you're new to AI, you should know that these tools need a different approach than traditional research methods like search engines. While Google Wikipedia, and similar platforms work better with general search terms. AI needs specific directions. When we use AI as a writing assistant, we must give clear instructions about what we only that, but something that can make a big difference in the results you get has to do with setting up a system prompt before diving into conversations. Think of system prompts as setting up the rules of the game. Setting a quick chat with AI tools like HAGPT may seem easy and good enough, but setting clear guidelines first will really make a difference. Instead of working with a general purpose AI that answers everything in a very generic way, you create a specialized assistant that understands your needs. I use two main types of system prompts or initial instructions for the kind of creative writing we're doing here. I share both with you in the resources of this class. The first prompt transforms AI into your dedicated helper. This assistant analyzes your ideas, suggests ways to make your narrative more engaging, helps develop characters and offer solutions when you feel like you are blocked. It's like having a grading mentor available whenever you need one. The second prompt focuses on style exploration. It helps you see your grading through different lenses, perhaps more poetic, dramatic, or mysterious. This versatility allows you to experiment with various tones while maintaining the same core idea. No, there are so many AI applications available. There are even specialized tools that are designed for writers, but I don't think you need to go for anything like that at this point. What I do think makes a big difference is finding something that allows dictation, something that turns your spoken words into text by using AI. This makes the whole process feel faster, more natural, and there's also other positives. For example, reading your work out loud helps you spot things you might miss when writing. You'll hear sentences flow well or sound clunky. You'll find the correct rhythm, and overall, it's a great tool for editing. One tool I particularly recommend is Super whisper. This app is incredible because it includes unlimited access to several very good AI models at a one time payment. But there's also a free version which will work well for the purpose of this class. Super whisper is advertised as a dictation or transcription app, but it really does so much more than that. It takes your voice, turns it into text, and then allows you to run that text through AI processing. This AI processing is, by the way, completely customizable. I want to briefly jump to my computer and show you how to set this up very quickly. Super Whisper, at the time being is a MAC only app. I know that in a few days from the moment that I'm recording this video, a Windows version is coming out. Soon, this will be on both platforms, and the setup process should be about the same. Once you have gone through the onboarding, you'll be in the settings page. If you don't have the settings open, you can access that from the menu bar. Click the Super Whisper icon and then click Settings. Once in there, you want to go to the modes tab on the left. On this tab, assuming that this is the first time you're running the app, you only have the default mode available, which is automatically created when you run the application for the first time. You can click it, and as you can see, this is a voice only mode. This means it doesn't have any AI post processing. It simply transcribes your dictation. New users have 15 minutes to try out the pro features of the application, which means you can try several of the best AI models available here. So let's do that. Will click on Custom, and this will change the type of mode that we're editing into something that has AI. Here, where it says model, you will have different options. At the time being the best out of these options, in my opinion is SN 3.7. But this technology is changing so fast, and it may be possible that by the time you're watching this, there's even better models in there, so you can go with that. Different models have different capabilities, but I know for a fact that this one is very good for what we need. The voice model, this one is in charge of transcribing your voice into text, and I suggest that you go with Ultra Cloud. This one is super fast. Here on language, I like to set it to automatic because I'm constantly switching between Spanish and English. So this will auto recognize your language and transcribe it correctly. We can give this mode a name by clicking up here and typing assistant, for example. Finally, we go to the change prompt menu, and here is where you will be pasting one of those prompts that I will give you in the resources of this class. I'll paste the one that I use as an assistant. These togos down here are very helpful, but that's for more advanced workflows that I will not be covering here. Let's go back to our list of modes. When you're on your trial or if you have the free version of the app, you are limited to three modes only. This is something that you just need to be aware of. So let's create another mode, and we will do exactly the same. We will select Custom Sonne 3.7, ultra Cloud, automatic language, change prompt and outpase my second prompt. Now let's call it options. As a quick test, I will activate my recording and I will try the options mode that I just created. Here in the configuration step, you can set your own keyboard shortcds. When I toggle my recording, I have this window. It can be reduced in size if you click on the corner, but let's use a big one. In the big one, you can click here to switch between your different credit modes, or you can simply use the keyboard shortcd that you can also customize in the configuration. Let me select the options and say something short. The other day I was in the park and I fell off my bicycle. I stopped my recording, and after a quick moment, I got my results in there. Different versions. Okay, it's working well. Now, Super whisper does have a limitation, and that is that this is not a chat application. You can use it on text that you already got in your front application like a note, and there's worker ons to use it for chat. But overall, super whisper is great for one shot responses. I see this as a feature, actually. This can help you maintain focus on your writing rather than getting lost in endless conversation. Looking for something that allows you to have back and forth conversations more easily. A Webb that I also use is taping mine, and this app is very powerful, but you can easily get lost in all of its features. I also think that the setup is more complicated because you need to get your own API keys. I will not be covering all that process here, but the cool thing is that with this, you can also set those system prompts that I have been telling you about. Here you do it with agents instead of modes. For that, you'll go inside agents, then select Create AI agent. You give it a name. Let's call it assistant as before, then simply paste that prompt that I'm providing in the resources of the class, the same as we did with Super Wisp. I just you also override the system instructions here. There's many more options that you don't need to worry about. You can click Save, and then you can select hat now. The nice thing is that this application also has built in dictation capabilities, but it's not the most convenient because it's limited to only 2 minutes. Something that you can do in case you want to use the free version of Super whisper instead of the paid one is that you can use a voice only mode like the default one without AI processing. And then you can use that to dictate inside typing mind. It's also very convenient that way. For example, let's give it a Hey, I have a story that I would like to develop, but I'm not quite sure about what it is. Let's say it's a young guy that wants to go out and enjoy the day, but he's afraid. There are fast, and there it is. These two apps are simply what I use, and I think that specifically Super Whisper has been incredible for my grading, but this is not a requirement. I highly suggest using a tool that lets you set initial instructions and if possible, include dictation features. If that's not an option, you can use your devices built in dictation. And if you prefer typing everything, that's perfectly fine, too. You can also, of course, use the HNPTOficial application. I am personally not familiar with this app or with the website, so I don't know about the limits, but I know it also has built in dictation. So I do not know if free accounts can change the system prompt, but worst case scenario, if you don't have that customization option, what you can do is simply paste that system prompt that I'm giving you at the beginning of a conversation and then start from there. Here, I pasted the prompt for different options. So let's give it a try. It's a beautiful day. I don't want to stay home. ChaPT, tapping mind, and Zuperhisper, these are just a few different options that help you to reach the same end result, but there's so many different applications out there, and the setup should be somewhat similar to what you have already seen here. In our next section, we will put these tools into action showing you exactly how to use AIFeedback to strengthen your narrative while maintaining your unique writing style. See you soon. 6. Shaping Your Story: Welcome, everyone. In this section, we'll bring all the pieces together. We will take our first draft and put our tools to work. Then we'll shape our story with AI as our assistant. By now, you probably already read through your first draft. A stream of consciousness kind of text not always tells a complete or clear story. It might feel like scattered thoughts, but look closer. You'll find some ideas that were not there when you started writing. Find those main themes and key elements. These are what you'll share with your AI assistant. The goal here is to find paths that can help you turn these thoughts into a full story. Let me share a brief example. While back during a hospital visit here in my hometown, I noticed something very interesting. There were food vendors walking through patient rooms at night. This detail, combined with the unfamiliar atmosphere of this large hospital that I had never visited before sparked my imagination. I wrote a few observations about this down, and months later, I thought I wanted to use it as inspiration for a story. After grabbing my first draft and reviewing it, I found some elements to explore with AI. Let me show you how to present these ideas to our AI assistant. Have an idea that I'd like to develop into a story. I am thinking about a hospital room at night. There's a window with old curtains and street light that is filtering in. This is a shared room. There's two beds divided by a curtain. And one bed, I imagine there's a patient, and beside sitting down on a chair, there's someone wide awake. This person I'm considering not making him a family member. I am trying to come up with a character that has to be there against his will. Maybe a paid caretaker that is only saying this as his job. I think it could be interesting to explore the relationship between the caretaker and patient without stating it directly. Now, another detail that I have thought of there's a door slightly open, letting in both light and sounds from the hallway. I want to build this story from the perspective of this sleepless character in the room. There's something happening outside that sparks curiosity. There's distant sounds, maybe someone enters the room in the middle of the night. You help me explore different ways this story can unfold. I'm looking for possible directions, ways to develop the mystery element, ideas to deepen the relationship between the caretaker and the patient and suggestions for building tension through this nighttime setting. When sharing ideas with AI, focus on your story core elements rather than sending your entire draft. Provide key details that guide EI toward helpful responses that build on your ideas instead of replacing them. Now, you might start with just a simple story idea here. Maybe in your first draft, you didn't come up with so many details. That's perfectly fine. The EI prom that I'm sharing with you will still be helpful in cases like this. The goal here is to ask questions that will light up your imagination rather than looking for ready made not asking EI to grid our stories. We're using it as a creative partner. Read through the responses you receive, mix these new insights with your original thoughts, but keep developing the story your way. Your next draft will have more shape to it. You'll start seeing where the story begins, how it ends, and what happens in between. You get stuck, you can always return to AI with specific questions. Once you are satisfied with your story's direction, you can explore different ways to tell it. This is where we can use our other prompt. And by the way, this one will work best with a small piece of your writing, maybe a paragraph or just a few key sentences. Here's a short piece from that same hospital story that I mentioned before, and I will fit it into AI at the same time that I read it for you. The night shift feels endless, and I'm stuck here watching over someone who doesn't even know my name. Through the window, street lights paint strange shadows on these old curtains. I hear footsteps in the hallway, slow, steady, getting closer. The door is open just enough to show a slice of fluorescent light from the outside. AI will offer several versions of that scene. Each might reveal a new perspective or highlight different details, read through them and use what resonates. Maybe you'll find that perfect word you were searching for or not is something you have not considered before. Take what fits and adapt it to your voice. This process invites exploration through multiple drafts. When you hit a creative block, these air prompts become tools for discovery. Each revision helps your story grow more defined. But remember that the goal is not perfection. It is you being in control of expressing your story authentically. Let's move on to our final section where I'll share additional tips to support what you have learned. 7. Wrapping Up & Next Steps: Our final draft might take several rounds to get to the best form. That's truly fine. It is expected. The point here is that each new version that you create will bring you closer to your authentic voice, and it will help you internalize that story more deeply. Take your time in the entire process. There's no rush. If you have gone with an analog method, like I mentioned before, then you may want to digitize that to preserve your work. If you have a typewriter and you typed everything, it's pretty easy actually, because there are OCR tools that allow you to take a picture and then simply convert that into text. If you have handwritten everything, then I suggest that you also try these tools that I have mentioned before that allow transcription by using AI. The whole process of digitizing it's easier than it has ever been. And this provides you a lasting record of what you have done. So there's no reason not to do it. Another thing that you can try is if you notice that you are getting close to the final stage of your grating, maybe you can switch to digital and finish there. That's also totally valid. Now, don't forget about your class project. I want to emphasize that the process matters more than the final results here. Feel free to share some of what you wrote, but more importantly, I would love to hear what you discovered. Are there any particular insights that you found new or interesting? Maybe you modified one of the proms that I gave you and you made it fit more to your own style or approach, or perhaps you found a different way to incorporate AI in your writing while still being true to your vision. Sharing some of this, not only will you be able to put into words and clarify for yourself what you have learned, but also you might inspire other students. So I really encourage you to do so. Another thing that I suggest you do as you go forward is to make writing a consistent practice. Start small. Even one pace or two, like we did in this class, can create momentum. We learned a very good starting point is observing daily moments, capturing them in notes, and later developing these sets into stories. Regular practice will make the entire process feel more natural and will help you see your own creative growth over time. For those of you interested in developing a habit around writing, I have a separate class on journaling that explores this topic even further. It focuses on building consistency, and I give you a system to write from a perspective of mindfulness. I consider this a complementary skill to what we have covered here. Finally, if you found value in this class, I hope you consider leaving a review here on Steels. Your feedback really helps other students discover this, and I find it very motivating to see that what I'm sharing here is making a difference. Feel free to let me know your favorite thing about the class or what you would like to learn more about. Even a simple rating makes a difference. Don't forget to check the resources section of the class where you will find the prompts that I used and also more information about the tools that I recommend. Thank you so much for joining me in this creative exploration. I look forward to seeing your projects and reading your insights. Keep writing, keep creating Nancnx class.