Note to readers: This article contains content first created by LLM ChatGPT, and later modified by yours truly. The story portion began as the product of my prompt to ChatGPT and ChatGPT’s response. A rewrite of the story follows the introduction and was completed by myself, dredged from the depths of my personal organic database. Please, feel free to contact me with questions related to the content of this article or the series of articles.

Scene three. The rewrite rolls on. ChatGPT’s story “Shadows in the Smoke” helps us identify the threat of artificial intelligence (AI) while increasing our understanding of story mechanics. AI holds a great deal of potential for drawing out ideas and revealing weaknesses in the fiction narrative. Humanizing the story highlights my weaknesses. These are valuable lessons.

See my notes at the end of the scene. They include, in some limited way, my reasoning for making changes. I hope they highlight skill, as well.

I’ve also provided my thoughts on using AI for storytelling at this point in my journey. 

Come along for the ride.

I’ll tell you a story, scene three.

Shadows in the Smoke

Harland drove away from the modest house, Evelyn Cartwright’s image lingering. Something didn’t quite add up. He didn’t doubt her fear. But she carried herself with a subtle elegance. Along with another quality. Wariness. Eyes that never missed a detail. Speech as economical as any south side lawyer he’d ever met, but with precise delays of uncertainty—the timing of a thespian. This woman was no stranger to trouble. A deeper dig into her background would be prudent.

The following morning, Harland made a few calls. His small notebook, which contained information unavailable in the phone book or any public record, was invaluable for this work. Some names were contacts who specialized in knowing particulars that others paid good money to keep hidden. It took about an hour before one of his sources came through.

Evelyn Cartwright was the wife of Thomas Cartwright—prominent businessman with a finger in every lucrative pie in the city. Making money in real estate and nightlife, Thomas Cartwright bent the rules to his advantage. Harland had heard his name on the periphery of other cases he’d worked. He would show up briefly before vanishing back into the shadows. But while Harlan worked a couple of cases out of town, Cartwright had been recently scalded—rumors circulating about a turncoat employee exposing shady deals and ties to organized crime.

Evelyn and Cartwright had married in a social flurry fifteen years ago, at the height of their independent successes. He was riding the wave of a major real estate coup. She was young and beautiful, the toast of haute société. But something had changed. Photographs from society pages over the years showed a muted quality to Evelyn’s smile. Her eyes had grown hard. Their fairy tale marriage took a bleak turn after the Daily News covered a very public, very vocal marital squabble at the annual Country Club New Year Gala two years ago. It suggested Cartwright’s infidelity, yet lacked specifics.

Harland’s gut tightened as he flipped through the reports his source had sent over. There were signs of infidelity in Cartwright’s past—Evelyn made no mention of this during their interview. She’d rather suggested the woman in the picture was a recent development that confused her understanding of the relationship. But the change in Evelyn’s demeanor in the social papers was impossible to ignore. She’d been losing her dignity, piece by piece, over the years.

He wondered about the photograph she’d given him. Did the affair matter, or had it become old news in the Cartwright home? Did this woman hold more significance? It wouldn’t be the first time a husband kept dangerous secrets from his wife. Cartwright was the man who played his cards with shifty fingers. You suspected cheating, lacked proof.

Harland paid Evelyn another visit. He arrived at the house later that afternoon. Evelyn opened the door before he could knock. She appeared calmer, yet her tense posture spoke volumes. One of fearful anticipation.

“Mr. Harland,” she greeted him, her voice steady but lacking warmth. “I wasn’t expecting you so soon.”

“Thought it best to move quickly.” Harland stepped inside, forcing her to move backwards or bump against him. “I’ve been doing some digging. Your husband isn’t exactly a saint. But I don’t guess that’s news to you.”

Evelyn held his gaze, cool and noncommittal. He noted a flicker of emotion—fear or anger—in her eyes.

She looked away, and said in a quiet voice, “I suppose you know more about him than I do at this point.”

“Do I?” Harland asked, assessing her body language for deception.

She glanced up, her expression guarded and confused.

He pressed her. “There’s something I can’t figure. There have been other women. This, you know. Yet, you seem frightened, not angry. We’re not talking about a cheating husband with a bad temper here. You’re afraid of what your husband is involved with—you’re afraid of how his dealings might destroy you.”

Evelyn’s composure cracked for a microsecond. She turned, walking to the window with her back to him. “What are you implying, Mr. Harland?”

“Nothing. It’s a straight out accusation. You’re not telling me the whole story,” he replied, his voice firm. “If you want my help, I need everything. No more half-truths. No manipulations.”

A long gaze at the street emptied the room of feeling. When she spoke, her voice rose to barely above a whisper.

“I don’t know who I am anymore,” she said. “When I married Thomas, I thought I was marrying a man who would protect me, provide for me. But over the years, I’ve seen things—things that I can’t unsee. I’ve tried to look the other way, pretend everything was fine, but it’s not.”

She turned to face him, eyes hard and cold. “That woman in the photograph—she’s not just another one of his endless affairs. This one’s dangerous. No one will talk about her. People I used to confide in shun me. Whatever Thomas is involved in, it’s not just about playtime or money. It’s about survival.”

A chill entered the room as she talked. Harland shivered and shrugged to downplay it. “So, you don’t know anything about her?”

“I don’t even know her name,” Evelyn replied, her voice trembling. “But I’ve seen her. She pops in and out of Thomas’s life, rarely staying long, for years, always in the shadows.I think she’s blackmailing him—or worse. I’m afraid of what will happen if she decides that I’m a liability.”

Harland let himself breathe, collecting the pieces in his mind. “And you’ve kept this to yourself? Why seek help now?”

“This time it’s different. She’s been around longer. She’s more visible. Thomas isn’t even trying to hide that he’s with her from me. I’m desperate.” Her voice cracked. “I need someone who can figure out what’s really going on—someone who can warn me if I need to run.”

Harland studied her shaky form, weighing the options. This case had just become a lot more complicated. He’d committed, sure. But it wasn’t just his client in danger. It put him in the crosshairs. And by proxy, his wife. Problem was, he was in it deep. Too deep to swim to shore.

“All right,” he said. “I’ll help. But let’s be smart. No secrets, no misdirection. Keep it clean. If we’re going to solve this, and stay safe, we need to work out of the same playbook.”

Evelyn nodded, a flicker of hope in her eyes. “Thank you, Mr. Harland. I—I don’t know what I would have done if….”

“We’re not out of the woods yet,” Harland warned, heading for the door. “I’ll do a deep dive on this woman. I’ve got a contact who will know. But you need to be careful. Whatever’s going on, it’s big and it’s deadly.”

Beyond the gate, heading to his car, Harland wondered whether this was a trap. Evelyn might hide something, despite her promise. They didn’t know one another. Not really. Trust was hard earned in this town. One thing he knew with certainty. This case would test his mettle.

He drove to his office, thoughts swirling around Eleanor. She waited for him at home. Expected him to protect her. This would be his last case he vowed. But every step he took led him further into the shadows, exposing him to unseen dangers.

What did we learn?

Not a lot to say about this rewrite. It’s been a crazy couple of weeks. Too much happening at once. Despite my attempt to prepare for the blog, Father Christmas had different intentions. I thus did limited analysis throughout the process.

My primary focus was deepening characterization and strengthening verisimilitude. I filled out Evelyn Cartwright’s character through Harland’s perception of her. This approach also enhanced his character, and I felt it brought more humanity into the frame.

When we first visited this scene with ChatGPT back in September 2024, I’d begun a deeper exploration of prompt design for short story writing. I wanted to know if AI had true potential as a fiction writing tool. As part of that investigation, I took a bunch of training with Jason Hamilton, an author and content creator who teaches others how to use AI chatbots in creating stories. You can find him on YouTube (https://youtu.be/OY95c21KANg).

I learned a great deal from his Story Hacker program. The first step in training began with choosing an idea for a free short story to offer for email signups. It made the most sense for my situation to select something that connected to my current work in progress, Murder in the Glass Castle.

I wrote a story about an event that happened prior to Glass Castle using AI. When I say “wrote” it means that I broke the steps of story creation down item by item. Using ChatGPT or Claude.ai, I processed each element to create a final product ready for publication.

My attempt to develop a useable plot with those AI tools took me three tries. I eventually moved on to the creation of scene beats. My skills had much improved, so that section only took me five or six goes before I decided I had a narrative line that worked.

The last step of AI involvement is writing the scene. With guidance from the expert Mr. Hamilton, I designed a sophisticated prompt that would create prose in my voice and style. You can accomplish this by letting the chatbot read and analyze some portion of your body of work. The process worked so well, I was able to polish out the nonsense in as little as an hour or two per scene. Note the sarcasm.

I completed the short story after about a week of working part-time, since I have a “real” job that takes up a good deal of my time. While attempting to design a cover that matched the existing series covers, while continuing work on Murder in the Glass Castle, I identified some unexpected problems with the story. For one, the horse in the AI story had a different name than the horse in Glass Castle. It was also a different breed.

Full stop. I didn’t have the time or energy to address these issues. My efforts with this blog and its schedule dependent newsletter occupy any writing time apart from the scene-by-scene revision on Glass Castle. It occurs to me that the previous round of revisions that created the mess I’m trying to fix used a lot of AI. I believe it was very helpful with description, but it distracted me from plot and narrative drive.

All this to answer a simple question. What did we learn? AI and the chatbots that interface with its “brain” can do a lot of amazing things with words and ideas. It has a tremendous capacity for pulling (mostly) relevant memories from the (available) collective conscious.

However, it cannot write your story. Wrestle with it long enough, mastering its evolving iterations, and you can generate a medium-quality story. Your desired tale, precisely rendered in your preferred voice, style, and genre.

Whenever I return to AI to work on writing, I always end up having to backtrack. This probably means I’m not smart enough to use artificial intelligence adequately. At least I have irony on my side.