Conceptualizing
The Conceptualizing section of Subtxt is where you form the foundation for the meaning of your story.
In order to help get you started and to give you a better idea of what developing a story this way is like, Subtxt offers a step-by-step process that takes you from your original Story Idea all the way to a First Draft Outline. This process is broken down into four steps:
- Story Idea
- Complete Story
- Plot & Players
- Character Arcs
Within each of these sections, you will find a Launch Button complete with the icon of a rocket blasting into outerspace. Consider this the quickest way to leave the gravitational pull of having no ideas and into the escape velocity of instant Storytelling. Clicking these large gold buttons will ask Subtxt to Launch the next stage of the development process. When you re-open your story (after Subtxt completes its work), you will then be taken directly to the next step.
The Cost of Launching
The Conceptualizing section of the app includes four Launch buttons. These buttons provide a more detailed and comprehensive storytelling experience compared to the regular Brainstorming buttons.
While the regular Brainstorming buttons only require 1 token to use, the Launch buttons require 3 tokens. This is because pressing a Launch button is equivalent to making 3 or more requests to the regular Brainstorming AI. Therefore, the Launch buttons provide a more robust and in-depth brainstorming experience, but at a higher cost in terms of tokens.
Users can choose to use the Launch buttons if they want a more detailed and comprehensive brainstorming experience, or they can use the regular Brainstorming buttons (or come up with ideas on their own!) if they prefer a more cost-effective option. Both types of buttons can be useful in different stages of the writing process, and it is up to the user to decide which option is best suited to their needs.
A Place to Begin
In Subtxt, the Launch buttons are designed to help writers generate new ideas and concepts for their story. However, these buttons are only visible in the Conceptualizing section of the app and will not appear on other pages if the writer has already entered information elsewhere.
This is because the Launch Buttons affect the storytelling process on different pages of the app. If the writer has already illustrated Storypoints or Storybeats in the sections that follow, the Launch buttons will not appear.
If the writer wants to brainstorm on those pages, they can do so directly on that specific page. This allows the writer to focus on the specific elements they want to brainstorm and generate new ideas specifically for that section of the story.
It's worth noting that if the writer wants to use the Launch buttons, they will have to do it in the Conceptualizing section, before adding any information elsewhere.
Story Idea
The Story Idea is where you can quickly enter the basic idea of your story. Whether you enter a longer synopsis, or just keywords, Subtxt will use this idea to help generate the next section of your story.
Brainstorming with Subtxt
The first time you encounter the Brainstorming AI button in Subtxt will be on the first page in the Conceptualizing section. Just beneath the Story Idea box, you will find a small electronic brain icon. Simply tap on that and an entry box will open up with the instructions to "brainstorm some ideas...".
You can then jot down any ideas you have pertaining to the story idea or simply enter some keywords. Then tap the brain icon again to have Subtxt AI generate some new Storytelling incorporating those ideas. Once the reply arrives, you can review it and, if you like it, tap Add or Replace to add the new Storytelling into the Storytelling box.
You can then move on or add some more ideas by jotting down some new concepts and hitting the buttons again, even if the new ideas have nothing to do with the previous ones. Once you have added a bunch of ideas, you can choose to Merge all these ideas into one by clicking the Merge button that will appear below the Storytelling box.
Lastly, if you don't have any ideas at all for the Story Idea or even any of the Storybeats or Storypoints that will come up in the development process, you can simply tap on the brain icon and have Subtxt come up with some Storytelling from scratch. This approach gives you the greatest amount of flexibility in merging your own narrative instincts with that of a powerful AI system.
Launching a Complete Story
Once you approve of your Story Idea, you can then click on the Launch a Complete Story to ask Subtxt to take your Story Idea and split it out into the multiple Throughlines needed to write a complete story.
The Launch a Complete Story generates these Storypoints and Encodings for you:
- a Main Character and Obstacle Character if not yet present
- Main Character Throughline Encoding
- Obstacle Character Throughline Encoding
- a relationship based on your Story Idea
- Relationship Story Throughline Encoding
It then blends your four Throughline Encodings into the Complete Story summary and comes up with a Title.
When you click Launch a Complete Story you will be taken back to your Stories page. Here, you can watch the progress of Subtxt's Launch vehicle as it works its way through each and every Storypoint and Encoding. You cannot open a Story while Subtxt is launching the next stage of your story.
When finished, Subtxt will mark the story Complete, and you will then be able to open the story.