ChatGPT is a chatbot made by OpenAI. I use it to create short instructional books about different subjects that interest me. In this post, I describe how I use it for writing.
I choose to use ChatGPT because it is more advanced than other chatbots available. It’s not just a tool that provides answers to questions, but an artificial intelligence that can learn and adapt based on our conversations.
Other chatbots such as Poe by Quora are available that do at least as well.
Setting Grade Level
Start each conversation with: “From now on, write each answer at an 8th-grade level.” 8th grade is the reading level of the average reader. By default, ChatGPT writes at a 12th-grade level, but only 33% of the public can comprehend that level of complexity.
Deciding on Audience and Purpose
The first step, as with all writing, is to decide on both the target audience of your text and its purpose. The target audience refers to the specific group of people you are writing for, while the purpose outlines what you hope to achieve through your writing. For instance, if you’re writing for an elderly person with limited technical knowledge who wants to purchase and use cryptocurrency, they would be your target audience, and the purpose would be to help them understand how to do so. So tell ChatGPT, “From now on, write each answer at an 8th-grade level for a target audience of an older person without much technical skill, who wants to buy and use cryptocurrency.”
Deciding on Subject
The next step is to pick what subject you want to write about. A book should have only one subject so that it has focus.
Deciding on Format
The format could be a book, but it could also be a blog post or email. For more details, ask ChatGPT about the writing formats and styles that it is capable of using.
Asking Questions
The next step is to decide what questions you want the book to answer. If you don’t do that, you’ll be disappointed with the final product because it doesn’t cover what you want it to cover.
The question should be determined with respect to the audience and purpose, like this: “What are the top 20 frequently asked questions about (subject)?” For example, “What are the top 20 frequently asked questions about trading cryptocurrency and NFTs?”
If there aren’t enough questions when it stops writing, just prompt it to “Continue”. Copy and paste the questions into a text file and delete all the ones that you don’t like. Add any questions that you do like. That will give you a list of questions that you want to be answered by the book.
You can also ask for a list of subtopics related to your chosen topics with: “What are the top 20 commonly discussed topics in (subject)?” Add them to the list of questions for a more general approach.
Don’t let the list get too long, though. Make sure all the subtopics are closely related. Consider splitting a subtopic into a separate book, if it is too big to cover or only weakly related.
Writing Outline
Now that you have your completed list of questions, tell the program, “Here is a list of important questions and topics. Write an outline for a book with 20 chapters that answers all of those questions and discusses the topics.” And copy and paste it back into ChatGPT.
I chose 20 chapters because the average book has between 10 and 30 chapters. You can choose a different number to adjust the level of coverage. If it writes a long outline and then stops in the middle without finishing, just prompt it with, “Continue.”
When it gives you the outline, eliminate the outline letters and numbers and don’t include them in the headers because they are redundant. Then add the below sections as appendices.
Reordering Chapters
ChatGPT interprets your requests quite literally. Sometimes it writes the chapters in bad order, and even allows duplicate chapters. I delete the duplicate chapters. Then I force it to rethink its decisions by copying and pasting the list of chapters back into ChatGPT with the request, “Put the following topics in logical order:”.
Filling in Outline
You could either write a short ebook or a long one. If you just fill in the outline that it gives you, the book will probably be about 10 or 15 pages and take about 30 minutes to read. You can make it longer by telling it to expand each chapter outline into more subtopics.
For each topic, ask the chatbot to describe, explain, and summarize the topic. Describing tells what it is, explaining tells how it works, and summarizing gives an overview.
You can expand each section by asking it to give examples. This is especially relevant for equations so that calculations can be done.
You should stay in the same chat window for follow-up questions for consistency. After a while though, if it seems like it is repeating itself, copy the question into a new chat window to ask it in a fresh context. It also tends to repeat the same disclaimers at the bottom of similar questions over and over again, so you can delete that part.
Write general parts like the Title and Introduction after the rest is done so that it has more to discuss. Make sure that the title fits the subject and doesn’t overpromise. For example: “What is a good title for an introductory book to the basic concepts of X?”
Writing Shorter Formats
There are a couple of ways you can write in a shorter format, like a blog post or documentation page on a smaller subject.
- Select a smaller number of chapters, like 5 or 10.
- Combine the coverage for the subtopics in a chapter into a single combined question. Instead of asking questions about subtopics A, B, and C separately, tell ChatBot to “Explain A, B, and C.”
Proofreading
Sometimes ChatGPT makes simple grammar errors with run-on sentences or bad subject-verb agreement. I use Quillbot to check its grammar. I also read it over to see if it makes sense and look for factual errors.
Adding Appendices
The main goal of the ebook’s content is to convey a cohesive narrative. Additionally, there are several appendices included to provide a more in-depth analysis of the subject matter. These are the typical appendices that I include.
- Important People: Make this a separate biographical list instead.
- Familiar Quotations
- Significant Events: Make this a separate historical list instead.
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Similarities and Differences
- Potential Benefits
- Best Practices
- Common Mistakes
- Common Misconceptions
- Common Criticisms
- Current Trends
- Helpful Tools
- Data Sources
- Resources for Further Study
- Glossary of Terms