✄ Dissecting your novel to cut back ❤️‍🩹 & find the heart

I wanted to share a ChatGPT “hack” I discovered.

PROMPT: Walk me through outlining Crossfall* so I can find the heart and cut off the rest. Ask me questions, one at a time, that work from the story goal and outwards.

*book title

(note: I did NOT include the manuscript)

FIRST RESPONSE:

Good — we’ll do this surgically. The goal is to expose the core story engine so anything not serving it becomes obvious and removable.

I’ll ask one question at a time, and each question will move outward in layers:

  1. Core promise (heart)

  2. Protagonist necessity

  3. Irreversible problem

  4. Story mechanism

  5. Emotional argument

  6. Supporting structures (which is where cuts usually happen)

I’ll keep you focused on Crossfall as it exists now, not the ideal version.

Question 1 — The Heart (Non-Negotiable Core)

If you had to reduce Crossfall to one sentence that describes what absolutely must survive every revision, what is it?

Not plot summary. Not theme list.

I mean:

“This is a story about ______ who must ______ before ______, or else ______.”

Make it painfully specific — the sentence that, if removed, means it’s no longer Crossfall.

———

Description of Conversation:

In total, it asked 38 questions requiring me to fill in a prompt sentence or make a list. Though I have a ChatGPT Project with CrossFall manuscript, materials, previous discussions, etc, I used the general ChatGPT conversation setting so GPT was limited to the answer information I shared in this conversation.

I was hoping it would do something akin to the Snowflake Method, and essentially it did something similar.

Questions included:

Question 1 — The Heart (Non-Negotiable Core)

If you had to reduce Crossfall to one sentence that absolutely must survive every revision, what is it?

Question 2 — The True Driver (Not the Situation)

What is forcing her to act — internally or morally — that someone else in the same situation might not do?

Question 3 — The Story Goal (Measured End Point)

At the end of Book 1, what would count as success for her?
“She wins when ____.”

Question 4 — The Central Choice (Heart of the Story)

What exactly is the choice she is making?
“She chooses ____ instead of ____.”

Question 15 — The Story Without Lore

What 5–7 moments would still carry the entire story if everything else disappeared?

Question 38 — The Brutal Reduction Test

Imagine you had to tell CrossFall Book 1 in 8 scenes only — nothing else.
What would those 8 scenes be?

However, each question walked me through its connection to the previous answers, and gave me enough context to be able to know clearly what the answer was. Plus the fact that I really know this story.

The result, after it asked me the core questions, it began asking me about my scenes in order to help me find the essential scenes and the non-essential scenes based on my story themes and the character arcs.

While the GPT was very encouraging (read over-eager) with each answer, it was like your favorite English Teacher who had a way of making you want to work hard on something.

At one point I brought up a side character to find out if this character should be in the story and it walked me through my themes and enabled me to fine-tune the PURPOSE my author-brain had behind having that character in the story.

The focus of the question set was always HEART of the story in order to CUT unnecessary scenes.

Also, it gave cumulative summaries. I saved these in a document, then pasted the collection into a prompt asking it:

PROMPT: In light of these (above) conclusions, Give me a section-by-section summary of the story structure with thematic elements

The answer to this prompt included for each of the 9 Scene sets:

  • Structural purpose (what it does in the engine)

  • JulieAnn’s internal position (control vs connection)

  • Theme pressure (fear vs love)

  • What must be preserved when cutting

CONSEQUENTLY:

As I’m now going through the last read-through of my story, I have a strong understanding of elements to highlight and parts to excise from my story. I have internalized the heart of the story and the role of people/places/objects.

This exercise is a large-picture view of the story.

I hope this prompt helps others out there. Maybe your ChatGPT will walk you through your story in the same way. Please let me know if it helps you.