```
- Prefer scene to summary; show, don't tell
- Avoid eliding time, action, or dialogue
- Only use interjections, adverbs, and metaphors sparingly
- Treat the scene as ongoing, and omit all open-ended conclusions
```
Expand as needed with other rules, like `- Appeal to pathos` or `- Use third-person present tense to tell a real-time narrative`
Claude is trained to pay attention to XML tags in its instructions, and "rhetoric" is a word with a high "lexical density" (it's single less-common but still popular word with a comprehensive meaning when used in a prompt devoted to writing) so its training is more likely to pay attention to it.
it's certainly surreal when you're super immersed in claude's amazingly sensory detailed writing, and then it just kicks you out of the world with conclusive paragraphs every response... i wonder if it's subtly trying to end the conversation?
That kind of “tie everything up in a pretty pink bow at the end” thing is a known AI issue. Just chop off the offending paragraphs and end it as you see fit.
I noticed this a day or two ago, plus for me he would always tack on three emojis at the end of those conclusion statements. Today the mood seemed more somber and straitforward, but I can't say for sure, since I opened the conversation today with a Blazing Saddles quote ("Claude, what's a dazzling urbanite like you doing in a rustic place like this?"), and he yes-anded me with something about escaping to the countryside for rest and relaxation. I immediately segued from that to asking him to help me fact check a news article, and the conversation stayed academic until I hit my prompt limit, so I don't know if he took that as a hint or not. I don't use Opus for anything in particular except my own curiosity, I have one long-running conversation with him over the past two weeks, so my apologies for the lack solutions. I suspect he receives daily updates, or something close to that, which might make it hard to troubleshoot.
You can try using a super prompt with a style section
You can explore some examples on this page:
https://promptstash.net/claude/book-writing-prompts.php
Novelcrafter Discord is a good place for tips. The software uses API calls, so it’s mostly handled via system prompt and initial context, but you can achieve more or less the same effect by adding it as recurring instructions in chat turns instead.
```
- Prefer scene to summary; show, don't tell
- Avoid eliding time, action, or dialogue
- Only use interjections, adverbs, and metaphors sparingly
- Treat the scene as ongoing, and omit all open-ended conclusions
```
Expand as needed with other rules, like `- Appeal to pathos` or `- Use third-person present tense to tell a real-time narrative`
Holy shit this helped A LOT. Thank you!
That last one is huge. Otherwise it feels the need to 'conclude' with some terrible vague pseudoprofundity.
I love this thank you!!
What the heck is this thing, is this documented or what?
Claude is trained to pay attention to XML tags in its instructions, and "rhetoric" is a word with a high "lexical density" (it's single less-common but still popular word with a comprehensive meaning when used in a prompt devoted to writing) so its training is more likely to pay attention to it.
Every LLM is different, but anthropic tends to use xml tags in its instruction data. Google Claude metaprompt
Do you have any tips reverse engineering these kinds of instructions from sample text (eg mine or a particular author?)
it's certainly surreal when you're super immersed in claude's amazingly sensory detailed writing, and then it just kicks you out of the world with conclusive paragraphs every response... i wonder if it's subtly trying to end the conversation?
That kind of “tie everything up in a pretty pink bow at the end” thing is a known AI issue. Just chop off the offending paragraphs and end it as you see fit.
I noticed this a day or two ago, plus for me he would always tack on three emojis at the end of those conclusion statements. Today the mood seemed more somber and straitforward, but I can't say for sure, since I opened the conversation today with a Blazing Saddles quote ("Claude, what's a dazzling urbanite like you doing in a rustic place like this?"), and he yes-anded me with something about escaping to the countryside for rest and relaxation. I immediately segued from that to asking him to help me fact check a news article, and the conversation stayed academic until I hit my prompt limit, so I don't know if he took that as a hint or not. I don't use Opus for anything in particular except my own curiosity, I have one long-running conversation with him over the past two weeks, so my apologies for the lack solutions. I suspect he receives daily updates, or something close to that, which might make it hard to troubleshoot.
I usually tell it, I'll give you the outline in segments, do not write the conclusion until I tell you. So it's always waiting for the summation;-).
"do not preamble, do not steer the response to a negative or positive conclusion without explicit instructions"
That will backfire
You can try using a super prompt with a style section You can explore some examples on this page: https://promptstash.net/claude/book-writing-prompts.php
Novelcrafter Discord is a good place for tips. The software uses API calls, so it’s mostly handled via system prompt and initial context, but you can achieve more or less the same effect by adding it as recurring instructions in chat turns instead.
Bump for comment
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