New to ChatGPT? My Super-Helpful Beginner's Guide for Fiction Authors

Here’s everything I wish I knew sooner for getting started with ChatGPT - 3 walkthrough tutorials plus actual prompts you can test right now.

May 07, 2025

If you’re a fiction writer and you’ve been staring at this whole ChatGPT thing like, “What even is this?”—this post is for you.

I’m Dominic, founder of LegendFiction, a full-time marketer and fiction author, and I want to show you how I actually use ChatGPT to brainstorm, stay organized, and get unstuck—especially when I’m walking, phone in hand, and need a creative sidekick on the go. No tech background needed. This is beginner-level, zero-fluff. You’ll see how I open a thread, type or dictate prompts, and get real feedback on story ideas—like I’m talking to a co-writer who just happens to know everything.

And yeah, I’ll share the one trick that totally changed how helpful ChatGPT became for me: roleplaying. When you get this, Chat stops being a search box and starts being Stephen King (or whoever you need) helping you figure out your next big scene.

Whether you’re writing sci-fi with crashing generation ships or thriller mysteries with Nazi blimps (yes, really), this is how I do it—and you can too.

Note: ChatGPT is awesome for helping you write your stories. In our community, we don’t welcome AI-generated stories. The whole point of it all is to learn the craft of story-making, and skill up by actually doing. Get help, get feedback, just don’t have Chat ghostwrite it.

🎙️ CHATGPT PROMPTS FROM THE VIDEO

"Hi chat. I want you to act like somebody who works at NASA. Let's say I'm writing a science fiction fantasy novel and it's set in orbit. I want you to pretend to be a NASA scientist who understands all of the latest research for NASA and give me feedback on how a generation ship could crash into a meteor and start to deteriorate and explode... Give me some research on how this could work."

Act like my [favorite author] and give me their feedback on how they would structure and write a novel.

My character lives in World War II and he is behind enemy lines and I have this idea that he discovers a blimp is being built and it's going to rival the Hindenburg and it's set on a course to attack the United States and this is a mystery thriller. If you were to be like Stephen King, how would you help me turn this into more of a drama and scary, you know, horror story with great epic characters? Where might this story go?

Want Better Characters? Ask ChatGPT Like This

Ever wish your characters could sit down with a therapist—and spill everything? That’s basically what I’m doing here. Let’s walk through how I use ChatGPT not just for edits, but to actually get inside my characters' heads. I'm talking backstory, scars, guilt, trauma, subconscious motives—the stuff you don’t even realize is missing from your story.

I’ll show you how I ask it to act like my favorite author or editor (Danielle Steel? Alex Hormosi? Yep). Then I throw in scenes from my novel and let it tear them apart in the best way possible. You’ll see how I use prompts to get cinematic backstories, deep emotional hooks, and even full-on diary entries from my characters' POV. And yeah, some of it hurts. I rewrote a whole book doing this.

But this is where the fun starts—when your flat characters suddenly feel alive, when ChatGPT starts pointing out things you missed. You don't need perfect prompts. You just need to ask better questions. That’s what I’m showing you here.

📚 GENERAL WRITING FEEDBACK

“Hi Chat, this is a piece of my chapter. I’d like feedback, ideas to make it stronger.”

“Act like my favorite author/editor (e.g., Danielle Steel, Alex Hormosi). Be brutally honest. Tell me what’s broken.”

“Pretend you are Alex Hormosi. Identify everything I’ve missed and make every chapter relentlessly helpful.”

🧠 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT

“My character has a scar across his face. I don’t know how he got it. Give me childhood events that explain it, Marvel-style.”

“Act like a professional scriptwriter or movie producer. Give me ideas that are cinematic.”

📝 PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS

Take this character sketch. Act like a therapist. Give me feedback on emotional patterns, unconscious drives, core trauma. Create a diary entry from my character’s point of view. Break down character traits you can infer from this.

AI Writes With Me: Outlining a Novel with ChatGPT

Got an idea for a novel but don’t know what to do with it yet? This is how I take that moment—where I’m like, “hmm, maybe there’s something here”—and use Chat to actually build it into something real.

Here's how I use ChatGPT to go from random idea to rough outline, do genre research, find trends, avoid tired tropes, and see what real readers are complaining about on Amazon or Reddit (which is way more helpful than you'd expect).

I walk through how I ask Chat to act like a developmental editor, use frameworks like Pixar or Save the Cat, and help me break the story down into actual scenes with word count targets—so I can figure out how long it’s going to take me to write this thing with the time I actually have.

I’ll even demo Canvas, which I avoided for way too long and now kind of love because it’s like having a live Word doc that thinks with you. So if you’re someone who’s got ideas but you never quite finish them—or you spend weeks obsessing and then nothing happens—this might help. It’s how I get unstuck, stop overthinking, and actually get writing.

And if you’ve never used Chat before, or you’re curious how to get more out of it, this video might open things up for you.

💡 IDEA GENERATION & STORY DEVELOPMENT

Hey Chat, I’ve got this half-formed idea—can you help me turn it into something real? Like a basic concept I could build a novel around?

Write a dramatic blurb based on this story idea so I can see if it sounds interesting enough to chase.

Map this idea onto the Pixar story structure—or even Save the Cat—just to see where it might go.

🔍 RESEARCH & PATTERN RECOGNITION

Go online and find the most popular current books in fantasy and military sci-fi, and tell me what tropes they use. Dig into Amazon and Reddit and pull out reader complaints about those books—what do people hate or get bored with?”

Give me a list of tropes that are being overused in my genre, and suggest some ways I could avoid or subvert them.

🔧 IMPROVEMENT & TROUBLESHOOTING

I’ve got a character arc in mind, but it’s feeling kind of flat—can you act like a developmental editor and push me to make it deeper?

Here’s a combat scene I’ve got—what are the usual pitfalls in military sci-fi, and how can I make this feel fresher?

Help me build a more immersive world with actual rules—don’t just say it needs depth, walk me through how to get there.

🧠 CRITICAL THINKING & PERSPECTIVE SHIFTING

Now roleplay as someone who completely disagrees with what I just said and challenge all my assumptions.

Where would someone push back on this idea, and what’s the logic behind that criticism?

🧾 STRUCTURE, PLANNING & SCHEDULING

I want to write a 50,000-word novel, but I only have time to write three days a week. Can you calculate how long this will take me and pace out the writing schedule?

Give me a chapter breakdown that fits that schedule—and maybe build in a little breathing room too.

Was this helpful?

Let me know in the comments. Where I can make followup guides, I’m happy to!

I’m planning next on tackling the common arguments people make against using AI, and then a tutorial on how to create AI art.