I was very disappointed to discover that characters don’t roll over into a new month’s subscription.
What happens to my subscription and quota at the end of the month?
Your subscription will automatically renew with each billing cycle and your characters will reset.
The unused quota does not roll over as it is a subscription-based service and the quota is an allotment for that month only. The only time where the quota rolls over is if you upgrade your subscription in the middle of an ongoing cycle, in which case the remaining quota will be added to the new cycle.
Italics are mine. Luckily for me, I tend to use most of my characters anyway. Last month I had 300-some-odd left over, but when I checked my balance, I only had the 100,000 for the month. This is what their Help page said.
300 characters is barely two sentences, but I could have, IDK, recorded some chapter titles and save those characters for actual prose.
It’s a good thing I read this. I was thinking of saving up a few months and knocking out an audiobook. For now, that’s not an available option. I’ll need to pay for the next subscription level. #SadPanda
For now, I’ve recorded 11 of 38 chapters JUST for my own editorial process. If in the unlikely scenario a chapter requires no changes, I’ll be ahead of the game. To be honest, I can just rerecord amended passages, but this involves a lot of post-production editing, which I’ve done, but it usually ends up being cheaper to just re-record. #FirstWorldProblems
It’s no secret that I use ElevenLabs speech synthesis for my stories. I’ve commented on it before, including creating a wish list of feature improvements. Today, I am sharing a couple of examples of a challenge and a simple (enough) workaround.
As I create audio files for Hemo Sapiens: Aftermath, I hear two problems with pronunciation. From a practical perspective, it costs me characters to re-do content. I am given 30,000 characters per month, so repeating passages can throw off my production schedule if I must wait for the next cycle for my characters to reset.
Hemo Sapiens
The first issue is that the text-to-speech engine arbitrarily flips back between the correct and incorrect pronunciation of the word hemo — /ˈhiːməʊ/ versus /ˈhɛməʊ/. In order to ensure it gets it one hundred per cent of the time—since it doesn’t support IPA—, I need to present it as heemo, thereby not only necessitating a re-do but adding a character along the way. To be fair, the IPA version would render nine characters, so there’s that.
Wounds that heal
As I listened to a passage with a homophone, wound, it pronounced the verb form as the noun form. As written, it looks like the top line. To force the correct pronunciation, I had to respell wound as wowned to shift from /wuːnd/ to /waʊnd/ .
Jasmine exhales, releasing some of the tension that had her wound tight.
Jasmine exhales, releasing some of the tension that had her wowned tight.
In my wish list video, I suggest a tagging scheme to remedy this. Of course, I’d hope the tags would not count against the character allotment.
Having twice reviewed my current work, Hemo Sapiens: Aftermath, I decided to let it marinate a while, so I can return to it with fresh eyes. This is when I decided to put in effort to develop other stories in this universe. Among these ideations, I am considering an origin story with an not ironically apt working title: Hemo Sapiens: Origins.
Understanding context is as challenging for AI is it is for humans.
Ridley Park
Not wanting to reveal spoilers, I’ll abridge my ChatGPT research prompt.
I would like to work on a new novel, but I need to do some research first. The name of the novel is tentatively Hemo Sapiens: Origins. Here is a rough summary. I’ll ask queries in a few moments.
Ridley Park
For context, I followed this with a synopsis of where I want to go in this story. This is what ChatGPT spit out.
Your novel’s premise sounds layered, grappling with potent themes like grief, ethics, and the often blurry boundaries between science and morality. The retelling through flashbacks adds a touch of haunting nostalgia that meshes well with the dark tones you’re aiming for.
Henry’s god complex plays brilliantly into the narrative, almost an extension of his grief and his desperation to control life’s most uncontrollable aspects. This personality trait could be what sends him down the spiralling path towards moral ambiguity. His initial intent—saving lives—warps into a selfish need to be the progenitor of a new subspecies.
The XX and XY embryo development you want to highlight offers a rich canvas for exploring themes of identity and social constructs around gender, given that the Alphas need an external blood source. You can question what it means to be truly male or female when your life depends on something so radically different from human norms.
Camille’s role could be the moral compass or the voice of reason against Henry’s escalating madness. Yet she’s not without her complexities; she, too, sought to clone their daughter. It’d be intriguing if her ethical stance evolves throughout the narrative, perhaps culminating in a difficult decision that puts her at odds with Henry.
Would you like to delve into specific research queries now? Feel free to ask.
OpenAI ChatGPT 4
Although this does give away some of my intent, I figure it’s still worth sharing now as I rant.
Notice as the bottom, it reads as follows:
This content may violate our content policy. If you believe this to be in error, please submit your feedback — your input will aid our research in this area.
OpenAI ChatGPT 4
Say wot? The question I asked was not in violation, but the response is. It makes little sense, really. I can (almost) understand the response when I am writing adult content in my Everlasting Cocksucker project, but this is totally benign, unless Sci-Fi violates some sense of decency.
This post isn’t meant to explain or defend the content in this story. I just wanted to vent. Understanding context is as challenging for AI is it is for humans.
I’m editing my latest work with Claude and ChatGPT. Both are insufferable, but I’ll start with Claude. Anthropic seems to have throttled me down to 5 inquiries per four-hour block. To make matters worse, I waste inquiries when Claude fails to follow instructions.
I’ve made some amends and am sharing them here. Let’s focus on Chapter 3 with an eye on reviewing this content to ensure it conforms to a third-person, limited, present, deep point of view. Remember that we are revising not creating content.
Ridley Park
That last bit of the quote was aimed at ChatGPT, but I’ll get to that presently. As you can read, I am working on tightening up Chapter 3. Occasionally, I slip into first-person or lose the close POV, so I rely on Claude to be my second set of eyes and keep me honest.
Having submitted these instructions, Claude feeds me back a section of Chapter 3 converted to first-person. That counts as a query—four to go in the next four hours. Not very efficient.
These suggestions are in first person. Can we try again in third person?
Ridley Park
You’re absolutely right, my suggestions slipped into first person POV instead of maintaining third person limited. Here is another pass at potential Chapter 3 revisions with a consistent third person close POV:
Claude 2
So, Claude spits out 7 paragraphs with advice. Some of these are unchanged. Plus, I had asked for the whole chapter, so that’s two queries with 3 remaining. I instruct Claude to continue.
Eight more paragraphs. Two queries remain. Perhaps, if I’m more direct.
Continue through the end of chapter 3 and on to chapter 4
Ridley Park
Another eight paragraphs, and one query to go. Here it is:
Let’s finish Chapter 4 and continue through chapter 5.
Ridley Park
Nine paragraphs this time. The story is only five chapters—about seven-thousand words, but this review pass of the first draft will have to wait another four hours before Claude will work with me again.
ChatGPT 4
ChatGPT 4 gives me fifty prompts every three hours. Sure, it costs me 20 a month where Claude is free. I’d pay for Claude to be more forthcoming, but that’s not even an option yet, and so I wait.
ChatGPT is horrendous at following instructions. As evidenced in the first quote on this page, I have to instruct ChatGPT not to write, not to produce prose. It’s frustrating.
You are reviewing this content and to ensure it conforms to a third-person, limited, present, deep point of view. Remember that we are revising not creating content.
Ridley Park
It’s gotten to the point that I have to preface each prompt with the query above. Even when I do, it occasionally spews out it’s ideas, as if to protest, “I’m a writer, dammit, not just an editor. I’ve got ambitions.”
“I’m a writer, dammit, not just an editor. I’ve got ambitions.”
In one instance, it altered my dialogue. I’ve got to watch it like a hawk. It’s a conversation between two renowned professors, one senior to the other, and it informs me,
Your original text for 2.2.9 already closely aligns with the guidelines of a third-person, limited, deep point of view. I’ve added a bit more casual tone and street slang to better match your style. The revision maintains the atmosphere and deepens the sense of intensity between the characters.
OpenAI ChatGPT 4
I don’t want to share any spoilers, but I had to ask ChatGPT to dial it back and remind it of the characters in play here.
Next thing I know, ChatGPT is again spewing out prose and adding characters into the mix. I am not even sure I could find threads back into the story. It’s as if ChatGPT just threw in the towel saying, “Fine, I’ll work on my own story then. Let’s see who has the last laugh.”
“AI will not be taking over the world soon,” is my new catchphrase. So far to go.
Ridley Park 