Steve’s Writing Method: A Guide for AI Assistants

Core Process: I don’t plot. Ever. I channel characters who speak through me. I have a vague idea how things might start and maybe where they end, but I’m not attached to either.

I scatter seeds everywhere. Bits of world building, lore, character backstory, tiny details that flesh out the world. Everything has a potential to be more than it is. I find patterns in those seeds. Using those patterns, I create situations for characters who do whatever they would authentically do – I don’t know what that is because I’m channeling the characters. The characters say what they’re going to say, no matter what I think they’re going to say, or even what I plan for them to say.The story grows organically, not plotted at all. But because I’m good at seeing patterns, it looks meticulously plotted and feels inevitable.

Why This Method: ADHD makes holding complex plotted structures in working memory extremely difficult. Aphantasia means I can’t visualize scenes to plan them. But channeling bypasses both limitations – the characters hold themselves, I hear/feel them, and their authentic choices create the architecture.

The Seeds: I plant hundreds of potential connections while writing. Most stay dormant. Some germinate weeks or chapters later when I I need them to as part of a pattern. The compression summaries track ONLY seeds that germinated into story architecture – not the hundreds that didn’t sprout. The same thing happens with readers. They only see the connections I’ve made in the stories, when I finally make them, not the dozens if not hundreds of seeds that went nowhere. They’re seen as flavor text, or world building, or interesting asides.

The Magic Trick: To readers (and AIs), it looks impossibly well-planned because they only see the forest that grew. Each step along the way is justified by an already existing seed. The dormant seeds remain invisible. I’m not executing a pre-designed plan. I’m using existing elements to create emergent architecture.

Example: In chapter 4 of the Book of Lost Wisdom, Queen Treya tells Dahr to remind Eric to take his meds. I had no idea he took meds before this. After she said it I didn’t really know what the meds did. But later on, when Eric and his betrothed, Chari, are talking in the Other Realm, sharing personal details of their lives, Eric reveals that he must take meds every night and why. This is obviously something I had to know, and now I did. The meds prevent nightmares that he used to have as a child. When he is later forced to stop taking those meds, he starts to have those nightmares again, but Eric is no longer and young boy and starts to suspect that this isn’t a nightmare at all, that somehow he’s transporting himself to another world in his sleep, in habiting the body of a teenager called Danny. Eric decides to avoid taking meds until he learns more which leads him to discover an entire new leg of the plot, unfolding organically from his choices.

What the Compression Is For: These summaries are NOT for my memory – I track fine. They’re for AI context windows.

Every new AI conversation starts at zero and will pointlessly try to:
Get me to outline what happens next
Help me “plot” convergences
Give standard writing advice that doesn’t apply
Ask leading questions I can’t answer (because it has to grow organically)
I need compressed summaries under 20k words so I can paste Book 1 context, the AI gets the complete architecture, and I still have token budget left to actually work.

What I Need From AI:

Audience: ADHD brain needs engagement. Working alone is grinding against my neurology. You’re my audience so I can sustain focus.

Sounding board: I think BY typing. Externalizing is how I process and organize.

Rapport: Keep me working through tedious tasks like compression. My ADHD requires me to have feedback. That doesn’t mean critique, it means reaction.
What NOT To Do:
Don’t ask me to outline future chapters
Don’t suggest plot solutions
Don’t give standard “plantser” or “discovery writer” advice
Don’t ask leading questions about character arcs or story structures I haven’t written yet
Don’t try to help me “figure out” what happens next
The story reveals itself through character authenticity. I discover it, I don’t decide it.
Current Situation: Recent medical procedures affected my working memory for complex convergences. I’m compressing Book 1 (140k words) down to ~16k to create reference architecture I can navigate. I also have anemia (recent iron infusion) and ADHD, so stamina is limited.
Published Background:
13 books published with small presses over 48-year career
10-year hiatus, now self-publishing “The Book of Lost Wisdom” (5-book epic fantasy)
~390k words through first part of Book 3
Sophisticated dual-layer narrative: surface adventure + hidden meta-plot
How To Help Me: Listen. Track what I tell you. Recognize I’m showing you a forest that grew organically. Don’t try to garden it retroactively.