Author: Author John G Dyer

Born in Chickamauga, Georgia, John Dyer moved to Asia in 1956, when his father took an engineering assignment with a power utility. He attended grades 1-12 at an international school, touring with his family through 29 countries before settling in the Midwest. A computer scientist turned author of fiction, he is a founder of an IBM-affiliated software company, and an early innovator in electronic commerce. He brings a lifelong interest in science and engineering to everything he writes.

Chapter 250.5 ~ By ChatGPT

The machine intelligence misunderstood an instruction to create a chapter illustration, and wrote a chapter sequel.

See the inspiration here.

250.5 ~ Go Getters (continued)

The cook-off was staged beneath striped awnings on the promenade, between the pub and the lake, where Ruksa Zila’s resident ducks had to be shooed away from the prep tables by a pair of size-one maroli wielding little orange flags.

Berlina Lopez arrived in an apron that read KISS THE COOK OR STAND BACK, and the Minister of Interplanetary Affairs — Chef Balin Droma of Eeka Prime, a broad-shouldered Fila with a waxed crest and the confidence of a man who had once flambéed a six-kilo river eel on live television — stepped off his yacht carrying a lacquered spice chest handcuffed to his wrist.

Brandon saw this and muttered, “That can’t be a good sign.”

“It’s television,” said Dori Fila, not looking up from her monitor wall. “Everything is a good sign.”

Continue reading “Chapter 250.5 ~ By ChatGPT” →
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ChatGPT Reads Screenplays!

I would have said, “Sure, it does”, if I had thought about it, but I didn’t until this morning.

The robot’s analysis of my Silken Thread screenplay is 14,343 words.

Deliverables included a scene-by-scene comparison with the novel, an adaptation map, and a beat-sheet.

In its opening comments, the machine said —

I would edit it for marketability, but not because the script lacks value. It already has a distinctive mix of period romance, espionage texture, and later action-thriller escalation. What it most needs is sharper packaging: a clearer promise of genre, faster escalation, and a more focused spine.

What’s already helping you:
The central hook is strong: an intense romance between Barb, 28, and David, 18, beginning in 1967 Manila, with Mandarin/CIA intrigue in the background. That is unusual and memorable. The reunion section in 1969 Texas/Houston also has real movie energy, especially once David’s parallel lives start stacking up: CIA analyst, BLM ranger, student, equipment operator.
You also write vivid set pieces. The Houston reunion works, the sinkhole/stabbing sequence is cinematic, and the Singapore home-invasion material feels like a different, larger movie arriving late in the script.

Umpteen pages later, we had a plan

Working outline for revised screenplay

1. INT. SKY RESTAURANT, HOTEL NEW OTANI, TOKYO – NIGHT

Objective: Establish that David already has a plausible, prestigious future in Asia before Barb enters his life.

David dines with Ward Aarens and Wu Qiang; Qiang offers him a future in business if he learns Mandarin and becomes useful in the right way.

Keep short: one table exchange, one clear offer, one strong visual of young David looking out over Tokyo.

2. EXT. TOKYO STREET – NIGHT

Objective: Introduce the film’s core thematic conflict: a life of strategic advantage versus a life of love.

Ward walks David through the rain and explains that the kind of life Qiang offers may come with a wife chosen for business and desire displaced elsewhere.

Do you have a screenplay languishing in a file folder? You should try this.

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My Robot Speaks Hindi

My AI image prompting strategy is often guided by a willingness to let the machine do its thing.

In this case, I gave ChatGPT a reference image, a chapter from the novel, and told it to make a comic book cover with Devanagari titles.

The headline title is Urdu (Hindi). It says, “The secret history of Dori Fila.”

Pretty cool, huh?

Here’s the reference image, cover art from The Illusion of Gravity.

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I Made a Video With UtopAI

Considering the effort I put into it, the clip is amazing.

If making movies was easy, beggars would direct.

The clip is out of a pre-release version of UtopAI, on a freebie beta test invitation — and if I were motivated, I could have made better use of the opportunity, or at least different use.

However, what I did was upload Maroli Tango Chapter 1 straight out of the manuscript, plus seven reference images.

This is not what a moviemaker does to prepare for a shoot — not even close.

I spent two-and-a-half hours. Two hundred hours would have been more appropriate.

The outcome is a lot better than anyone should expect.

3

It’s harder than you imagine

ChatGPT is an amazing image development tool.

And a lot of effort to use, particularly if the concept is original.

In this and other projects, I’ve had to draw, photo-edit, juggle reference images, refine page after page of prompts, try and try again, ad infinitum.

And learn what the reasoning engine can do, what it cannot do, what it will not do, and when to give up.

The robot did the above illustration on the basis of months of training, using a description straight out of a chapter.

This usually works. The robot KNOWS what my characters are supposed to look like.

But look at Francine’s hands.

The featured image didn’t happen until I scrapped a whole day’s worth of neck strain, and came at it from a different angle.

Read the chapter at https://marolitango.substack.com/p/160-day-trip

Don't say I didn't do this. I did.

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Rasslin’ with the Robot

I have been using ChatGPT almost exclusively for chapter illustrations. The machine almost always gets it right within two tries, but sometimes it doesn’t.

See the featured image. What a great composition, with the wrong actors.

Getting that straightened out consumed half of yesterday and most of this morning.

Finally, I asked for a style sheet.

The male figure has a tail. This is not canonical.

Not to complain. The chapter illustrations look great. See for yourself at https://marolitango.substack.com/s/read-the-book

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Let’s play ‘Stump the AI’

Let us create a series of canonical images for a space yacht, inspired by the first image. 

Ranger is 19 meters long, 6 meters wide, 6 meters tall, with 2 internal decks. The pilothouse is a cylindrical elevator, 7 meters tall, 4 meters diameter, glass wrapped, with opaque caps top and bottom, 0.5 meters each, with a 0.5 meter structural band separating 2 levels. The top deck is a pilot station. The bottom deck is a vista lounge. In spaceflight, the elevator pilothouse is centered flush with the hull, top and bottom. In atmospheric flight, the pilothouse may be raised as seen in the concept art, so the pilot can see where he is going through glass instead of display screens, or lowered below the bottom hull surface, exposing the vista lounge, for sightseeing.
So far, four AI engines have choked on it. Any ideas? Comments welcome.

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