How to Get Longer Creative Stories from GPT-5

8/12/2025

So, you’ve gotten your hands on GPT-5, the latest & greatest from OpenAI, & you’re ready to write that epic sci-fi novel you’ve been dreaming up. You fire it up, feed it a brilliant prompt, &… it gives you a few paragraphs. A good few paragraphs, sure, but NOWHERE near the sprawling, multi-thousand-word chapters GPT-4o used to spin up for you.

What gives?

If you’re feeling this pain, you are absolutely not alone. It’s been a common complaint across forums & social media since GPT-5 rolled out: it just doesn’t seem to have the same creative writing stamina as its predecessor. Honestly, it can be pretty frustrating when you’re trying to get into a creative flow.

Turns out, there’s a reason for this, & it has a lot to do with the new architecture under the hood. But the good news is, you’re not doomed to a future of flash fiction. You just need to change your approach. Here’s the thing, getting GPT-5 to write longer, more imaginative stories is totally possible—it just requires a bit more finesse & some clever prompt engineering.

Let's dive into what’s going on & how you can work with it, not against it.

What’s Different About GPT-5's Writing Style?

First off, let's acknowledge the elephant in the room. A lot of creative users feel like GPT-5’s writing is… well, a little less creative. Users have described it as "colder," "nerdy," & more "strictly professional" than GPT-4o. Some have even called its output "LinkedIn-slop"—ouch—noting that it seems optimized for clarity & safety over stylistic charm.

This isn't just your imagination. OpenAI themselves have talked about how GPT-5 is designed for more structured reasoning & to be a "legitimate PhD level expert." It has a unified architecture that automatically decides whether a prompt needs a quick answer or a deeper, more thoughtful one. This makes it AMAZING for coding, math, & factual analysis, where it’s less prone to making things up (hallucinating).

But for creative writing, that same logical, "get-to-the-point" approach can feel a bit flat. It's like asking a brilliant engineer to write a poem; the structure might be perfect, but the soul might be missing. Some users report that GPT-5 struggles to follow brainstorming that jumps between ideas, preferring a more linear & rigid thought process. When it's hyper-focused on logic, it can lose the ability to make the associative leaps that are crucial for human-like creativity.

One Reddit user summed it up perfectly: when they asked for a 2,000-word story, GPT-5 couldn't even hit 1,500 words in one go & insisted on breaking it into 1,000-word chunks. After a while, it would start forgetting what it had already written & repeat itself. Meanwhile, they found GPT-4o could pump out 3,500 words from a single prompt.

So, the trade-off for a more accurate & logical AI seems to be a less verbose & whimsical one. But don't despair! We just need to learn how to speak its new language.

Mastering the Art of the "Long-Form" Prompt for GPT-5

The key to unlocking longer stories with GPT-5 is moving beyond the simple "write me a story about..." prompt. You need to be the director, not just the person who yells "action!" This means getting strategic with your prompts.

Here are some techniques that work wonders:

1. Become a Master of Specificity & Structure

Vague instructions get vague results. This has always been true for LLMs, but it’s CRITICAL with GPT-5. You need to provide a clear roadmap for the AI.

Be Crystal Clear: Instead of "Write a story about a space pirate," try something like: "Write the first chapter of a science fiction story, approximately 1,500 words long, about a down-on-his-luck space pirate named Jax who takes on a mysterious job to steal a rare artifact from a heavily guarded corporate vessel. The tone should be gritty, with a sense of humor, similar to Firefly." See the difference?
Structure Your Prompt: Use headings, bullet points, & numbered lists within your prompt to organize your request. This helps the model organize its own output. For instance, you could structure your prompt like this:
- Topic: A haunted house story.
- Characters:
  - Protagonist: A skeptical journalist named Clara.
  - Antagonist: The restless spirit of a 19th-century sea captain.
- Plot Points to Cover:
  1. Clara arrives at the house to debunk the myths.
  2. She experiences a series of unexplainable events.
  3. She discovers the captain's logbook.
  4. The chapter should end on a cliffhanger where the ghost directly communicates with her.
- Desired Length: Around 2,000 words.

This level of detail gives the model clear guardrails to work within, making it much more likely to produce a long & coherent piece of writing.

2. The Power of "Few-Shot" Learning

This sounds technical, but it’s pretty simple: you teach by example. Before you ask GPT-5 to write in a certain style, you give it a small sample of what you want.

It’s like saying, "Hey, see this? I want more of this."

For example:

"I want you to write a fantasy story in a lyrical, descriptive style. Here is an example of the tone I'm looking for: 'The wind sang a mournful song through the jagged peaks of the Dragon's Tooth mountains, carrying the scent of pine & forgotten magic.'

Now, write a scene where a young elf ventures into these mountains to find a rare herb, continuing in this same style for at least 1,000 words."

By providing a stylistic anchor, you give the model a clear pattern to follow, which can help it generate more extensive & stylistically consistent text.

3. Embrace "Prompt Chaining" for Epic-Length Stories

This is probably the single most powerful technique for getting around GPT-5's shorter output tendencies. Prompt chaining is exactly what it sounds like: you break down a complex task (like writing a whole story) into a series of smaller, connected prompts. You use the output from one prompt as the input for the next.

It’s a conversation, not a monologue. Here’s how you could use it to write a story:

Prompt 1 (The Outline): "Generate a detailed, chapter-by-chapter outline for a 5-chapter mystery novel. The story is about a retired detective who is pulled back into one last case when his childhood friend is accused of murder in a small town. Include key plot twists & character arcs."
Prompt 2 (Chapter 1): "Excellent. Now, using the outline you just created, write Chapter 1. Introduce the detective, John, & show his reluctance to get involved. Describe the small town atmosphere & end with him receiving the phone call about his friend's arrest. Aim for 1,500 words."
Prompt 3 (Chapter 2): "Okay, that was great. Here is Chapter 1: [Paste the output from the previous prompt]. Now, write Chapter 2. John arrives in town & has his first tense reunion with the local sheriff. He visits his friend in jail, who proclaims his innocence. Continue to build suspense. Aim for another 1,500 words."

You continue this process, feeding the previous output back into the model for context, until your story is complete. This method plays to GPT-5's strengths—structured, step-by-step processing—while allowing you to maintain narrative continuity over a MUCH longer word count. It keeps the model focused on one section at a time, preventing it from forgetting details from earlier in the narrative.

Managing Customer Interactions & Engagement

Thinking about this kind of conversational back-and-forth also applies to how businesses interact with their customers. Just like we're "prompting" the AI to get the best result, customers are "prompting" a business with their questions & needs. When they don't get a good response, they get frustrated.

This is where having a smart AI assistant on your website can make a HUGE difference. For businesses looking to improve their customer service, using a tool like Arsturn can be a game-changer. Arsturn helps businesses create custom AI chatbots trained on their own data. This means the chatbot can provide instant, accurate answers to customer questions, guide them to the right products, & engage with them 24/7. It's like having a perfectly prompted assistant ready to help every website visitor, ensuring they get the detailed & helpful "output" they're looking for.

Advanced Tactics: Thinking Like a Power User

If you've mastered the basics & still want more, here are a few more advanced tricks:

Chain-of-Thought (CoT) Prompting: Encourage the model to "think step-by-step." This is particularly useful for complex plot points. You can literally include the phrase "think through this step-by-step" in your prompt. This technique was a key part of GPT-5's development for improving reasoning.
Assigning a Persona: Frame your request by telling the AI who it is. For example: "You are a bestselling fantasy author known for your epic world-building & deep character development. Write the opening to your next novel..." This can help nudge the model out of its default "helpful assistant" tone.
Iterate & Refine: Don't expect the first prompt to be perfect. If the output is too short or the tone is off, tweak your prompt & try again. Add more constraints, provide a different example, or break the task down even further.

So, Is GPT-5 a Downgrade for Writers?

Honestly, no. It’s just… different. While GPT-4o was like a wildly imaginative, freewheeling brainstormer, GPT-5 is more like a disciplined, expert collaborator. It's less likely to go off on a creative tangent, but it’s more reliable & better at following complex instructions when they’re given clearly.

The shift requires us, as creative users, to be more deliberate. We have to do a bit more of the structural thinking upfront. But once you get the hang of these new prompting techniques—especially prompt chaining—you'll find you can generate stories that are not only just as long as what you got from GPT-4, but potentially more coherent & well-structured.

For businesses trying to grow, harnessing this kind of deliberate, structured AI is key. When you're trying to generate leads or boost conversions, you can't leave things to chance. Arsturn helps businesses do just that by building no-code AI chatbots trained on their specific data. This allows for personalized, meaningful conversations with potential customers, guiding them through the sales funnel in a structured way that leads to better results.

So, don't give up on that novel. Just think of yourself as the director, & GPT-5 as your very talented, very literal-minded, & incredibly powerful new writing partner.

Hope this was helpful! Let me know what you think & if you've found any other cool tricks for getting GPT-5 to stretch its creative legs.