The Plan

In November and December of 2025, I participated in a short-fiction writing competition. We were given a genre and a few random story elements to inspire our creative process, but then the rest is was up to the author (within 2,000 words). Using AI to assist in the writing of the story is explicitly forbidden by the terms of the competition, and so I did not use any AI tools to complete my entry. However, I was pleased enough with my story that I though it might be fun to use it to learn a bit about building image-creation workflows using Gemini!

The plan is to create a comic book based on the story I wrote.

Preparations

First, I needed to develop a workflow. Using AI to answer one question, or to create and edit a single image can be done in a single simple prompt, but in order to use it to create a "complete" piece we need more structure. A good workflow helps to provide this structure, and will help maintain consistency throughout the project.

If you're like me, you've never had to develop an artistic workflow before. Fortunately for people like us, it turns out that AI is pretty good at helping us design a workflow that the LLM itself can follow. Because the goal is not to remove the human from the creative process, we need to prepare the model to respond to our constraints and to produce multi-modal outputs. This will cause the model to actively consider the context of its generative output, rather than just producing "isolated" images. To do this, I used a Chain of Thought (CoT) prompt to get Gemini to help me build a workflow:

Here's Gemini's response:

This is an outstanding foundational plan. As a comic book producer, I can tell you that you have outlined a highly professional production pipeline. It mirrors exactly how real-world studios approach complex projects, moving quickly past the idea that a comic is just "drawn" and recognizing that it is *engineered*.

Your proposed workflow is strong because it prioritizes preparation (story beats, layouts, designs) before execution (final art), which is crucial for maintaining quality and consistency, especially when dealing with complex visual narratives like "sword and sorcery."

To answer your specific questions on how to improve or structure this prompt for the best result: **Yes, this is the right place to begin, but we need to add two critical elements to your workflow before we start.**

Here is my assessment of your plan and recommendations for additions to ensure our workflow is bulletproof.

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### The Producer's Notes: Refining the Workflow

Your initial structure is solid. Here is how we will operationalize it, including the necessary additions (marked in bold).

#### Phase 1: Pre-Production & Design (Crucial for Consistency)

You correctly identified the need for character design. Because we are using generative AI tools to assist in creating the imagery, this phase is not just important; it is mandatory for consistency.

1. **Style Guide Definition:** We will define "gently influenced by sword and sorcery." Does this mean the gritty, ink-heavy style of Conan magazines from the 70s? The painted look of classic fantasy covers? Or a cleaner, modern fantasy webtoon aesthetic? We need to nail this vibe down early.

2. **Character Reference Sheets (Asset Generation):** Before we draw Page 1, we must generate definitive "reference sheets" for your main characters.

* *Why:* AI models have "memory loss." If we don't feed the exact same character reference into the prompt for Page 5 that we used on Page 1, their armor, face shape, or clothing will morph. We need static images of your heroes (front, side, expressions) to use as "image prompts" later.

#### Phase 2: Script to Layouts

Your plan to move from story -> beats -> frames -> pages is perfect.

3. **Story Beat Breakdown & Script Adaptation:** You have the prose story. Our first step together will be turning that prose into a "comic script." This means deciding what is narrative caption, what is spoken dialogue, and what is purely visual storytelling.

4. **Thumbnails & Pagination:** We will take those beats and arrange them into page layouts. This is where we decide the pacing. A big action moment might need a "splash page" (one giant panel), while a conversation might need a dense 6-panel grid.

#### Phase 3: Production (The Missing Element)

This is where your initial prompt missed a vital step in comic creation.

5. **Art Generation (Sequential):** As you suggested, we will generate the art page by page, using our Phase 1 design assets and Phase 2 layouts as guides.

6. **Lettering (THE ADDITION):** A comic is not a comic without words. *Where and how will the lettering happen?*

* *The Issue:* AI image generators are notoriously terrible at rendering text within an image. They cannot reliably create speech bubbles with coherent dialogue.

* *The Solution:* We should plan to generate "clean" art (no text). Then, a separate step must occur where the dialogue and captions from the script are placed onto the finished art using graphic design software (like Photoshop, Illustrator, or specialized comic tools).

* *Decision Needed:* Will you be handling the lettering on the final images, or do you need me to suggest workflows for that as well?

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### Summary of Action Plan & Next Steps

To get the best results, I recommend we structure our collaboration in these distinct stages. Do not send the full story yet. Let's establish the parameters first.

**Action 1: Define the Goal Posts**

Please reply with the answers to these three questions. Once I have these, we will be ready for the story.

1. **The Format:** What is the final viewing destination?

* *Option A:* Standard US Comic Page (Portrait orientation, meant for print or tablet viewing).

* *Option B:* Webtoon/Vertical Scroll (Continuous downward scrolling, meant for phones).

* *Option C:* Manga/Graphic Novel standard dimension.

* *(This dictates entirely how we handle pagination in Phase 2).*

2. **The Aesthetic:** When you say "sword and sorcery," could you name 1 or 2 existing comics, artists, or movies that capture the "vibe" you want? (e.g., "Mike Mignola's Hellboy meets Conan the Barbarian," or "The 1980s Heavy Metal animated movie.")

3. **The Lettering Plan:** Do you have a plan for adding text bubbles to the final images, or do we need to incorporate that into our workflow discussions?

Once you answer those, I will be ready to receive the story and begin **Phase 2, Step 3: Story Beat Breakdown.**

Wow! It did a really good job reading into my prompt, tuning some things up and then turning things over to me creatively again!

There are parts of this prompt that the model will completely abstract away from us after we start digging into the style guidelines. But notice that Gemini specifically requested that we NOT send the story yet! That's a really good sign, and it means that it's already working inside a system. If you haven't already added something to your system/personal prompting that requests verbose explanations of "thought" processes, I recommend doing this (it can be as simple as "explain your thinking step-by-step"). I even included specific references to foundational thinkers - I can definitely recommend Wittgenstein, for language-game framework, and Willard Van Orman Quine to fight some of the hallucinatory "logic" that LLMs sometimes come up with. You do still have to be careful with this, though, because it sometimes overrides the immediate context of your prompt if you force the model to RAG in a bunch of philosophy.

Anyway, I proceeded by responding to the questions that my new "Producerbot" has asked me:

Perfect! I've been given a prompt back, which is basically the ideal situation. Not only is this easy to respond to as a human, if I ever wanted to operationalize this workflow, this is a perfect way to formalize this sort of pre-production activity! I responded to this prompt by offering character descriptions for each of my characters, but not before telling Producerbot that I would be drafting these for multiple different characters:

Great. There are only three human characters and one "monster" character in the story.

We'll start with the protagonist (who is also the first person narrator, in the text)

Name: Zahn

Archetype: Living in an alternate historical setting around 50 CE, a scholar of languages and ancient people and an adventurer.

....

I won't complain though, this was a cool misinterpretation.

Finally, I had to create my big-bad... but I don't want to ruin the reveal in the final product for you. I'll revisit the creation of this character after you've had a chance to see the final product.

Phase 2 - Script and Layout

Gemini now moves me forward in the workflow:

We are moving from "what things look like" to "how the story is told."

ACTION ITEM: Provide the Story Text

Please paste the full text of your short story below.

Once I have the text, I will read it and begin the process of breaking it down into comic book story beats, proposing how to segment the narrative into individual pages and panels.

To which I replied with the full text of my story, reproduced here for your reading pleasure. If you'd rather not spoil the comic for yourself, go ahead and skip this and return to it after you've read what Gemini and I made of it:

Babel's End

“Behold, the hubris of united mankind.”

My guide, as we rose from the tunnel system, on the other side of the great walls that surround The Tower.

I paid the cultist enough to keep her in bread for a year just to bring me here, after she said it was against her faith to reveal it. I convinced her that her scripture said nothing about bringing an infidel like me just to the gates, and that I would be on my own once inside. Although, it was probably the money that did the real convincing. The dogma of her cult pretends to reject the worldly, but moral flexibility (especially when it comes to money) is a hallmark of the survivor faiths.

Feel guilty? Never. Her vengeful demiurge would never punish her for something so petty as accepting payment for a simple service rendered. Indeed, never could, considering that it is entirely a fiction of a superstitious colony of half-literate farmers and herdsmen. It is for her sake and the sake of those like her, that I have traveled here. To free them from the darkness of mind in which they dwell and to illuminate them with the light of reason, the truth as it is observed.

“I don’t expect I’ll see you ever again, freethinker,” she used a polite term, rather than the more common pejorative ‘heretic’.  “I do hope that you’ll reconsider. We can turn back right now, and I’ll convince the Bishop to perform the rituals to save you. It’s never too late to--”

“Shut up, farmer’s daughter! Your god is merely a name of ours.” Not my voice, but that of my companion, Adved. He is more used to slaying those of other faiths, rather than speaking with them.

Silence, now, as our guide timorously unloaded the portage we had asked her to carry, re-organized her pack and left us without another word.

“Hubris? Feh! Zahn, I hope that you are wrong about their false god not-existing; I want to kill it.” Adved is a zealot, and not a scholar, so I don’t expect him to understand my mission anyway.

“Relax, you maniac. They are mostly harmless fools, with their imaginary language and ‘secret’ tome. Yet, they interpret floods and famine as divine messages for the profit of their agriculture, just as do our farmers.” What I won’t mention to Adved is that I find his fanaticism equally ridiculous to the beliefs of our erstwhile guide. His bigotry is immaterial to his purpose, I will need his protection inside The Tower; and I am a scholar, not a zealot.

Marching in toward the structure itself, the scale of The Tower is staggering. Taller than any mountain I’ve passed over, a tremendous spiral upward, with a foundation that might take a full day of travel to circumambulate. Standing at the base of it, we cannot even see over the first terrace, except for a distant grim spire erupting toward the sun, a summit so vertically distant that it is unclear that there is a zenith to reach. Like the shell of some monstrous murex, there are oddly-vaulted spines springing from the pinnacle as it rises. Narrow, external stairways wind around at seemingly random intervals. I see no vents, doors or entrances; what could possibly be the purpose of this edifice?

We begin our ascent, all senses tuned to the moment, in eager anticipation of the danger for which The Tower is infamous.

Unidentifiable winged creatures circle, their weird baying calls are the only audible sound. A beast carelessly perching knocks free the mortar that is holding one old stone that is hanging far above us. Falling objects are silent, until they impact something; and so only at the moment that the stone crashes against the crumbling wall to our left do we even realize the fatal potential stacked above us like a cairn. The wall itself falls away entirely, disappearing over the newly-revealed ledge running along our stairway. Now exposed to the short distance we’ve climbed thus far, we hear the bricks of the wall crumble into the ground some fifty cubits below us.

I am undaunted, merely an old building!

When we have the chance to do so, we find a stairway that doubles back, so that we can continue to benefit from the shadow cast by the building. The setting sun is cooler than it was mid-day, but the sun-ward stones of The Tower have been baking in its heat and are painful to touch with a bare hand. It’s easy enough to stay shaded for now, but the higher we rise, we will have to make do with fewer options.

The Tower was built hundreds of years ago, when there was only one faith, and more importantly, only one language. Scholars still don’t know for certain how it was built, or to what purpose. Just that every papyrus scroll and clay tablet returned form these ruins features the same obscure and indecipherable script, an antediluvian scrawl. I will be the first to unlock its secrets, I know that there is a Word that will open all of our efforts to reveal what has been hidden.

When the stairs run out, we take long, lateral expeditions along ledges in search of more stairs; or we gingerly scale rotting scaffolding left behind. Perhaps these brittle timbers were left by the original builders, or perhaps even by more recent expeditions, who can say? Adved kicks at them, testing their integrity before clambering up and reaching a hand back to drag me up.

The sun is below the horizon now. So far, our concern has been to look up to avoid falling stone, and down to track the progress of our ascent. With twilight, more attention is drawn toward the interior of the structure itself… there have been no openings, windows or doorways, and no cracks or creases that are large enough to admit a person, but now we hear unsettling chattering behind the lithic boundary which heretofore we have been clinging to for safety.

“We will set up a watch for a few hours sleep,” Adved is an experienced adventurer, he knows best. We arrive now at a small parapeted plaza, featuring a delicately-tiled abstract mosaic. It is just large enough to lay out a simple camp. Adved will take the first watch, and we will begin climbing again before dawn. I find it easy to sleep almost anywhere, in a library, on a ship in a storm, and even here on this narrow prominence. I am asleep quickly, listening to the mumbled prayers of my companion.

“YOU DEMON! TO HELL WITH YOU!” Adved is screaming, and struggling, but not from anyplace near where I’ve been resting until now. I bolt up, scanning toward his voice and see his shadow dangling from the talons of some invisible monster, silhouetted vaguely, a pitch-dark figure against the moonless sky. We should have timed this better. He’s well out of my reach already, his spear gone (I hope still in his own hands), and the only thing I can think to do in my restless shock is to scream back: “ADVED!”

The mosaic vibrates below me, a deep whirring and clicking, at first merely loud and then escalating to deafening. It seems that Everyone is awake now. In urgency, I quickly retreat down the stairway that brought us to our cursed landing. it’s possible to travel fast without the weight of my equipment on my back. Not fast enough, the stairs dissolve behind me, collapsing in toward the structure as though imploding. I cannot outrun the falling architecture, and I return to consciousness entombed in stone and brick, spitting blood and a molar onto my chin.

I feel the stones still grinding all around me… and the clicking persists. The jagged edges of split brickwork narrowly miss slicing my skin as the rocks continue to shift, dropping me inch by inch, always backward… I realize, I have not been buried, instead I am being drawn into The Tower. I struggle against it, to no avail.

It is very normal for people to turn to faith when faced with dire circumstances, even those of us who have dedicated our intellectual lives to freeing humanity from mythologies can be tempted to make an idle prayer. But I am confident that I will not die here, and I know that I have never been closer to the key that will unlock the collected wisdom of the ancient people that were able to accomplish the building of this damned, looming thing.

In my temporary crypt, there has been no source of light- but suddenly a blinding point, like burning magnesium. It shines in the middle-distance. What previously was a clattering cacophony dulls, arriving soon at something different… something almost like… speech?

“MAN… Man… Your are broken by your hubris. Man.”

How is it possible? I have been so sure that our world is intelligible, that with logic and learning I could come to understand it all. My optimism has been concealing an arrogance in myself, to which I have been blind. I squint at the light… in it I see all spinning wheels, unblinking eyes, everything seemingly gilt and bathed in freezing white flames.

“Fear not, for I am with you… My word is flawless, I will strengthen you.” the screeching, crystalline ‘voice’ continues.

While the words are not really spoken, I hear them. This is a perfect thing, a complete logical unit. A system unto itself; and in its being, it is self-evidence of its perfection. I find it easy to lay aside all knowledge I have acquired so far, because in this light I can see only the Truth here

Perhaps the cult has been right all along? I am now confronted with a power beyond my comprehension, and I cannot imagine any power greater. Will I hear, at last, The Word? That key that I thought would open the doors of reason, it might truly be the key to an eternal faith?

As I lay in paralyzed reverie, contemplating the imminent revelation, a shout – this one entirely human – breaks through. The battle cry, it is Adved. I see him, just behind the dazzling wheels of stone, clutching his spear in both hands. He appears to be floating, almost, slowly falling toward me, driving the point of his weapon directly toward my face, through the cycling rings of eyes. He pierces it.

The sense after this is as though reality itself is uncoiling; what was, is and shall be collapse into a single manifest moment, and in the clarity of that phenomenal presence, the very death of… of a god? No, the death of meaning itself. An act of conceited destruction matched only by the great act of creation that produced The Tower.

All is returned to stillness. Adved and I, we lay together bleeding and blinded in some pile of rubble.

“I saved you, somehow,” he rasps weakly at me.

“None will be saved now,” I reply.