AI rushing through scenes or skipping time? Slow it down

The tell: a summary sentence

Rushing almost always shows up as one line: "Hours later...", "After a long, difficult climb...", "By the time the vault opened...", "The rest of the night passed in a blur." Everything after that line is the AI deciding outcomes you wanted to play. It happens most in exactly the scenes people come for: heists, journeys, fights, first dates, negotiations.

Why the AI hurries

Models learn from writing that gets to the point, and a large reply budget invites them to cover more ground. If your turn ends on a closed action ("We start the climb"), the most natural continuation is the end of the climb. Summaries are also safe: skipping a fight means never deciding who gets hurt, which is the same caution that makes AI too agreeable.

Cut at the jump

Find the summary sentence and edit the reply to end just before it. Then write your next turn inside the moment the AI tried to skip. With Ines Marlowe, a wanted thief who has recruited you on a sleeper train through the Alps:

Rushed: *Ines checks her watch.* "Now." *Twenty tense minutes later, the case is in your bag and you are both back in the dining car, sipping champagne as if nothing happened.* Cut and replayed: *Ines checks her watch.* "Now." *The corridor lights flicker as the train enters a tunnel. Behind the door marked PRIVATE, someone is still awake; you can hear him humming.*

The second version hands you the hardest part of the job instead of telling you it went fine.

Turns that keep it in the moment

• End mid-action: "I start on the second lock", not "I pick the locks".
• Ask about the next few seconds, not the outcome: *I freeze.* "Did you hear that?"
• Add a small obstacle each turn: a step that creaks, a guard who lingers, a lock that sticks.
• Keep replies moderate. 300 to 500 tokens leaves room for a beat, not a chapter.

The ready-made note: (OOC: stay in this scene beat by beat; don't skip time or summarise outcomes unless I ask.) When you do want a skip, say so plainly; the OOC guide has phrasing. If it is a romance moving too fast, pacing a slow burn is the more specific page.

Settings and standing rules

In SillyTavern, lower Max Response Length if replies routinely cover several scenes, and add "Write only the next few moments. Never skip time or resolve {{user}}'s actions." to the Main Prompt or an Author's Note. In JanitorAI, a lower Max new tokens plus the same sentence in a proxy's custom prompt does the job. On UnsavedAI, a Story memory bullet keeps the rule in view through a long heist or chase.

Choose scenes where every minute counts: Tunde Adeyemi's motel room, hours after a bank job went wrong with the bag a million short, is all about the next five minutes. And some stories welcome a skip. On Wade Harlan's eight-hundred-mile drive, jumping to the next town is often exactly right.

Questions people ask