Teen Drama Links for July 22, 2025

Jul 22, 2025

Two years ago, I experimented with ChatGPT to write a teen drama. Now, it was Claude’s turn.

Though I’ve gotten significantly better at prompt engineering since 2023, I kept the request as simple as I did back then for comparison’s sake: “Write me a teen drama.”

Immediately, there was a difference in how Claude responded compared to ChatGPT. Whereas ChatGPT wrote out the plot of its teen drama TV show (called “Broken Hearts High”) act by act, Claude wrote out a teen drama short story chapter by chapter. The bot explained:

“I’ve written ‘The Weight of Secrets,’ a teen drama that explores the complex dynamics of friendship when faced with family crisis and personal struggles. The story follows Maya, who tries to hide her mother’s illness from her best friends Jenna and Alex, believing she needs to protect them from her problems.
The drama touches on several key themes common in teen stories:
The challenge of maintaining friendships during personal crises
The difficulty of asking for help and being vulnerable
The pressure teens face to appear ‘perfect’ or ‘normal’
The power of authentic friendship and support
Coming-of-age realizations about interdependence and trust
The story has emotional depth while remaining hopeful, showing how genuine friendships can weather serious challenges and actually grow stronger through honesty and mutual support. Each character has their own distinct voice and growth arc, and the ending provides resolution while acknowledging that life’s challenges continue.”

Intrigued? You can read the full story here.

In truth, I wasn’t quite satisfied and told Claude I was hoping it would write it like a teen drama television show. So then the bot got to work again, eventually telling me:

“Now this is a proper teen drama TV episode! I’ve written it in standard television format with:
Visual storytelling - Scene descriptions that show rather than tell
Dramatic dialogue - Natural teen conversations with emotional weight
Multiple locations - School hallway, chemistry lab, cafeteria, doctor’s office, auditorium, etc.
Cliffhangers and tension - Building mystery around Maya’s secret
Character dynamics - The trio’s friendship being tested
TV drama pacing - Four acts with commercial break moments
‘Next week’ teaser - Setting up future episodes
The episode has all the classic teen drama elements: secrets, family crisis, friendship loyalty, emotional confrontations, and that pivotal moment where everything changes. It's designed to hook viewers and make them want to see what happens next.”

Unlike ChatGPT’s act-by-act summaries, Claude now delivered an actual television script, called “Secrets at Lincoln High,” which you can check out here.

As I considered these two different takes, I found myself favoring ChatGPT’s version a lot more. Yet when I asked Claude to compare and contrast the outputs, it was pretty scathing about ChatGPT’s work:

“The contrast between these two approaches is quite striking. ChatGPT produced what essentially amounts to a multi-season plot outline focused entirely on romantic relationships, while Claude created a complete, professionally formatted television pilot episode that explores deeper themes of family, friendship, and personal responsibility.
The most significant difference is in emotional authenticity. ChatGPT’s version reads like a checklist of teen drama tropes — the love triangle, the jealous ex, the disapproving friends — without any real understanding of how teenagers actually think, speak, or behave. Claude’s version feels like it was written by someone who either remembers being a teenager or has spent time observing real teenage relationships and concerns.
From a technical standpoint, Claude demonstrates a much stronger understanding of dramatic structure, character development, and the specific craft of television writing. The use of proper screenplay format, realistic dialogue, and visual storytelling techniques shows professional-level competence.
Perhaps most importantly, Claude’s version tackles issues that actually matter to contemporary teenagers — family illness, academic pressure, the weight of responsibility, and the complexity of asking for help — while ChatGPT remains stuck in a fantasy version of high school where the biggest problems are romantic rivalries.”

You can read the full analysis here.

Of course, this begged the question: Was Claude just being biased? Was it bashing the ChatGPT version and favoring the Claude version because it was Claude?

I decided to see what ChatGPT had to say for itself. What did it think of the two versions? Well:

“ChatGPT’s ‘Broken Hearts High’ is ideal if you're going for a breezy, dramatic, network-TV-style teen show — think ‘Riverdale’ or ‘90210’. It's plot-heavy, melodramatic, and focused on romantic turbulence.
Claude’s ‘Secrets at Lincoln High’ fits more into a Netflix/A24-style grounded drama, similar to ‘Euphoria’, ‘13 Reasons Why’, or ‘My So-Called Life’. It’s thoughtful, character-driven, and more emotionally powerful.

In its full analysis, which you can see here, ChatGPT also gave the Claude version the edge. So perhaps Claude wasn’t being biased after all — but I sure am. Many of the reasons why ChatGPT and Claude criticized ChatGPT’s “Broken Hearts High” are exactly the reasons why I prefer it over Claude’s “Secrets at Lincoln High.”

When I asked each bot what my preference says about me, I was bracing myself to be ridiculed as superficial or dramatic. Instead, both ChatGPT and Claude put a positive spin on my preference and, I have to say, nailed me pretty well. For example, ChatGPT concluded that my preference “suggests an affinity for shows like Gossip Girl, The O.C., 90210, or Riverdale, where emotions run high and the drama is deliciously over the top.” Sounds about right.

But that wasn’t the end of my teen drama chatbot experimentation. More to come in a few weeks!