Opening Problem Statement
Meet Sarah, a dedicated children’s content creator running a Telegram channel focused on English storytelling for young kids. Twice a day, Sarah struggles with the time-consuming task of brainstorming fresh, imaginative stories, finding or creating corresponding images, and recording audio narrations to make the experience rich and engaging. This process eats up hours daily, leading to delays and inconsistent posting schedules that frustrate her followers expecting new content reliably. Despite the creative effort invested, Sarah finds it hard to balance quality storytelling with the technical demands of multimedia content creation and distribution on Telegram.
Sarah’s challenge is common among storytellers and educators who want to maintain a steady stream of quality content but face the realities of limited time, skills in different media, and the need for automation without compromising the charm of handmade narratives.
What This Automation Does
With this n8n workflow, Sarah’s problems take a backseat. Here’s what happens automatically every 12 hours when the workflow runs:
- Generates a captivating English children’s story tailored to be short, magical, and inspiring — approximately 900 characters long.
- Creates an audio narration of the story using OpenAI’s audio generation capability, making stories accessible in spoken form.
- Summarizes and formulates a prompt to generate an illustration for the story characters with DALL-E, ensuring no text appears in the image for clarity and compliance.
- Posts the written story, audio narration, and story image directly to a specified Telegram chat or channel, all without manual intervention.
- Maintains consistent delivery on a twice-daily interval, maximizing audience engagement through regular updates.
- Saves Sarah multiple hours per day by automating creative and technical tasks and removing the need to juggle separate tools and skill sets.
Prerequisites ⚙️
- n8n account — either cloud-hosted or self-hosted (see self-hosting options).
- OpenAI API account with access to GPT-3.5-turbo-16k model and audio & image generation capabilities.
- Telegram Bot API credentials to send messages, audio, and photos to the intended Telegram chat or channel.
Step-by-Step Guide to Build the Workflow
Step 1: Set Up the Schedule Trigger for Recurring Execution
Navigate to Triggers → Schedule Trigger. Set the interval to every 12 hours. This ensures the workflow activates twice daily to generate and post new stories automatically.
Expected outcome: The trigger will reliably start the process twice per day without manual input.
Common mistake: Forgetting to activate the workflow after setting the trigger, which results in no stories being posted.
Step 2: Configure Chat ID with the ‘Config’ Node
Add a Set node named Config. Configure it to assign a field named chatId with the Telegram chat/channel ID where stories will be sent (e.g., ‘-4170994782’).
Outcome: This ID will be referenced by the Telegram nodes to ensure content goes to the right place.
Common mistake: Inputting an incorrect chat ID, causing messages not to be delivered.
Step 3: Create the Children’s Story with the ‘Create a story’ Node
Add a LangChain Summarization Chain node named Create a story using the OpenAI model GPT-3.5-turbo-16k. Enter the prompt:
Create a captivating short tale for kids, whisking them away to magical lands brimming with wisdom. Explore diverse themes in a fun and simple way, weaving in valuable messages. Dive into cultural adventures with lively language that sparks curiosity. Let your story inspire young minds through enchanting narratives that linger long after the last word. Begin crafting your imaginative tale now! (Approximately 900 characters)
"{text}"
CONCISE SUMMARY:Set this node to executeOnce on the first trigger to generate fresh content each time.
Outcome: You’ll get a concise yet imaginative children’s story from OpenAI.
Common mistake: Not providing the prompt properly formatted, which might yield generic or irrelevant stories.
Step 4: Generate Audio Narration in the ‘Generate Audio for the story’ Node
Add an OpenAI Audio node called Generate Audio for the story. Configure the input as the story text using an expression ={{ $json.response.text }}.
This converts story text into an audio file.
Outcome: Audio narrative ready to be sent to Telegram.
Common mistake: Forgetting to select the audio resource in the node, resulting in textual output instead of audio.
Step 5: Summarize Characters with ‘Create a Prompt for DALL-E’
Use the LangChain Summarization Chain node titled Create a Prompt for DALL-E. Enter the prompt designed to produce a text prompt summarizing story characters visually for image generation:
Summarize the characters in this story based on their appearance and describe them if they are humans or animals and how they look like and what kind of are they, the prompt should be no-text in the picture, make sure the text is free from any prohibited or inappropriate content:
"{text}"
CONCISE SUMMARY:Outputs a clean descriptive prompt for DALL-E image creation without text in images.
Common mistake: Leaving the generated prompt with text, which DALL-E might render as unwanted captions.
Step 6: Generate the Story Illustration with ‘Generate a Picture for the story’
Add an OpenAI Image node named Generate a Picture for the story. Link it to the prompt from Step 5, adding a prompt prefix:
=Produce an image ensuring that no text is generated within the visual content. {{ $json.response.text }}Outcome: Produces an AI-generated image illustrating the story characters suitable for Telegram sharing.
Common mistake: Omitting the “no-text” instruction, causing images with distracting text.
Step 7: Post Text Story to Telegram with ‘Send Story Text’
Add a Telegram node configured with sendMessage operation. Use the chat ID from the Config node and the story text as the message content via expression ={{ $json.response.text }}.
Outcome: Story text appears in the Telegram channel.
Common mistake: Not linking the chat ID correctly, which causes message sending errors.
Step 8: Post Audio Story to Telegram with ‘Send Audio for the story’
Add another Telegram node set to the sendAudio operation with binary data enabled. Caption the audio as “End of the Story for today …..” and set the chat ID as before.
Outcome: Audio of story is sent as a voice/audio message for kids to listen.
Common mistake: Forgetting to enable binary data, which fails the file upload.
Step 9: Post Image to Telegram with ‘Send Story Picture’
Finalise by adding a Telegram node configured for sendPhoto operation with binary data enabled to send the DALL-E image generated earlier.
Outcome: The story’s illustration is posted alongside text and audio, enriching the storytelling experience.
Common mistake: Missing binary data flag, resulting in message sending failures.
Customizations ✏️
- Change Story Length or Themes: Modify the prompt in the “Create a story” node to generate longer stories or explore different themes like science, history, or moral lessons by editing the summary prompt text.
- Adjust Story Posting Frequency: In the “Schedule Trigger” node, change the interval to hourly, daily, or weekly depending on your channel’s content strategy.
- Customize Telegram Chat ID: Update the “Config” Set node’s
chatIdparameter to send stories to different Telegram groups or channels. - Switch OpenAI Models: In “Create a story” and related nodes, replace GPT-3.5-turbo-16k with other available models like GPT-4 if you have access, for richer storytelling.
- Add Story Title or Attribution: Enhance messages by prepending titles or author notes in the “Send Story Text” Telegram node’s text parameter.
Troubleshooting 🔧
Problem: “No data received from OpenAI”
Cause: API key misconfiguration or quota exceeded.
Solution: Verify OpenAI credentials under n8n’s credential manager. Check API usage and quota limits in your OpenAI account dashboard.
Problem: “Telegram message failed to send”
Cause: Incorrect chat ID or unauthorized bot permissions.
Solution: Double-check the chat ID in “Config” node. Confirm the Telegram bot has access to the chat or channel. Reauthorize if necessary.
Problem: “Image generation includes unwanted text”
Cause: Prompt for DALL-E missing a “no-text” instruction.
Solution: Edit the prompt in “Create a Prompt for DALL-E” to explicitly state “no text” must appear in the image.
Pre-Production Checklist ✅
- Confirm that OpenAI API keys are active and tested via sandbox calls.
- Verify Telegram bot is correctly set up and added to the target chat/channel with permission to send messages, audios, and photos.
- Conduct a manual run of the workflow to ensure each node performs as expected.
- Check that the schedule interval aligns with your publishing goals.
- Backup your workflow JSON to rollback changes if necessary.
Deployment Guide
After confirming everything works as intended, activate the workflow by toggling the switch in n8n. Monitor the workflow execution logs for any errors post-deployment and adjust accordingly. Since this workflow runs every 12 hours, verify logs periodically to ensure reliable storytelling. You can also set up alerts in n8n for workflow failures.
FAQs
Can I use a different messaging platform instead of Telegram?
Yes, by replacing Telegram nodes with respective messaging APIs like Slack or WhatsApp, but you’d need to modify the nodes accordingly and ensure appropriate API credentials.
Does this workflow consume many OpenAI credits?
Because this workflow uses GPT-3.5-turbo-16k for story generation, audio, and image creation, costs depend on usage frequency and token count. Running it twice daily will have moderate API usage.
Is my storytelling content secure?
Yes, API keys and chat IDs are stored securely within n8n’s credential manager. Telegram messages and audio are sent via their official APIs encrypted end-to-end.
Conclusion
By following this tutorial, you have set up a comprehensive automation in n8n that creates enchanting English children’s stories, converts them into audio, generates matching illustrations, and shares all content seamlessly on Telegram every 12 hours. This saves valuable time, eliminates manual creative barriers, and ensures your young audience is consistently engaged with fresh and inspiring content.
Imagine reclaiming hours of your day previously spent crafting and managing multimedia stories manually. Plus, you have a scalable system ready to explore new themes, languages, or platforms, making your children’s storytelling channel truly stand out. Next, consider integrating voice command triggers or expanding to YouTube shorts for animated story snippets to further captivate your audience.
Happy storytelling and automating!