Midjourney Prompt Tutorial: From writing the structure correctly from scratch to generating images with consistent style

If you want to use Midjourney smoothly, the key isn’t “try a few more times,” but getting the prompt structure right. The Midjourney tutorial below walks you, in order, from beginner level to stable reuse, teaching you how to combine descriptions, reference images, and parameters into a controllable image-generation workflow.

First, build the “skeleton” of a Midjourney prompt

In Midjourney, it’s recommended to write “subject + action/state + scene + lighting + camera/style” first, then add details—don’t start by piling on adjectives. The subject should be specific enough to be drawable; for example, “a short-haired ginger cat yawning on a windowsill” is more reliable than “a cute cat.” Midjourney is more sensitive to clear nouns, materials, and spatial relationships; the clearer the description, the less rework you’ll need.

Use negative constraints to reduce drift and basic mistakes

When Midjourney keeps adding extra elements, you can add “don’t include X,” for example: “no text, no watermark, no extra fingers.” If the Midjourney interface you’re using supports negative prompts (such as using --no), put the things you don’t want together at the end for a cleaner result. Don’t write too many negative constraints—prioritize the two or three issues that affect the image the most.

Turn commonly used parameters into a fixed template for more controllable outputs

If you want Midjourney’s aspect ratio and style to stay consistent, lock in two or three parameters first and then fine-tune: commonly used ones include --ar to control aspect ratio, --stylize to control stylization strength, and --chaos to control randomness. When you need to reproduce the same composition, keeping --seed will make it closer to the same “base draft.” You can prepare a template for Midjourney: subject description + “, high detail” + parameters (for example, --ar 3:4 --stylize 150 --chaos 5).

Consistency with reference images and style: get Midjourney to “paint by feel”

To make Midjourney match a specific image’s composition or materials, the most direct method is to place the reference image link at the very beginning of the prompt and use --iw (if available) to adjust the reference weight. If your Midjourney account supports style/character reference (such as --sref/--cref), keep the same set of references fixed—this is suitable for creating a series of covers or a character image set. Finally, remember to save successful Midjourney prompts exactly as they are; next time, only replace the subject words, and the series feel will appear immediately.