// Arc structure, narrative design, and pacing at multiple scales: saga, arc, chapter, scene. Use when structuring story at any level, planning arcs, designing chapter outlines, or evaluating whether narrative structure serves the story's goals.
| name | story-architecture |
| type | reference |
| description | Arc structure, narrative design, and pacing at multiple scales: saga, arc, chapter, scene. Use when structuring story at any level, planning arcs, designing chapter outlines, or evaluating whether narrative structure serves the story's goals. |
| model-invocable | false |
Structure story at multiple levels so that each scene, chapter, and arc serves the larger narrative. The patterns here apply across methodologies (three-act, hero's journey, kishotenketsu, etc.): adapt them to what the story needs.
Stories operate at nested scales. Decisions at one level constrain and enable decisions at others.
Saga/Series: the full story spanning multiple arcs. What's the overarching question or transformation? How do arcs build on each other?
Arc: a self-contained narrative movement spanning multiple chapters. Each arc has its own question, rising tension, and resolution, but also advances the saga-level story. An arc that resolves its own conflict but doesn't change anything at the saga level is filler.
Chapter: a unit of reading. Chapters need internal momentum (something changes by the end) and external momentum (the reader wants to continue).
Scene: the fundamental building block. A scene happens in a specific time and place, involves specific characters, and changes something. Scenes that don't change anything are candidates for cutting or combining.
Causation over sequence. "And then" is not structure. "Therefore" and "but" are. Events should cause or complicate each other, not merely follow each other. Can you reorder the scenes without the story breaking? If yes, the structure is a sequence, not a plot.
Stakes that escalate. Each structural level should raise the stakes from the previous one. Escalation doesn't always mean bigger explosions — stakes can escalate emotionally, morally, or informationally.
Setup and payoff. Every significant payoff needs setup, and every significant setup needs payoff. The best setups are invisible until the payoff arrives. Track open setups explicitly across arcs.
Tension and release. Sustained tension becomes numbness. The reader needs variation in intensity at every scale: within scenes, chapters, and arcs.
resources/arc-design.md: arc components (hook,
complications, midpoint shift, crisis, resolution) and arc pacing.resources/chapter-and-scene.md: chapter
design (internal completeness, external pull), scene design (earning
presence), outline vs discovery writing.resources/structural-problems.md:
common problems (saggy middle, rushed ending, filler arcs, disconnected
scenes, stakes plateau) and when to use diagrams.Prose-level immersion patterns for narrative fiction. Use when writing or revising prose: the sentence-level and paragraph-level craft that pulls readers into the story. Project-specific voice comes from style files passed alongside this skill.
Adversarial reading methodology for narrative fiction: find what doesn't work, not confirm what does. Focus-area driven with dedicated resources per area. Use when reviewing drafts, evaluating prose quality, or assessing changes at any stage.
Team composition for writing workflows: which agents to spawn, how many, what focus areas to assign, and how to scale effort. Use when composing critic panels, dispatching researchers, staffing draft/revise loops, or setting up brainstorm fan-outs.
Story brainstorming capture: minimal notes that preserve creative freedom. Use when exploring narrative ideas, discussing characters, planning chapters, or thinking through story possibilities.
Logging and referencing writing issues: craft problems, tics, inconsistencies, and structural concerns found during analysis, critique, or review. Use when an agent identifies something worth tracking beyond a single critique report: repeated tics across chapters, inconsistencies that affect multiple scenes, structural problems that need the author's attention, or patterns that should be fixed in revision.
Load when producing any written artifact for humans.