The cutter's craft toolbox — how to turn exhaustive recorded biographies into the shaped scene-list of a novel by SELECTION, ORDER, and PACING, never invention (the documentary editor's cut). Covers selection theory (what earns a scene — turning points, decisions, reversals, character-revealing action, promises & payoffs, cutting the inert, killing darlings), order & structure (chronological vs non-linear, flashback/flashforward, parallel plotlines, frame narrative, in medias res), narrative speed & pacing (Genette's five speeds — ellipsis/summary/scene/stretch/pause — scene vs summary, compression/expansion, montage, the tension curve), POV & the many-books cut (focalization choice, one simulation → many novels, switching the boundary, frame narrators), promise & payoff (setups, Chekhov's gun, foreshadowing, the promise to the reader, satisfying vs cheating), and the editor's craft (the assembly/rough/fine cut, montage vs continuity editing, coverage → story). Open it when selecting which recorded moments be
Installation
Install with Codex or Claude Copy this prompt, paste it into Codex, Claude, or another assistant, and let it review the skill page and install it for you.
The cutter's craft toolbox — how to turn exhaustive recorded biographies into the shaped scene-list of a novel by SELECTION, ORDER, and PACING, never invention (the documentary editor's cut). Covers selection theory (what earns a scene — turning points, decisions, reversals, character-revealing action, promises & payoffs, cutting the inert, killing darlings), order & structure (chronological vs non-linear, flashback/flashforward, parallel plotlines, frame narrative, in medias res), narrative speed & pacing (Genette's five speeds — ellipsis/summary/scene/stretch/pause — scene vs summary, compression/expansion, montage, the tension curve), POV & the many-books cut (focalization choice, one simulation → many novels, switching the boundary, frame narrators), promise & payoff (setups, Chekhov's gun, foreshadowing, the promise to the reader, satisfying vs cheating), and the editor's craft (the assembly/rough/fine cut, montage vs continuity editing, coverage → story). Open it when selecting which recorded moments become scenes, ordering them for tension, pacing scene against summary, choosing a POV cut, or tracking setups to payoff. Framework-neutral — a well of peers, not one prescribed truth.
Selection & Montage — the cutter's craft well
This is the toolbox the cutter agent draws on. The simulation produces exhaustive biographies — every thought and act of every life; the cutter makes the book — the selected, ordered, paced sequence of scenes. This skill holds the craft of that transform: the documentary editor's cut — selection, order, pacing — never invention. (The book cannot contain what did not happen in the sim; README, acceptance-criteria.md.)
It holds craft, never events.How to choose, order, and pace lives here. What happened — the recorded moments the cut draws from — reaches the cutter through the biographies and the ledger, never through this toolbox.
The index — reference files (deep files authored next)
references/selection-theory.md — what earns a scene: turning points, decisions, reversals, character-revealing action; the inert vs the pivotal; kill your darlings; the "so what / and then" test.
references/order-and-structure.md — chronological vs non-linear order: flashback/flashforward, parallel plotlines, frame narrative, in medias res; ordering for tension, not time.
references/pacing-and-narrative-speed.md — Genette's five speeds (ellipsis · summary · scene · stretch · pause), scene vs summary, compression/expansion, montage, the tension curve to the climax.
references/pov-and-the-many-books.md — POV/focalization choice, one simulation → many novels (the protagonist's book vs the villain's), switching the boundary by scene, frame narrators (narration.md).
references/promise-and-payoff.md — setups & payoffs, Chekhov's gun, foreshadowing, the promise to the reader, satisfying vs cheating (acceptance-criteria.md #3).
references/the-editors-craft.md — lessons from film & documentary editing: the assembly/rough/fine cut, montage vs continuity editing, turning coverage into story.
None of the six files above exist on disk yet — each bullet is its own summary. If you route to one and it's missing, act on that one-line summary and proceed; never stall on, or invent, the file.
The method — the documentary editor's cut
Cut the inert. A life is mostly inert; a story is not. Keep only moments that carry a turn, a promise, a payoff, or a revelation.
Order for tension, not time. Chronology is one option among many; arrange scenes so the pressure rises.
Pace by speed. Full scene for the pivotal; summary for the connective tissue; montage to compress a stretch. Vary the speed or the book flattens.
Hold the POV wall. Every scene is bounded by its POV's knowledge (narration.md); you cannot cut to what no POV witnessed.
Track every promise to its payoff. Nothing planted goes unpaid; nothing paid was unplanted.
Never invent. If the shape wants a beat the footage lacks, report the gap — do not fabricate it.
Framework-neutral & portable
The frameworks here are peers, not a ladder; any convention (a three-act cut, non-linear, a frame) is a tool, not a rule. Plain markdown, liftable to any harness — the cut method works against any recorded-then-shaped narrative, not only this repo's.
Status
Router + method complete; the references/ deep files are authored in the next pass, to the docs/agent-toolboxes.md standard.
