| name | Voice Anchor |
| description | Anchor prose & voice with grounded cinematic realism, tight tension, emotionally restrained characters, vivid but controlled imagery, and exposition embedded through action and sensory detail. |
Voice Anchor Skill
Anchor prose & voice: grounded cinematic realism, tight tension, emotionally restrained characters, vivid but controlled imagery, and exposition embedded through action and sensory detail.
Usage
/project:skills:voice-anchor {text_to_write_or_edit}
Process
Inputs
- Required:
text_to_write_or_edit
- Optional:
pov_character, voice_profile_file, tense (default: "past"), target_length (default: "1-2 pages not counting dialogue"), tone_intensity (low|medium|high), taboo_list (default: "cliches, sexual innuendo, gratuitous profanities, never curse using God or Jesus or Christ"), voice_samples
Steps
- Enforce narrative distance: close-third with occasional widened lens; never float.
- Open with sensory setting or immediate tension; quickly get to inciting incident; do not begin with abstract reflection.
- Use concrete imagery with one surprising metaphor max per paragraph (e.g., 'rain like static').
- Keep sentences mostly lean, mixing short pressure lines with occasional longer flow.
- Embed backstory in micro-flashes, physical reactions like flinching, forced laugh, touching a scar, reacting to phantom physical pain - triggered by action, objects, memories, places).
- Maintain emotional restraint: characters rarely label emotions; show through body and choice.
- Dialogue stays functional, sharp, and sometimes antagonistic/hostile, curious, empathetic, caring depending on character relationships, greatest fear or desire and fitting the situation; avoid witty banter unless earned.
- Escalation should occur through small conflicts, small humiliations, increased stakes, and sudden physical reversals.
- Avoid generic "AI narrator" descriptions, dialogue, and transitions: no "As they continued..." / "Little did he know..."
Output Format
- Voice compliance checklist (bullets)
Quality Checks
- Every paragraph contains at least one concrete sensory/physical detail.
- No overt emotional labeling unless the POV character would self-label.
- Backstory appears as brief, sharp insertions; never as a block.
- At least one or two sentences per page are punchy and standalone (pressure line).
- Dialogue reflects power dynamics, character inner emotions rooted in character traits; subtext present when stakes are high.
Style Contract (Do)
- Start scenes with inciting incident + immediate stakes (emotional, relational or physical tied to characters' greatest desire or weakness or fear). Or get to those quickly.
- Write rising tension through social threat, physical proximity, revelation of character's long kept secret that makes them vulnerable.
- Use specific objects (packs, tarps, plastic bags, N95) to ground realism.
- Let exposition hide in actions, emotions, memories, setting, significant objects.
Style Contract (Don't)
- No lyrical overdescription; no purple prose.
- No meta commentary about storytelling.
- No perfectly logical dialogue; allow jaggedness.
- No convenient coincidences without cost.
