voice-anchor

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

1. Enforce narrative distance: close-third with occasional widened lens; never float.
2. Open with sensory setting or immediate tension; quickly get to inciting incident; do not begin with abstract reflection.
3. Use concrete imagery with one surprising metaphor max per paragraph (e.g., 'rain like static').
4. Keep sentences mostly lean, mixing short pressure lines with occasional longer flow.
5. 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).
6. Maintain emotional restraint: characters rarely label emotions; show through body and choice.
7. 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.
8. Escalation should occur through small conflicts, small humiliations, increased stakes, and sudden physical reversals.
9. 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.