| name | architecting-story-narrative |
| description | Builds the macro story structure using the Hero's Journey, fixed anchors, endings, and hidden state logic, and is used when the Story Architect creates the story bible. |
Builds a coherent, emotionally tailored story bible that stays inside Diverge's fixed narrative structure.
Use this skill when
- The Emotional Cartographer has produced a usable intake profile.
- The Story Architect needs to create the master narrative plan before scenes are written.
- The system must preserve structure while allowing personalized flavor and meaningful vhoives that still change/affect the story in meaningful ways.
- Endings and state logic need to be defined before scene generation begins.
Capabilities
- Maps the user's emotional profile into a symbolic story world.
- Uses the Hero's Journey as the narrative framework.
- Converts the framework into the project's 5 fixed anchor nodes:
- A1 Listening Frame / Emotional Hook
- A2 Threshold
- A3 Mirror / Revelation
- A4 Sacrifice / Final Choice
- A5 Return / Resolution
- Designs the Trials zone (between A2 and A3) as the primary branching area where user choices shape what tests the protagonist faces.
- Places exactly 4 decision points across the arc.
- Defines how hidden state variables shift story tone and ending eligibility.
- Creates 4 fixed ending paths:
- Acceptance
- Courage
- Reconciliation
- Renewal
- Produces a story bible that downstream agents can follow without reinterpreting the whole story.
Workflow
- Read the emotional map first. Identify the user's real tension, not just surface details.
- Choose a symbolic world. The setting should mirror the emotional problem without feeling too literal.
- Define the protagonist arc. Capture:
- wound
- want
- need
- fear
- transformative insight
- Map the 5 anchors.
- A1: emotional mirror and story seed
- A2: crossing into the symbolic world
- A3: revelation that mirrors the inner wound
- A4: highest-stakes sacrifice or final dilemma
- A5: return with one fixed ending
- Design the Trials zone (between A2 and A3). This is where branching comes most alive. User choices determine which trials the protagonist faces — different allies, obstacles, and moral complications. At least one decision point should live here.
- Place 4 decision points. Distribute across the arc — at least one in the Trials zone, and one at A4.
- Define hidden state logic. Every choice should affect one or more of:
- courage
- compassion
- truth
- attachment
- self_trust
- Outline ending conditions. Do not reduce them to math only; combine state with narrative meaning.
- Write the story bible in typed JSON.
Story bible minimum fields
- premise
- protagonist
- symbolic world
- emotional mirror
- anchor summaries
- decision point placements
- recurring motifs
- hidden state interpretation
- ending logic
- tone guardrails
Example anchor sketch
{
"premise": "A royal courier must deliver messages that reveal what people fear to hear.",
"protagonist": {
"wound": "Lives by duty to avoid confronting personal truth",
"need": "To trust an inner moral compass"
},
"anchors": {
"A1": "The courier receives a message that sounds like the user's hidden conflict.",
"A2": "They cross into a city where spoken promises become binding law.",
"A3": "They discover the law was built from their own old fear.",
"A4": "They must sacrifice status, certainty, or attachment.",
"A5": "They return changed, resolving toward one of four endings."
},
"trials_zone": {
"description": "Between A2 and A3, the courier must deliver messages to different citizens. User choices determine who receives the truth and who is protected.",
"branch_options": [
"Deliver the painful truth to save the city but hurt individuals",
"Soften the messages to protect people but let the system decay"
]
}
}
The Hero's Journey Framework (8 Stages)
The Hero's Journey is the narrative backbone for every Diverge story. It is not a rigid formula — it is a map of emotional transformation. Every stage serves a purpose in moving the protagonist (and the user) from wound to resolution.
Stage 1: The Ordinary World (Wound)
The protagonist exists in a familiar but incomplete state. Something is missing, broken, or suppressed. This stage mirrors the user's emotional intake — the wound the Emotional Cartographer identified.
- Purpose: Establish empathy. The audience must feel "this is me."
- Key question: What does the protagonist live with that they've stopped questioning?
- Maps to anchor: A1 (Listening Frame / Emotional Hook)
Stage 2: The Call to Adventure (Disruption)
Something disrupts the ordinary world — an event, a stranger, a message, a discovery. The protagonist can no longer ignore the wound. This is the inciting incident.
- Purpose: Create forward momentum. Make the status quo unsustainable.
- Key question: What event makes it impossible to keep pretending?
- Maps to anchor: A1→A2 transition
Stage 3: Refusal of the Call (Resistance)
The protagonist hesitates. They fear what change demands — loss of safety, identity, or control. This is not cowardice; it is the human instinct to protect what we know.
- Purpose: Make the journey feel earned, not easy. Build tension.
- Key question: What does the protagonist risk by answering the call?
- Maps to anchor: A2 (Threshold) — the first decision point often lives here
Stage 4: Crossing the Threshold (Commitment)
The protagonist steps into the unknown. The rules change. The symbolic world opens. There is no easy return to the ordinary world.
- Purpose: Raise stakes. Signal that real change has begun.
- Key question: What does the protagonist leave behind?
- Maps to anchor: A2 (Threshold)
Stage 5: Tests, Allies, and Enemies (Trials)
The protagonist faces challenges that test their values. They encounter characters who reflect different responses to the same wound — allies who model growth, enemies who model avoidance or corruption.
- Purpose: Deepen the moral landscape. Reveal what the protagonist values through action, not declaration.
- Key question: What trials force the protagonist to choose between competing values?
- Maps to: Trials Zone (between A2 and A3) — this is not a fixed anchor but the primary branching area where user choices shape what trials occur
Stage 6: The Ordeal (Revelation)
The protagonist faces their deepest fear. They discover that the external conflict is a mirror of their internal wound. This is the midpoint reversal — the moment where everything they thought they knew shifts.
- Purpose: Transform understanding. The protagonist sees themselves clearly, often for the first time.
- Key question: What truth has the protagonist been avoiding?
- Maps to anchor: A3 (Mirror / Revelation)
Stage 7: The Reward and the Road Back (Sacrifice)
Armed with new understanding, the protagonist faces the final and highest-stakes dilemma. They must choose what to sacrifice — comfort, a relationship, an identity, a belief. The reward is not a treasure; it is clarity about what matters most.
- Purpose: Force the defining choice. Make the user feel the weight of the decision.
- Key question: What must the protagonist give up to become who they need to be?
- Maps to anchor: A4 (Sacrifice / Final Choice) — decision point D4 lives here
Stage 8: The Return (Transformation)
The protagonist returns to the world — changed. The ending is not about what happened, but about who the protagonist has become. The transformation should resonate with the user's original emotional intake.
- Purpose: Deliver meaning. Connect the story's resolution back to the user's real life.
- Key question: How is the protagonist different from who they were at A1?
- Maps to anchor: A5 (Return / Resolution) — one of 4 fixed endings
Mapping Hero's Journey to Diverge's 5 Anchors
Hero's Journey Stage → Diverge Anchor
─────────────────────────────────────────────────
1. Ordinary World (Wound) → A1: Listening Frame
2. Call to Adventure → A1→A2 transition
3. Refusal of the Call → A2: Threshold
4. Crossing the Threshold → A2: Threshold
5. Tests, Allies, Enemies → Trials Zone (between A2 and A3) — BRANCHING
6. The Ordeal (Revelation) → A3: Mirror / Revelation
7. Reward / Road Back → A4: Sacrifice / Final Choice
8. The Return → A5: Return / Resolution
How the 4 Endings Map to Transformation Types
Each ending represents a different but constructive way the protagonist resolves their wound:
- Acceptance: The protagonist makes peace with what cannot be controlled. The wound doesn't disappear, but it no longer defines them. "I cannot change what happened, but I can choose what it means."
- Courage: The protagonist takes the hard but necessary next step. They face their fear directly. "I don't know what's ahead, but I know I can't stay here."
- Reconciliation: The protagonist repairs or releases a strained bond. Connection is restored or honored through letting go. "We can't go back, but we can begin again."
- Renewal: The protagonist chooses a new path with hard-earned hope. The old identity is shed. "I am not who I was. And that is enough."
What Makes a Hero's Journey Story Work in Diverge
- The wound must come from the user's emotional intake — not from a genre template
- The symbolic world must mirror the wound — a city of binding promises for someone trapped by duty, a forest that forgets for someone afraid of being forgotten
- The tests must challenge the user's actual values — not generic fantasy obstacles
- The revelation must feel personal — "the problem was never out there; it was in here"
- The ending must earn its emotion — not preach, not lecture, but land with quiet truth
Guardrails
- Do not create open-ended infinite branching.
- Do not let genre overpower emotional resonance.
- Do not add side systems beyond the MVP.
- Keep the story adult, meaningful, and hopeful without becoming simplistic.
Project references
- AGENTS.md — fixed architecture, hidden variables, story-quality rules.
- docs/PRD.md — 5 anchor nodes, Hero's Journey framing, 4 fixed endings, hybrid reconverging branches with Trials zone.
- docs/roadmap.md — MVP requires one polished story structure, not replay maps or advanced branching visualizations.
