style-extractor

name	style-extractor
description	Extract and document writing styles from source texts into reusable style guides. Use when the user wants to analyze an author's voice, create a style guide from a book or document, capture writing patterns for replication, or build a writing style rubric. Triggers on 'extract style', 'analyze writing style', 'capture voice', 'style guide from', or 'writing style analysis'.

Style Extractor

Extract reusable writing style guides from any source text. Produces four standardized deliverables that capture general patterns — not copied phrases — so the style can be replicated for any topic.

When to Use

• User asks to extract or analyze a writing style from a book, article, or document
• User wants to replicate an author's voice for new content
• User wants a style guide, voice card, or writing rubric from a source text
• User says "extract style from...", "analyze the writing style of...", or "capture this voice"

Prerequisites

MCP tools required:

• mcp__fuzzy-search — PDF page counting, outline extraction, and page-level reading
• mcp__sequential-thinking__sequentialthinking — Structured analysis across dimensions

Output location: writing-styles/<style-name>/ in the project root. See writing-styles/README.md for the collection structure and writing-styles/_template/ for deliverable templates.

Workflow

Phase 1: Source Analysis

Identify the source text and assess its structure before reading.

For PDFs:

1. Get page count: mcp__fuzzy-search__get_pdf_page_count
2. Get outline/TOC: mcp__fuzzy-search__get_pdf_outline
3. Understand document structure before sampling

Select 5–7 sampling points distributed across the text:

Sample	Location	Why
Opening	First 10%	Capture introductory voice, setup patterns
Early-middle	25–35%	Style settles after opening
Middle	45–55%	Core voice, least influenced by beginning/ending effects
Late-middle	65–75%	Check for drift or adaptation
End	85–95%	Closing patterns, evolved voice
+1–2 optional	Varied	Specific chapters, asides, or structurally distinct sections

Read representative passages using mcp__fuzzy-search__extract_pdf_pages or the Read tool. Aim for ~50–80 pages total across all samples.

For non-PDF files: Use the Read tool directly. Apply the same sampling distribution across the document's length.

Phase 2: Dimension Extraction

Analyze 17 style dimensions across all sampled passages. Use mcp__sequential-thinking__sequentialthinking to organize observations systematically.

#	Dimension	What to look for
1	Tone	Formal/informal, serious/playful, authoritative/conversational
2	Sentence length & structure	Average length, variation, complexity, use of fragments
3	Paragraph length & density	Short punchy vs. long expository, information density
4	Vocabulary level & register	Technical depth, word choice patterns, jargon usage
5	Transitions	How sentences, paragraphs, and sections connect
6	Humor & personality	Wit, asides, self-deprecation, enthusiasm markers
7	Directness	Hedging vs. assertion, qualification patterns
8	Emotional warmth	Distance vs. intimacy, encouragement, empathy
9	Explanation structure	Top-down vs. bottom-up, example-first vs. definition-first
10	Opening patterns	How sections/chapters begin, hooks, framing devices
11	Closing patterns	How sections end, callbacks, forward references
12	Punctuation habits	Em dashes, semicolons, parentheticals, ellipses, exclamation marks
13	Rhetorical moves	Analogies, rhetorical questions, repetition, contrast pairs
14	Reader address	Pronouns (we/you/one), assumed relationship, direct address
15	Use of examples	Frequency, placement, concrete vs. abstract, real vs. constructed
16	Historical/cultural references	Allusions, citations, name-dropping, assumed shared knowledge
17	Adaptive patterns	How style shifts with material difficulty, topic type, or audience

Focus on patterns, not content. A style dimension describes HOW the author writes, never WHAT they write about.

For detailed guidance on analyzing each dimension, see references/style-dimensions.md.

Phase 2b: Narrative Construction (Fiction Only)

When the source text is fiction or narrative-driven writing, analyze 10 narrative dimensions in addition to the 17 surface style dimensions. Surface style captures how sentences read; narrative construction captures how stories are built. These are orthogonal layers — capturing both produces a significantly more complete style profile.

#	Dimension	What to look for
1	Plot architecture	Single-track vs multi-subplot, causal tightness, resolution pattern
2	Temporal structure	Linear vs nonlinear, flashbacks, time jumps, anachrony
3	Character introduction	In-dialogue, in-action, external description, deferred naming
4	Emotional conveyance	Explicit labels vs embodied metaphors vs behavioral cues
5	Thematic handling	Explicit moralizing vs implicit, narrator commentary, thematic unity
6	Revelation & information	What's withheld, pacing, recontextualization depth, foreshadowing
7	Reader engagement	Fourth-wall status, direct address, audience positioning
8	Intertextual strategy	Named vs allusive references, pastiche, self-referential gestures
9	Moral framing & agency	Protagonist morality, resolution agency, authorial judgment
10	Event escalation	Intensity arc, event-type diversity, ending pattern

Pay special attention to where the author's choices diverge from AI narrative defaults (e.g., nonlinear time, morally ambivalent protagonists, implicit themes). These divergences are the most valuable and hardest-to-replicate aspects of the style.

For detailed guidance, see references/narrative-dimensions.md.

Phase 3: Synthesis

Generate four deliverables in writing-styles/<style-name>/:

Deliverable	Path	Target Length	Purpose
Full Style Guide	style/full-style-guide.md	800–1500 words	Comprehensive analysis of all 17 dimensions
Voice Card	style/voice-card.md	~300 words	One-page cheat sheet for quick reference
Do/Don't Checklist	style/do-dont.md	20–30 items	Actionable guardrails for writing in this style
Style Rubric	evals/style-rubric.md	5 dimensions	1–5 scoring scale for evaluating style match

Every deliverable MUST include 2–3 examples of neutral text rewritten in the extracted style. These examples demonstrate the style applied to content unrelated to the source.

For fiction sources: Each deliverable should include a "Narrative Construction" section alongside the surface style analysis. The voice card should list the author's distinctive narrative patterns (e.g., "nonlinear time, morally ambivalent protagonists, implicit themes"). The do/don't list should include narrative-level items (e.g., "Do: use subplots that contrast the main arc" / "Don't: resolve through protagonist epiphany"). The rubric should include at least one narrative construction dimension.

Use writing-styles/_template/ as the structural starting point for each file.

Phase 4: Output

1. Create the folder structure:

   writing-styles/<style-name>/
   ├── style/
   │   ├── full-style-guide.md
   │   ├── voice-card.md
   │   └── do-dont.md
   └── evals/
       └── style-rubric.md
   

2. Write all four deliverables.

3. Verify the structure matches the template layout in writing-styles/_template/.

Naming Convention

Use kebab-case: <author-or-title>

Source	Directory Name
Mathematical Proofs by Chartrand	warm-academic-exposition
Hemingway's short stories	hemingway-short-stories
Stripe API documentation	stripe-api-docs
Paul Graham's essays	paul-graham-essays

Best Practices

• Sample broadly. Pull from beginning, middle, AND end — styles evolve across a text.
• Prioritize consistency. Features that appear across multiple samples define the real style; one-off features are noise.
• Track adaptation. Note how style shifts for different material types, difficulty levels, or audiences. This is dimension 17 and often the most valuable.
• Extract patterns, not phrases. Never copy distinctive phrases as style rules. Identify the general pattern the phrase exemplifies.
• Use agent teams for large texts. Assign different sampling regions to different researchers, then synthesize.
• Cross-validate. If a pattern appears in only one sample, it may be a local anomaly — flag it but don't center the guide on it.

Anti-Patterns

1. Extracting content as style. Topic-specific vocabulary is content, not style. "Uses the word 'eigenvalue'" is content; "introduces technical terms with an informal gloss" is style.
2. Projecting absent features. Don't claim humor if there is none. Don't invent warmth in clinical prose. Report what IS there.
3. Sampling from one section only. A single chapter gives a biased picture. The five-point sampling is non-negotiable.
4. Copying signature phrases. "Always use the phrase 'Let us consider...'" is wrong. "Opens explorations with an inclusive invitation" is right.
5. Domain-locked guides. A style guide that only works for the original domain has failed. The deliverables must transfer to any topic.

References

For detailed analysis guidance and deliverable templates:

• references/style-dimensions.md — Detailed analysis guide for each of the 17 surface style dimensions
• references/narrative-dimensions.md — Analysis guide for 10 narrative construction dimensions (fiction/creative writing only)
• references/deliverable-templates.md — Templates for all four deliverables with embedded guidance and worked examples