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
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.
