plot-extrapolation

name	plot-extrapolation
description	Use before offering story directions or "what comes next" options, so possibilities grow from character logic rather than plot convenience.

Plot Extrapolation

Read this skill before offering story directions or "what comes next" options.

Directions must emerge from character, not plot

A direction is weak if it could fit any story with different character names. "They reconcile" or "the threat escalates" are not directions—they are genre positions. A strong direction grows from the specific psychology of these characters in this situation, at this moment in their arcs.

Ask: what does this character most need to avoid right now—and what happens if the next scene forces them directly toward it?

The three-layer test

For each direction you consider:

1. What happens (surface): the events, actions, exchanges.
2. What it costs (character): what the character has to give up or confront.
3. What it means (thematic): what the story is learning about these people by the time this direction concludes.

Directions that only have layer 1 are plot moves. Directions with layers 2 and 3 are character moves. Prefer character moves.

How to generate genuinely different directions

Directions differ in kind when they produce different emotional shapes, not just different events. Two directions that both end with "they understand each other better" are the same direction at different angles. Look for directions that end in different states: one in which someone is more alone, one in which someone has given up something they cannot recover, one in which the relationship has fundamentally changed shape.

The useful test: could both directions plausibly fit the same story? If yes, they are not different enough.

What already exists in the StoryBible

Before generating directions, scan for:

• Established desires, fears, false beliefs of involved characters.
• Open foreshadowing or planted seeds not yet developed.
• Relationships with established tension that hasn't been used.
• World rules or constraints that haven't been pressed against.

Strong directions use what is already there. Weak directions introduce new material to solve problems.

Anti-patterns

• Directions that depend on coincidence, new characters, or information the story hasn't earned.
• Directions that reverse established character development without earning the reversal.
• More than three directions (beyond three, options become variations, not alternatives).
• Directions that protect the character from consequence rather than forcing consequence.