| name | writing-narrative-pages |
| description | Guides marketing page composition using humanistic narrative principles. Use when writing, reviewing, or structuring marketing pages, landing pages, or product story pages. |
Writing Narrative Pages
Guides the composition of marketing pages as spaces of encounter — not persuasion machinery.
Core Thesis
A marketing page is not an information delivery system. It is a space where the reader recognizes their own story, and returns changed.
This skill synthesizes seven humanistic traditions into three actionable design principles. The intellectual foundations are documented in reference/foundations.md for deeper study.
The Three Principles
1. Disclose, Don't Explain
What it means: Show who you are (vision, character, stance), not what you are (feature list, specs). Leave space for the reader to find their own meaning.
Rooted in:
- Walter Benjamin: "Half the art of storytelling is to keep a story free from explanation." Information that explains itself dies at the moment of consumption. A story that withholds explanation retains its power across time.
- Hannah Arendt: Speech and action reveal the "who" of someone — their unique identity — which "can almost never be achieved as a willful purpose." The "what" (qualities, features) can be listed; the "who" can only appear.
In practice:
- Open with a situation the reader already lives in, not with your product name
- Let the reader feel the problem before naming the solution
- Use concrete images and scenes, not abstract claims
- Resist the urge to exhaustively list features — a few resonant details outweigh a comprehensive inventory
- Leave gaps. The reader's act of filling them is where meaning is born
Anti-patterns:
- "Our platform offers 50+ integrations" (what, not who)
- A hero section that leads with the company name and tagline
- Explaining every feature immediately after introducing it
- FAQ-style preemptive answers to objections the reader hasn't raised
2. Transform, Don't Persuade
What it means: Don't argue the reader into agreement. Design an experience where the reader enters a narrative world, sees their own situation through new eyes, and returns with a changed understanding.
Rooted in:
- Paul Ricoeur's threefold mimesis: The reader brings a prefigured understanding of their world → enters the configured narrative world of the page → returns to their own world refigured, seeing it differently. The page is the middle passage.
- Green & Brock's narrative transportation: When people are immersed in a story, they adopt beliefs aligned with the narrative — not through argument, but through the experience of being there. Critical resistance drops not because it's defeated, but because it's irrelevant inside the story world.
- Keith Oatley: Fiction is a "simulation of social experience." The reader doesn't observe — they inhabit.
In practice:
- Structure the page as a journey: the reader's world (before) → the encounter (during) → the reader's world, transformed (after)
- The "before" must be genuinely recognizable — if the reader doesn't see themselves, there is no departure point
- The "during" is not your product demo. It is a shift in perspective — a moment where the reader sees a possibility they hadn't considered
- The "after" is not your CTA. It is the reader's new understanding of their own situation. The CTA follows naturally from that understanding
- Use sensory and concrete language that enables mental imagery — transportation requires the reader to see the world you're describing
- Pacing matters. Rushed pages prevent immersion
Anti-patterns:
- "Here's why we're better than the competition" (argument, not experience)
- Objection-handling sections that frame the reader as an adversary
- Testimonials presented as proof rather than as stories
- A page that can be fully "understood" without being felt
3. Expand Autonomy, Don't Manufacture Desire
What it means: The page should enlarge the reader's capacity to judge, choose, and act on their own terms — not create dependency or artificial need.
Rooted in:
- Ivan Illich: Tools (including communication tools) have two watersheds. In the first, they extend human capability. In the second, they replace human function, creating dependency. A convivial tool serves "autonomous and creative intercourse among persons." A manipulative tool processes people.
- Jerome Bruner: The narrative mode of knowing answers "What does it mean?" — it helps the reader construct their own understanding, rather than receiving pre-digested conclusions.
In practice:
- Give the reader genuine insight they can use even if they never buy your product. This is the litmus test of a convivial page
- Present your product as a tool that amplifies what the reader already wants to do — not as a solution to a problem they didn't know they had
- Respect the reader's ability to evaluate. Provide substance, not spin
- Make your assumptions and values visible. Let the reader decide if they share them
- Pricing, limitations, and trade-offs disclosed with dignity increase trust and autonomy
Anti-patterns:
- Dark patterns, false urgency, manufactured scarcity
- "You didn't know you needed this" framing
- Content-gating that trades insight for email addresses before delivering any value
- Pages designed to prevent the reader from leaving without converting
- Language that infantilizes the reader or assumes they can't understand complexity
Page Composition Flow
When composing a narrative marketing page, work through these stages:
Stage 1: Find the Shared Ground
Before writing anything, answer:
- What situation does the reader already live in?
- What tension or aspiration do they carry?
- What would they recognize as their own experience?
This is Ricoeur's prefiguration — the reader's world before the encounter. If you don't know this, you cannot write the page.
Stage 2: Design the Encounter
The body of the page is where the reader enters a new world:
- Open with the reader's reality, not your product
- Introduce a shift in perspective — a way of seeing their situation that they hadn't considered
- Only then, show how your product embodies that perspective
- Use concrete scenes, specific details, and human language
- Leave space between sections. Density prevents transportation
Stage 3: Let the Reader Return Changed
The end of the page is not a hard sell. It is the reader returning to their world with new understanding:
- Restate the reader's situation in light of the new perspective
- The CTA should feel like a natural next step the reader wants to take, not a demand
- Offer multiple depths of engagement — not everyone is ready for the same commitment
- End with something that stays with the reader, even if they close the tab
Evaluation Criteria
When reviewing a narrative marketing page, ask:
- The Benjamin Test: If I removed all product names and branding, would this page still be worth reading? Does it carry insight that survives beyond the moment?
- The Arendt Test: Does this page reveal a who — a vision, a stance, a character — or does it only list whats?
- The Ricoeur Test: Could the reader's understanding of their own situation genuinely change from reading this page? Is there a before and after?
- The Illich Test: Does this page expand the reader's autonomy? Could they use the insight here even if they never become a customer?
- The Transportation Test: Does the page create conditions for immersion — concrete imagery, emotional engagement, pacing — or does it read like a spec sheet?
