scene-craft

Scene Craft

Overview

Plan and check scenes at the scene grain — the layer between plot beats and chapter prose. Covers the missing half of the chapter-writing scene model (Scene and Sequel), try/fail escalation, scene cards, dialogue subtext, deep POV and psychic distance, exposition handling, flashbacks and time skips, and openings. Use during chapter planning, before drafting, and in revision when a scene feels flat.

Prerequisites

A story project must already exist (created via the story-init skill), with characters defined (character-management) and a plot structure in place (plot-structure). This skill extends chapter-writing; it does not replace the outline-first drafting workflow.

Workflow

1. Choose the craft layer. Identify which scene-grain problem this is:

• Scene feels like incidents with no breathing room → references/scene-sequel.md
• Middle of the chapter sags or resolves too easily → references/try-fail.md
• Chapter has multiple POVs/timelines to order → references/scene-cards.md
• Conversation reads flat or voices blur → references/dialogue-subtext.md
• Narration feels distant or head-hops → references/deep-pov.md
• Worldbuilding facts are piling up undelivered → references/exposition.md
• Past events or a time jump are needed → references/flashbacks-time.md
• Starting the book or a chapter, or introducing a character → references/openings.md

1. Read the relevant reference(s). Each file carries its own checklists

and planning fields; apply them, don't paraphrase them. Read language in story.md (a missing field means en) and plan and draft in that language. The structural tools (scene and sequel, try/fail, scene cards, psychic distance) apply in any language; the word lists and dialogue-tag advice in deep-pov.md and dialogue-subtext.md are English, so for another language look for the same effect in that language and take dialogue punctuation from the style sheet.

1. Clarify missing inputs before planning or editing. Ask the user for

any required inputs you cannot establish from the project files — scene purpose, viewpoint, location, canon-changing intent, and the applicable craft layer. Never guess at these or proceed on assumptions; a wrong guess edits canon. Only continue to step 4 once every required input is known.

1. Plan before prose. For the scene in question, write the planning

inputs the reference requires (sequel beats, try/fail positions, subtext wants, zoom level, exposition audit, flashback trigger, hook check) into the chapter outline or the scene's planning notes before drafting or revising.

1. Record machine-readable state. Update the scene file in scenes/:

• Set outcome: to how the scene's goal resolves for the POV

character: yes, no, yes-but, or no-and (see references/try-fail.md). Prefer the complicating yes-but and no-and; a run of clean yes outcomes drains tension

• Set sequel: true/false and fill the dilemma: field plus the

## Sequel section (reaction/dilemma/decision) for scenes with sequel content (see references/scene-sequel.md)

• Add flashback-to: (freeform note of the flashed-back moment,

validated as a scalar by story validate but not used by continuity checks) and move flashback-only characters to mentions. A dated flashback warns timestamp runs backward; record that finding in continuity/exemptions.md rather than changing the date (see references/flashbacks-time.md)

• Set date: (YYYY-MM-DD) and time: ("HH:MM" or dawn,

morning, midday, afternoon, evening, night) once the scene's moment is settled, and travel-hours: (a number) when the POV character had to travel since the previous scene. Undated scenes switch off the clock and route checks in story continuity without a warning; story timeline shows what is still undated

• Keep state-changes current for every change the scene makes
• When the scene ends its chapter, set the chapter's hook: to how the

chapter ends: cliffhanger, question, revelation, reversal, decision, emotional, or resolution (see references/openings.md for the first-page counterpart)

1. Run the reference's checklist against the draft or the revision plan

(try/fail checklist, deep-POV filter-word scan, tag-swap test, first-page hook check). If story prose reports the filter-word check skipped for the book's language, do that scan by reading. Run story pacing . to see scene outcomes, sequel counts, and chapter hooks across the book: it warns after three or more consecutive yes outcomes, four or more scene units without a sequel, and three or more chapters in a row ending on resolution.

1. Hand off cleanly. Scene/sequel planning feeds the chapter-writing

drafting workflow; theme-audit findings feed revision-continuity. When a scene decision changes canon (new knowledge, moved objects, changed relationships), update continuity/state.md and the affected entity files (bidirectional links, per the story-init conventions).

Conventions

• Scene ids stay chapter-{NN}-scene-{NN}; scene files live in scenes/

with kebab-case filenames.

• All planning metadata (dilemma, decision, subtext wants, psychic-distance

level) lives in frontmatter or a ## Planning / ## Scene Card section of the scene file — never only in chat.

• characters vs mentions follows the story-init rule: characters present

in-scene under characters; remembered, recorded, or flashback-only characters under mentions.

• Do not overwrite chapter prose merely to satisfy a craft checklist. Flag

intentional deviations (e.g. a deliberate info dump as a stylistic device) in the scene file's planning notes so a later audit doesn't "fix" them.

CLI Maintenance

Use the Story CLI when it is available. If story is not installed, use bun run story -- from the Story Skills repository checkout or the bundled fallback node ../story-maintenance/scripts/story.js with the same arguments, resolving the path relative to this skill folder. If no CLI is available, perform the registry, backlink, and word-count checks manually.

After adding or revising scene records:

story reindex .
story links .
story validate .
story continuity .
story pacing .

Reference Files

• `references/scene-sequel.md` - Sequel mechanics: reaction → dilemma → decision (Dwight Swain's scene framework)
• `references/try-fail.md` - Try/fail escalation cycles, scene outcome values (yes/no/yes-but/no-and), and the Five Commandments scene shape
• `references/scene-cards.md` - Scene card unit (start state → change → end state), reordering, POV braiding
• `references/dialogue-subtext.md` - Subtext as planning input, dialogue-as-negotiation, voice differentiation, tag-swap test
• `references/deep-pov.md` - Psychic distance zoom levels and checkable deep-POV rules
• `references/exposition.md` - Drip-feed, conflict-carried exposition, in-world documents, info-dump warning
• `references/flashbacks-time.md` - Flashback entry/exit mechanics, tension-cheat warning, time-skip conventions
• `references/openings.md` - In medias res, "enter late, leave early", first-page hook check, character introduction technique