@rubytech/create-maxy-code 0.1.26 → 0.1.27

package/payload/platform/plugins/writer-craft/skills/editorial-practice/references/self-editing.md

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+# Self-Editing
+
+## Why Self-Editing Cannot Replace Professional Editing
+
+Authors cannot see their own work objectively. The blind spots created by familiarity are precisely what outside readers can address. Self-editing done well makes every subsequent editorial pass more productive — but it is no substitute for professional editorial input.
+
+Budget for editing as a production cost, not as an optional luxury.
+
+## The Successive Passes Method
+
+Work through the manuscript at decreasing levels of scale. Each pass focuses on one level:
+
+### Pass 1: Structure (Developmental)
+- Does the whole thing work? Read it through without stopping to fix sentences.
+- Are the parts in the right order?
+- Is anything missing? Is anything superfluous?
+- In fiction: is the internal story driving the plot? Is the protagonist active?
+- In nonfiction: is the argument clear and does it build?
+- Mark big-picture problems. Do not fix prose yet.
+
+### Pass 2: Chapter / Section
+- Does each chapter earn its place?
+- Does each chapter advance the story or argument?
+- Are there chapters that repeat what earlier chapters established?
+- Do chapters end at points that propel the reader forward?
+- Is the pacing right — neither rushed nor dragging?
+
+### Pass 3: Scene / Paragraph
+- Does each scene touch the third rail (the protagonist's internal struggle)?
+- Does each paragraph lead to the next?
+- Are there paragraphs that could be cut without loss?
+- Is exposition integrated into scenes, or dumped in blocks?
+- Are transitions smooth? Does the reader always know where they are?
+
+### Pass 4: Sentence
+- Is each sentence clear, necessary, and well-constructed?
+- Are there hedging adverbs, empty intensifiers, clichés?
+- Is the sentence variety appropriate?
+- Is the tonal register consistent?
+- Do long sentences carry the reader, or lose them?
+
+### Pass 5: Word
+- Is each word earning its place?
+- Can adjectives be absorbed into stronger nouns?
+- Can adverbs be absorbed into stronger verbs?
+- Are there qualifier ticks (just, very, kind of, sort of)?
+- Is the vocabulary level consistent and appropriate?
+
+## Self-Editing Techniques
+
+### Read Aloud
+The single most effective self-editing technique. Reading aloud reveals:
+- Awkward rhythms and clunky sentences
+- Missing words and wrong words
+- Passages that are too long or too convoluted
+- Dialogue that sounds unnatural
+- Repetition that the eye skips but the ear catches
+
+### Print and Read on Paper
+Changing the physical medium changes your relationship to the text. Errors and weaknesses visible on paper are often invisible on screen.
+
+### Read Backwards
+Read sentence by sentence from the end of the chapter to the beginning. This breaks the flow of expectation, forcing you to evaluate each sentence on its own merits rather than riding the momentum of the narrative.
+
+### Time Away
+The longer you can leave between writing and revising, the more clearly you see. A day is better than an hour. A week is better than a day. A month is better than a week. The goal is to read as a reader, not as the writer who knows what they meant.
+
+### Beta Readers
+Seek honest developmental feedback before investing time in line editing. There is no point polishing sentences in a chapter that needs to be restructured or cut.
+
+Choose beta readers who:
+- Represent your target audience
+- Will be honest, not just supportive
+- Can articulate why something works or doesn't (not just "I liked it" or "I didn't")
+- Understand the difference between their preferences and the book's needs
+
+### The Author's Most Common Blind Spots
+
+1. **Assuming the reader knows what you know** — the curse of knowledge. You wrote the backstory; you know the world; you understand the character's motivation. The reader doesn't.
+
+2. **Attachment to material that doesn't serve the story** — scenes, characters, research, and passages that represent real work and real quality but don't belong in this book.
+
+3. **Over-explaining** — providing more context than the reader needs, often because the writer isn't confident the point has landed.
+
+4. **Under-explaining** — skipping steps that feel obvious to the writer but aren't obvious to the reader.
+
+5. **Consistency errors** — the details that shift subtly between drafts (eye colour, timeline, geography, character names).
+
+6. **Pacing deafness** — inability to feel where the book slows down, often because the writer finds the material interesting regardless of whether it moves the story forward.

package/payload/platform/plugins/writer-craft/skills/persuasive-storytelling/SKILL.md

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+---
+name: persuasive-storytelling
+description: "Guides persuasive storytelling for nonfiction, speeches, marketing, and advocacy: audience analysis, misbelief targeting, the four-stage transformation framework, and emotional persuasion through narrative. Use this skill whenever the user mentions persuasive writing, nonfiction storytelling, audience analysis, changing minds, marketing narrative, speechwriting, persuasion through story, call to action, audience resistance, 'how do I convince', content marketing, advocacy storytelling, campaign narrative, or wants to use story to change behaviour or belief. Also use when a nonfiction writer needs to make facts land emotionally or when someone wants to understand why their message isn't getting through."
+---
+
+# Persuasive Storytelling
+
+Facts without context produce resistance, not persuasion. The brain processes 11 million bits of sensory data per second and consciously handles about forty. The filter is the cognitive unconscious — it evaluates every incoming piece of information against one question: *Will this help me or hurt me, given my agenda?* Facts that fail this test are discarded instantly. Story bypasses the filter because story already speaks the language the cognitive unconscious uses.
+
+No one hears you unless they feel heard.
+
+## Why Facts Fail
+
+### The Four Types of Facts
+
+| Type | Example | Brain's Response |
+|------|---------|-----------------|
+| **Neutral** | "Bubble gum contains rubber" | Ignored |
+| **Warning** | "Lion — run!" | Immediate action |
+| **Validating** | "Chocolate is good for you" | Absorbed — confirms existing belief |
+| **Conflicting** | Climate science to a denier | Defensive response — position hardens |
+
+Only warning facts (imminent danger) and validating facts (confirms belief) produce automatic action. All other facts require story to give them meaning.
+
+### The Boomerang Effect
+When facts directly challenge a person's belief, the brain doesn't update — it mounts a defence. Presenting contradictory information can actually strengthen the original position. The brain routes challenges to beliefs through the same system it uses to handle physical threats.
+
+### The Curse of Knowledge
+Once you know something, it becomes nearly impossible to imagine not knowing it. What you hear as music, your audience hears as noise.
+
+## The Four-Stage Transformation
+
+Every persuasive story moves through four stages:
+
+### 1. Misbelief
+The erroneous belief your audience holds that prevents them from heeding your call to action. This is not what they say their reason is — it's the emotional core beneath the surface objection.
+
+### 2. Truth
+What the story's events will reveal as actually true. This is not your logical argument — it's the emotional reality your story will make the audience experience.
+
+### 3. Realization
+The moment the protagonist (and by extension, the audience) sees the misbelief for what it is. This must come at the last possible second, belong to the protagonist, be transparent in its logic, and be liberating.
+
+### 4. Transformation
+The protagonist is freed from the misbelief and can now act. The audience, having vicariously lived the experience, is freed too.
+
+## Understanding Your Audience
+
+### Who They Are Not
+- **Not you.** Your audience doesn't share your priorities.
+- **Not everyone.** Different groups have different misbeliefs. A story can only target one.
+
+### Research Questions
+- What matters most to them right now?
+- What do they aspire to be?
+- What do they fear?
+- What would they have to give up to follow your call to action?
+- What internal (emotional) cost would that trade carry?
+- What misbelief keeps them from seeing how your call to action serves them?
+
+### Finding the Real Resistance
+The stated reason for not adopting a behaviour is almost never the real reason. People don't know their own misbeliefs, or admitting the real reason feels too vulnerable.
+
+Use the drilling technique — start with the surface behaviour and keep asking "why" or "and so?" until you reach the emotional core.
+
+**Example**: Teenager texting while driving
+- "It's safe, I'm good at multitasking" → surface
+- "I need to reply quickly or they'll think I don't care" → social anxiety
+- "If they think I don't care, they'll text someone else" → fear of exclusion
+- "If Becky texts Malik instead, I'll lose her" → fear of abandonment
+
+This isn't about driving. It's about belonging. No amount of crash statistics addresses that.
+
+## Crafting the Story
+
+### One Protagonist, One Point
+The protagonist represents your audience. One specific external problem forces one internal struggle, leading to one "aha" moment. Everything serves the single point.
+
+### The Rule of Threes
+Three escalating twists. Two failed attempts, then the breakthrough. Each attempt must be distinct and escalate — giving the protagonist more to lose with each failure.
+
+### Specificity Creates Meaning
+The general is a category; the specific is the thing being categorised. "Our friends were supportive" is noise. "The church neighbours brought covered dishes" is a world.
+
+Every specific detail must do two things: make the world visible and carry meaning. Details that don't do both are noise.
+
+### The "Aha" Moment Conditions
+1. **Timing** — at the last possible second
+2. **Agency** — the protagonist makes the discovery themselves
+3. **Transparency** — the audience understands why the change happened
+4. **Liberation** — the protagonist is freer, more authentically themselves
+
+### End at the Transformation
+Don't add a coda. The emotional transformation is the story's end. Everything after dilutes it.
+
+## Persuasive Story Checklist
+
+- [ ] Can you name your audience's specific misbelief?
+- [ ] Is your call to action concrete, specific, and actionable?
+- [ ] Have you drilled past the surface resistance to the emotional core?
+- [ ] Does your story have one protagonist (representing your audience)?
+- [ ] One unavoidable external problem?
+- [ ] Three escalating twists?
+- [ ] One "aha" moment meeting all four conditions?
+- [ ] Does it end at the transformation — no coda?
+- [ ] Is everything specific, not general?
+- [ ] Does the story speak to the audience's self-narrative rather than threatening it?
+
+## When to Read Reference Files
+
+- **For audience analysis and finding real resistance** — read `references/audience-analysis.md`
+- **For the four-stage transformation framework in detail** — read `references/transformation-framework.md`
+- **For crafting the story (specificity, cause-effect, aha moment)** — read `references/crafting-persuasive-story.md`
+- **For case studies showing these principles in action** — read `references/persuasion-case-studies.md`

package/payload/platform/plugins/writer-craft/skills/persuasive-storytelling/references/audience-analysis.md

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+# Audience Analysis and Finding Real Resistance
+
+## Who Your Audience Is Not
+
+### Not You
+We instinctively assume our audience shares our priorities and will respond to the same arguments that move us. They won't. Your audience doesn't care why you think they should act — they care how the action fits their self-narrative.
+
+### Not Everyone
+Trying to reach everyone produces toothless messaging. Different groups have entirely different misbeliefs. A story can only target one. The energy spent avoiding offence is energy stolen from the story's power.
+
+**Example:** Conservatives buy energy-efficient light bulbs when the message is about money saved. They reject the same product labelled "protect the environment." Different tribes, different misbeliefs, different stories needed.
+
+## Defining Your Call to Action
+
+The call to action must be:
+- **Concrete** — not "think deeply about the issues" but a specific, observable action
+- **Specific** — what exactly will they do, when, where, how?
+- **Actionable** — something they can actually do immediately
+
+List every possible call to action, then select the one that best matches your audience's current worldview.
+
+## Researching Your Audience
+
+### Three Grounding Questions
+1. How will your call to action benefit your audience based on their specific worldview?
+2. What beliefs do they hold that you'll be butting up against?
+3. How will the change you want help them become their most authentic self?
+
+### Research Methods
+
+**Digital fieldwork:** Social media reveals tribal affiliations, fears, aspirations, and self-image. Look at what they post, share, follow, comment on, and avoid. You're looking for why, not what.
+
+**Physical fieldwork:** Go where your audience congregates. Observe. Listen. T-shirt slogans, purchases, body language, and conversations reveal their story.
+
+### Key Questions
+- What matters most to them right now?
+- What do they aspire to be?
+- What do they fear?
+- What would they have to give up to follow your call to action?
+- What internal (emotional) cost would that trade carry?
+
+## Finding the Real Resistance
+
+### Surface vs. Real Resistance
+The stated reason for not adopting a behaviour is almost never the real reason. People don't know their own misbeliefs, or admitting the real reason feels too vulnerable.
+
+**The General Mills Cake Mix Case:** In 1947, instant cake mixes sat unsold despite being cheap, fast, and easy. Market research said the problem was time. Psychologists revealed the real issue: homemakers felt they'd contributed nothing. They felt guilty calling it "homemade." The fix: remove the powdered eggs and require the baker to add a fresh one. Sales exploded. Same cake; the baker now had a hand in it.
+
+### The Drilling Technique: "Why?" and "And So?"
+Start with the surface behaviour and keep asking "why" or "and so?" until you reach the emotional core.
+
+**Example: Teenager texting while driving**
+- "It's safe, I'm good at multitasking" → surface rationalization
+- "I need to reply quickly or they'll think I don't care" → social anxiety
+- "If they think I don't care, they'll text someone else" → fear of exclusion
+- "If Becky texts Malik instead, I'll lose her" → fear of abandonment and unworthiness
+
+This isn't about driving. It's about belonging. No amount of crash statistics addresses that.
+
+### The Real Resistance Is Always Emotional
+The universal tension: what I want versus what's expected of me — fitting in (hiding who you are) vs. belonging (being loved for who you are).
+
+Your story must show the audience that your call to action is not a sacrifice of self — it is an act of becoming more themselves.
+
+## What They Have to Give Up
+
+Every call to action asks the audience not just to gain something but to give up something they're already doing. Identify it precisely. Understand what it means to them emotionally. You are not asking for a behaviour change — you are asking for an identity shift.
+
+## Visualising Your Audience
+
+Stop thinking in demographics. Close your eyes: who is the one person who represents your target audience? Give them a name, a day, a life. This person will become your story's protagonist.
+
+**The Motrin Failure:** In 2008, Motrin launched an ad targeting baby-wearing moms that characterised the practice as a fashion statement. Baby-wearing moms did it to bond with their children. The ad was written by people who had never worn their babies. The backlash was swift. Lesson: if you don't understand the internal meaning your audience assigns to what they do, you will inadvertently attack their identity.

package/payload/platform/plugins/writer-craft/skills/persuasive-storytelling/references/crafting-persuasive-story.md

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+# Crafting the Persuasive Story
+
+## Specificity Creates Meaning
+
+The general is a category; the specific is the thing being categorised. Specificity is what creates meaning and emotional resonance.
+
+### Summary Is Not Story
+"Hazel gets on her bike and rides to work, arriving energised and ready to nail her presentation" — this is a plot summary. It triggers no dopamine, cortisol, or oxytocin because there is no internal struggle, no hard choice, no escalating stakes.
+
+Effective storytelling puts the audience inside the experience. Every specific detail does two things: makes the world visible and carries meaning.
+
+### The Two Rules of Detail
+1. **Concrete** — the reader can picture it
+2. **Meaningful** — it carries significance beyond itself
+
+"Our friends were very supportive" is noise. "The church neighbours brought covered dishes" is a world — it reveals tribe, community, values, and the weight of collective care.
+
+### Finding the Right Details
+Not every concrete detail is the right one. The details you choose must concretise your meaning. A supermarket's rows of Jell-O Pudding Pops became the symbol of Western abundance for a Soviet politician — because the mundane specificity created a juxtaposition (Cold War geopolitics meets frozen snacks) more powerful than any abstract statement.
+
+## The Core Conflict Structure
+
+### Dual-Layer Structure
+- **External conflict** — the unavoidable problem the protagonist must tackle
+- **Internal conflict** — the misbelief versus the truth
+
+The external conflict is what happens. The internal conflict is why we care. Without internal conflict, there's no story — just events. Without external conflict, the internal struggle has nothing to act on.
+
+### Building the Story
+
+**Setup Questions:**
+1. Who, exactly, is my protagonist?
+2. What does my protagonist want at the start?
+3. What specific event today could fulfil or threaten that desire?
+4. What external problem will stand in the way, and how does it force the protagonist to confront their misbelief?
+
+### The If-Then-Therefore Chain
+Your story's cause-and-effect trajectory must be believable at two levels:
+- Physically possible
+- Emotionally and psychologically true to the protagonist's logic
+
+Each twist must raise the stakes. The Rule of Threes: two failed attempts, then the breakthrough.
+
+**Twist structure:**
+- **Twist 1:** Easiest option exhausted; stakes unchanged
+- **Twist 2:** Stakes escalate dramatically; the cost of failure increases
+- **Twist 3:** With nothing left to lose, the protagonist must act from their authentic self
+
+## Where Your Story Begins
+
+Three questions determine the starting point:
+1. What makes this day different from any other day for my protagonist?
+2. What's at stake for them because of it?
+3. How can I telegraph that to the audience as efficiently as possible?
+
+## The Aha Moment
+
+### Anatomy
+The protagonist's moment of realisation is the point of the story. It must:
+- Come at the last possible moment (when failure is imminent)
+- Belong to the protagonist (no external saviour)
+- Be transparent (the audience sees why they changed)
+- Be liberating (the protagonist is freed to act authentically)
+
+### The Story Must End Here
+Don't add a coda showing the outcome. The emotional transformation is the ending. Everything after dilutes it.
+
+## Story and Responsibility
+
+### Story Can Be Weaponised
+Stories persuade by bypassing the analytical brain. This mechanism works for good and for manipulation. Falsehoods are often more novel than truths — and novelty triggers dopamine.
+
+Those who don't learn to harness story will fall victim to it. Understanding how story works in your own cognition and in the communications of others is a form of sovereignty.
+
+### The Ethical Imperative
+The power comes with responsibility. Once you understand your audience's story — not your version of it, but theirs — you cease to be an adversary and become an ally. You're not trying to change them; you're showing them a version of themselves they already want to be.

package/payload/platform/plugins/writer-craft/skills/persuasive-storytelling/references/persuasion-case-studies.md

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+# Persuasion Case Studies
+
+## Immortal Fans — SC Recife (Brazil, 2013)
+
+**Problem:** Critical shortage of organ donors in Brazil.
+**Audience:** Passionate football fans of Sport Club Recife.
+**Misbelief:** Organ donation is morbid and irrelevant to my life.
+**Approach:** Tapped into fans' single most consuming passion — love for the club. "What if your organs could keep rooting for SC Recife after you're gone?" Cards carrying organ donor pledges became badges of tribal loyalty.
+**Key mechanism:** Spoke to the audience's self-narrative rather than threatening it.
+**Results:** 51,000 donor cards issued. Organ donations rose 54%. Transplant waiting lists hit zero for the first time.
+
+## Always #LikeAGirl (2014)
+
+**Problem:** Always needed to connect with a new generation of girls. Over 80% of girls had a negative association with "like a girl."
+**Misbelief:** Doing something "like a girl" means doing it poorly.
+**Approach:** Director asked teens to demonstrate running/fighting/throwing "like a girl." They mimed weakness. Then asked a 10-year-old — she ran flat out. Younger girls did the same. The contrast unfolded in real time. No one was told what to think.
+**Realization:** A teenage boy, asked if he'd insulted his sister, stopped cold: his sister is a girl.
+**Transformation:** A teenage girl asked to "run like a girl" again ran like herself — fast, focused, determined.
+**Results:** Positive association with "like a girl" rose from 19% to 76%. Two-thirds of men said they'd think twice. Most-shared Super Bowl ad of 2015. UN award for impact on female empowerment.
+
+## Motel 6 / Tom Bodett
+
+**Problem:** Nobody wanted to admit staying at Motel 6, even though everyone in the focus group had.
+**Misbelief:** Staying at Motel 6 signals you're poor or stingy.
+**Research insight:** One woman said: "If it's late at night, I'll stay. And the money I save, I can spend on a tank of gas." Others echoed her. The shame transformed into pride. They weren't cheap — they were frugal.
+**Truth:** Staying at Motel 6 means you're smart with money and spend it on what matters.
+**Tagline (ad-libbed by Tom Bodett):** "We'll leave the light on for you."
+**Why it worked:** Offered what every weary traveller needs — the feeling that someone sees you, knows what you're going through, and is on your side.
+**Results:** 30 consecutive years of growth. Consistently rated best value in economy lodging.
+
+## Extra Gum — "The Story of Sarah & Juan" (2015)
+
+**Misbelief:** Gum is trivial, a throwaway.
+**Approach:** A couple's relationship across a decade, catalogued through gum wrappers Juan saves, each with a tiny sketch. At the end, framed in a gallery. The last sketch shows him on one knee.
+**Point:** Even the smallest, most ordinary moments can be the glue of a lasting love.
+**Emotion:** Unexpected joy; the tenderness of being truly seen.
+**Results:** 78 million Facebook views. 1.1 million shares in one week.
+
+## WATERisLIFE — Nkaitole's Bucket List
+
+**Problem:** Children dying from unsafe water in Kenya — abstract statistics nobody acts on.
+**Approach:** Told the story of Nkaitole, a 4-year-old with a 1-in-5 chance of dying before age five. Helped him complete a bucket list: ride a boat, play football, fly in a plane, see the ocean.
+**Key mechanism:** The audience is the implied protagonist — we have what Nkaitole lacks: the power to donate. Statistics would have remained abstract. The specificity of one child made it unbearable not to act.
+
+## Teen Driver — Noah DeVico (PSA)
+
+**Misbelief:** I have to reply immediately or I'll lose Becky to Malik — belonging is worth the risk.
+**Approach:** Instead of crash footage (fear → paralysis), built a story around a girl driving with her dog. She's giggling at her phone; the dog stares at her. A small huff breaks the spell. She puts the phone in the glove box.
+**Point:** Caring for your loved ones is worth more than staying in the loop.
+**Key emotion:** Unconditional love (the dog), not fear.
+**Why it worked:** By giving the protagonist agency — the choice is hers, not forced — the story activated the brain's reward circuitry. Autonomous choice makes the story one of triumph, not cautionary tale.
+
+## Lynda.com
+
+**Background:** In 1995, Lynda Weinman wrote a web design textbook in a friendly, story-based style for art school students intimidated by technology. Her publisher rewrote it to match their technical-manual house style.
+**The Aha moment:** She called on a Monday: "I consider this a rejection of my work." She exercised her contract clause and demanded her rights back.
+**Results:** Published in original form. First industry textbook of its kind. Over one million copies sold. Translated into 12 languages. In 2015, LinkedIn bought Lynda.com for $1.5 billion.
+**The lesson:** The book's value came precisely from what the publisher tried to eliminate — its humanity, accessibility, and trust in the reader. Vulnerability was the path to reaching her audience.
+
+## Common Patterns Across Case Studies
+
+1. **None led with facts or statistics.** All led with story.
+2. **All identified the audience's specific misbelief** — not the logical objection, the emotional one.
+3. **All spoke to the audience's self-narrative** rather than threatening it.
+4. **All gave the protagonist agency** — the transformation was chosen, not forced.
+5. **All used specificity** — one person, one moment, one concrete detail — rather than abstractions.
+6. **All ended at the transformation** — no lingering codas or explicit moralising.

package/payload/platform/plugins/writer-craft/skills/persuasive-storytelling/references/transformation-framework.md

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+# The Four-Stage Transformation Framework
+
+## The Template
+
+Every persuasive story moves through four stages:
+
+### Stage 1: Misbelief
+The erroneous belief your audience holds that prevents them from heeding your call to action.
+
+**How to identify it:**
+- It is not what they say their reason is — it's the emotional core beneath the surface
+- It is often a belief they are not consciously aware of holding
+- It is usually connected to identity, belonging, or self-worth
+- It was formed through experience, not logic — which is why logic can't dislodge it
+
+**Requirements:**
+- Must be specific — not "they don't care about the environment" but "they believe that environmental action requires sacrifice that marks them as different from their tribe"
+- Must be empathetically understood — you must see why this belief makes sense from inside their worldview
+- Must be something your story can actually address
+
+### Stage 2: Truth
+What the story's events will reveal as actually true. This is not your logical argument — it is the emotional reality your story will make the audience experience.
+
+**The distinction:**
+- Your logical point: what you believe the evidence shows
+- Your story's truth: what will resonate with the audience's emotional logic and uproot their misbelief
+
+These may be very different. The story's truth must be stated in terms the audience would use, not in terms you would use.
+
+### Stage 3: Realization
+The moment the protagonist (and by extension, the audience) sees the misbelief for what it is. This is the pivot of the entire story.
+
+**Four conditions for an effective realization:**
+
+1. **Timing** — Must come at the absolute last second, when all other options are exhausted and failure is imminent. Early realizations reduce stakes and satisfaction.
+
+2. **Agency** — The protagonist must make the discovery themselves. No one can hand it to them. If a mentor or saviour delivers the insight, the audience is denied the vicarious triumph.
+
+3. **Transparency** — The audience must understand why the protagonist changes their mind — not just that they do. The penny must be seen to drop. Without the "because," the realization has no instructive value.
+
+4. **Liberation** — The misbelief is shed. The protagonist is freer, more authentically themselves, capable of acting.
+
+### Stage 4: Transformation
+The protagonist is freed from the misbelief and can now act. The audience, having vicariously lived the experience, is freed too.
+
+**End at the transformation.** Do not add a coda showing the aftermath. The emotional transformation is the story's end. Everything after dilutes it.
+
+## The Point
+
+### One Story, One Point
+Every story must make exactly one point. Multiple points muddy the waters.
+
+### The Formula
+1. Changing how your audience **feels** about something...
+2. ...changes how they **see** something...
+3. ...which makes them want to **do** something
+
+### The Point Is Never Stated Outright
+Story makes its point implicitly — through what the protagonist discovers. The audience draws the conclusion themselves, which is why they believe it.
+
+### Simple vs. Simplistic
+- **Simple** has layers beneath an elegant surface: "Just Do It." "We'll leave the light on."
+- **Simplistic** has no depth: "Be Your Way." "Enjoy Better." "Pork, Be Inspired."
+
+Simple works because it taps into a complex internal narrative the audience already holds. Simplistic doesn't tap into anything.
+
+### The Target Emotion
+The emotion must be specific and fused to the point. Generic fear leads to paralysis or denial. The goal: trigger the specific emotion that reveals why your call to action matters — and then the relief of seeing how to resolve it.
+
+## Story Construction
+
+### Basic Template
+- One protagonist (representing your audience)
+- One specific external problem (not generic — today's problem)
+- Three escalating twists, each raising stakes
+- One "aha" moment meeting all four conditions
+- One ending at the transformation
+
+### The Rule of Threes
+The brain looks for patterns, and the minimum viable pattern is three. Three twists create a satisfying arc: two failed attempts, then the breakthrough. Each must be distinct and must escalate.
+
+### Believability at Two Levels
+1. **Physical** — Does this make physical sense?
+2. **Psychological/emotional** — Does this make sense given who the protagonist is and how their tribe sees the world?
+
+The emotional level is the only one that truly matters. A talking baby (E*TRADE) violates physical believability — but works perfectly because it captures the emotional logic of its target audience.

package/payload/platform/plugins/writer-craft/skills/point-of-view/SKILL.md

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+---
+name: point-of-view
+description: "Guides point of view, narrative voice, tense, person, and indirect narration in fiction and nonfiction. Use this skill whenever the user asks about POV, first person, third person, omniscient narrator, limited third, detached narrator, observer-narrator, narrative voice, tense choice (present vs past), person of the verb, changing viewpoint, POV shifts, unreliable narrator, indirect narration, polyphony, or 'whose head am I in'. Also use when a writer's POV is inconsistent, when diagnosing tense problems, or when helping choose the right narrative perspective for a story."
+---
+
+# Point of View and Voice
+
+Point of view is who tells the story and what their relation to it is. Voice is the sound of the telling. They are so intimately connected as to be the same thing. POV is also the single most common source of unconscious errors in fiction — writers shift viewpoint without knowing they've done it, and readers feel the wobble without being able to name it.
+
+## The Five Principal Points of View
+
+### 1. First Person
+"I" is the viewpoint character, centrally involved. Only what "I" knows, feels, perceives, thinks, guesses, hopes, and remembers can be told. The reader infers others only from what "I" observes.
+
+**Strengths**: Intimacy, voice, immediacy.
+**Dangers**: Can become claustrophobic; tempts the writer to make every character sound the same; limits information delivery.
+
+### 2. Limited Third Person
+"He" or "she" as viewpoint character, with the same essential limitation as first person — nothing is seen or known except what this character sees and knows. Switching from first to limited third is not as simple as changing pronouns; the imaginative energy is different for both writer and reader.
+
+**Strengths**: Intimacy without the constraints of "I"; can shift between characters (with care).
+**Dangers**: Accidental POV slips into other characters' thoughts; one-sentence incursions that break the contract.
+
+### 3. Involved Author (often called "Omniscient")
+No single viewpoint character. The author can enter any character's mind, describe things no character is present to see, make judgments, interpret behaviour. The oldest, most widely used, and most versatile POV — and probably the most difficult for contemporary writers to handle well.
+
+**Strengths**: Maximum flexibility; can provide context no character possesses; allows authorial commentary.
+**Dangers**: Can feel distant; requires a strong, confident authorial voice; easy to handle clumsily.
+
+### 4. Detached Author ("Fly on the Wall")
+No viewpoint character. The narrator reports only what a neutral observer could infer from behaviour and speech, never entering a character's mind. The least overtly but most covertly manipulative POV — everything is controlled by what the narrator chooses to show.
+
+**Strengths**: Creates mystery; forces the reader to interpret; can produce powerful understatement.
+**Dangers**: Emotional coldness; readers may not connect with characters.
+
+### 5. Observer-Narrator
+The narrator is a character but not the principal one — a witness rather than an actor. Available in both first and third person.
+
+**Strengths**: Can observe the protagonist from outside while maintaining a personal voice; creates natural mystery about the protagonist's inner life.
+**Dangers**: The observer can upstage the protagonist; limits access to the protagonist's thoughts.
+
+## Tense
+
+### Past Tense
+Gives continuous access to before and after. Minds move around easily as they normally do. Like sunlight — illuminates everything.
+
+### Present Tense
+Narrower field of vision. Focused on action in a single time and place. Sets up a permanent artificial emergency. Like a narrow-beam flashlight.
+
+Present tense can be exactly right for fast-paced action or a character whose engine runs hot. But many writers use it from fashion rather than choice. If you always write in present tense, some verb forms in your head may not have been activated for a long time.
+
+### Two-Timing
+Switching between past and present tense without awareness or signal is one of the most common and disorienting errors. Every tense shift must be deliberate and serve the story.
+
+## POV Shifts: The Rules
+
+You can change point of view. It is your right as a fiction writer. All that is required: **know that you're doing it**.
+
+The hierarchy of difficulty:
+1. **First ↔ third person** — enormously difficult in a short piece; uncommon even in novels
+2. **Detached ↔ involved author** — essentially impossible within a single piece
+3. **Between viewpoint characters in limited third** — possible but must be handled with awareness
+
+The final rule: you can shift from one viewpoint character to another any time you like, **if** you know why and how, **if** you're cautious about doing it frequently, and **if** you never do it for a moment only. One-sentence POV shifts are always uncomfortable.
+
+## Indirect Narration
+
+Not all storytelling is direct scene and action. Indirect narration includes:
+- **Exposition** — necessary information delivered without dumping it as lectures. Break it up, grind it fine, and make it into bricks to build the story with.
+- **Polyphony** — letting characters speak in their own voices, not as mouthpieces for the author.
+- **Character by indirection** — describing a place to reveal its inhabitant; describing an aftermath to reveal an event.
+
+## POV Diagnostic Checklist
+
+- [ ] Can you name the POV type being used? (first, limited third, involved author, detached, observer)
+- [ ] Is the POV consistent within scenes?
+- [ ] Are there accidental one-sentence slips into another character's thoughts?
+- [ ] Is the tense consistent? Are any shifts deliberate and signaled?
+- [ ] Does the chosen POV serve the story? (Would another POV work better?)
+- [ ] If the protagonist's subjective filter is the POV, does it color everything?
+- [ ] Is exposition integrated into the narrative, or dumped in lectures?
+- [ ] Do secondary characters have their own voices, or do they all sound like the author?
+
+## When to Read Reference Files
+
+- **For detailed POV types and voice guidance** — read `references/pov-types-and-voice.md`
+- **For tense, person, and the passive voice** — read `references/tense-and-person.md`
+- **For indirect narration and polyphony** — read `references/indirect-narration.md`
+- **For the protagonist's subjective filter and emotional POV** — read `references/protagonist-filter.md`
+
+## Exercises to Offer Writers
+
+1. **Points of View** — Devise a situation with several people. Write it five times: limited third (character A), limited third (character B), detached narrator, observer-narrator, involved author. Feel how each changes the story.
+2. **The Old Woman** — An old woman doing a task while thinking about a past event. Version 1: one tense throughout. Version 2: the other person, switching tenses between "now" and "then". Do not search-and-replace pronouns — rewrite, because changing person and tense changes the story.
+3. **Changing Voices** — Write a 300-600 word narrative shifting POV between characters with marked changes. Then rewrite it shifting POV without obvious signals. The ice is thin.
+4. **Pure Dialogue** — Two people in a crisis, written as A and B with no description or stage directions. Everything about character, setting, and situation must emerge from what they say.
+5. **Being the Stranger** — Write from the viewpoint of someone you dislike or find alien. Suspend judgment. Inhabit them. See the world through their eyes.