# Deep POV and Psychic Distance

Boundary note: this reference covers psychic distance as a **controllable
planning variable** and deep-POV mechanics as **checkable structural rules**.
Voice calibration and line-level prose quality belong to the `better-writing`
skill; consult it before polishing prose.

## Psychic distance as a zoom level

Psychic distance is how close the narration sits to a character's interior —
a zoom the writer controls scene by scene. Common levels, from far to near:

1. **Distant observer:** "The woman at the bar had been waiting an hour."
   (external, no character's interior)
2. **Mild interiority:** "Sera had been waiting an hour, and the bartender
   still hadn't looked her way." (named character, mild interpretation)
3. **Close third:** "Sera checked the clock again. Still no bartender. An
   hour, gone." (interior voice bleeding in)
4. **Deep POV:** "The clock hadn't moved. Of course it hadn't moved. She'd
   counted the bottles twice." (pure character perception, no narrator
   mediation)

Plan the zoom **per scene** before drafting:

- **Action and revelation scenes:** zoom in. The reader needs the cost felt.
- **Transitions and wide establishing moments:** zoom out. Distant narration
  moves faster.
- **Shifts must be deliberate.** One zoom level per scene, chosen in advance
  and recorded in the scene record's planning notes (`psychic-distance:
  {distant|close|deep}`). Zooming mid-scene without a scene break reads as
  head-hopping's gentler cousin.

## Checkable deep-POV rules

When a scene is planned at deep-POV level, enforce these mechanically before
and after drafting:

**Filter words to strike.** These words insert a narrator between the reader
and the POV character's perception:

- felt, feel, feeling (she felt afraid → her hands shook)
- knew, know, knowing
- wondered
- thought, think, thinking (no thought-tags — see below)
- realized, realization
- noticed, saw, heard, smelled (as perception announcements: "she saw the
  door open" → "the door swung open")

This is a checkable list, not a style guide. Scan the draft for each word;
where it mediates perception, rewrite as direct perception.

**No thought-tags.** Italicized thoughts with tags ("she thought," "she told
herself") are training wheels. Deep POV expresses thought as unmediated
narration: "The clock hadn't moved. Liar." Never tag interior monologue.

**Perception filter.** Narrate only what the POV character could perceive:

- Nothing that happens elsewhere (cut to a new scene or stay ignorant).
- Nothing the POV character didn't notice (if it mattered and they missed
  it, that's a planned knowledge gap — log it in `continuity/questions/`,
  not an accident).
- Nothing from the future (no foreshadowing inside the POV character's
  narration — that is narrator intrusion; plant foreshadowing in the world
  they perceive, not in their predictions).
- Perception filtered by **job, history, and fears**: a soldier notices
  exits and hands; a botanist notices the rot on the roses; a liar watches
  for lies. When writing what the POV perceives, consult the character file's
  backstory and current emotional state — two characters in the same room
  should notice different things.

## Post-draft check

For deep-POV scenes, run the filter-word list against the draft, then re-read
the scene asking only: "Who perceived this?" If the answer is ever "the
narrator, not the character," pull the zoom tighter or rewrite the passage.

# Dialogue: Subtext and Voice Differentiation

Boundary note: this reference covers dialogue as a **planning and
structure** tool — what each character secretly wants in the scene, and a
checkable recipe for making voices distinguishable. Line-level prose quality
(literary dialogue rhythm, anti-generic phrasing) belongs to the
`better-writing` skill. Consult that skill before polishing dialogue prose.

## Subtext as a planning input

Subtext is the gap between what is said and what each character actually
wants. Before drafting any conversation, write down for each participant:

- **Said want:** what the character claims to want in this scene (their
  spoken goal).
- **Hidden want:** what they actually want — usually emotional, often
  something they would never say aloud (approval, safety, revenge, proof
  they matter).
- **Why they can't say it:** pride, fear, leverage, ignorance. The reason
  shapes every evasion.

Record these in the scene record's planning notes or the chapter outline:

```yaml
dialogue-subtext:
  - character: {character-kebab}
    said-want: "{What they claim to want}"
    hidden-want: "{What they actually want but won't say}"
  - character: {character-kebab}
    said-want: "..."
    hidden-want: "..."
```

When said-want and hidden-want are the same, the dialogue has no subtext —
either the character is being honest (mark it as a deliberate choice) or the
exchange needs a hidden layer added.

## Dialogue as negotiation

Treat every exchange as a negotiation, not a Q&A. Each turn of dialogue
should do one of:

- **Probe:** test the other person for information, weakness, or intention
- **Parry:** deflect a probe without revealing anything
- **Advance:** trade information for something, concede ground to gain ground
- **Feint:** appear to concede while actually maneuvering

Dialogue where characters take turns delivering information to the reader is
an interrogation, not a conversation. If both characters' turns only pass
facts, rewrite so at least one participant is trying to get something the
other won't freely give.

## Voice differentiation recipe

Build each character's dialogue voice from four checkable components
(recorded in their `Voice & Speech Patterns` profile section, with example
lines):

1. **Verbal tic:** one recurring word, phrase, or hedge (not a caricature —
   one per character, used sparingly).
2. **Syntactic preference:** short clipped sentences vs. long rolling ones;
   questions vs. declarations; formal vs. fragmentary.
3. **Topic steered toward under stress:** when cornered, what does this
   character retreat to talking about?
4. **Topic refused:** what will this character never discuss, and what do
   they do instead when it comes up (deflect, joke, go silent, leave)?

## The tag-swap test

Strip the dialogue tags and speaker names from a finished exchange. Hand the
bare lines to a cold read. If the voices are distinct, a reader familiar with
the characters should be able to reassign most lines correctly. If not:

- The voices are not distinct enough — strengthen one character's syntactic
  preference and stress-topic, not by adding more tics.
- Do not "fix" it by giving every character a catchphrase. Tics are seasoning;
  syntax and motive are the meal.

## Beat economy

- Keep **~3 spoken lines max** between action beats or sensory anchors. A beat
  is a line of physical action, a noticed detail, or a silence with weight.
- Beats do double duty: they carry subtext (crossed arms while saying "I'm
  fine") and they break up speeches.
- For arguments: allow interruptions and cut-offs. Let one character finish
  another's sentence wrongly. People fighting don't wait their turn, and they
  answer the argument they *heard*, not the one that was spoken.

# Exposition Craft

Agents with full worldbuilding files are prone to dumping them onto the page.
This reference is the guardrail: how to deliver necessary information without
stopping the story.

## The info-dump warning

If a passage exists only to transfer information from the worldbuilding files
to the reader, it is an info dump. Test each expository passage:

- **Cut test:** if you cut the passage, does the *scene's* action still make
  sense? If yes, the information belongs somewhere else — or nowhere.
- **Knowledge test:** does the POV character have a *scene reason* to think
  or say this right now? "Because the reader needs it" is not a reason.

## Drip-feed

Deliver background information in the smallest useful piece, at the latest
possible moment:

- The reader needs the **consequence** now and the **explanation** later.
  Show the sealed gate first; explain the treaty that sealed it three
  chapters later, when the treaty breaks.
- One new world fact per scene is plenty. Two is crowded. A paragraph of
  history is a crowd.
- When in doubt, delay: an unexplained detail the reader files away is
  foreshadowing; an explained one is exposition. Track planned delayed
  reveals in `continuity/questions/` so they don't become forgotten setups.

## Exposition carried by conflict

Information the characters argue about gets absorbed; information they
lecture about gets skipped. Delivery vehicles that carry conflict:

- **An argument about the facts** — two characters with different stakes
  disputing what happened (and both may be partly wrong).
- **A test or interrogation** — the POV character needs the information to
  survive the scene, not just to know it.
- **Withheld leverage** — a character who knows something uses it as
  currency; the exposition arrives when they finally spend it.

Conversely: never deliver exposition as a cooperative lecture between two
characters who both already know it ("As you know, Bob..."). If both parties
know it, they have no scene reason to say it.

## In-world documents as delivery vehicles

When a chunk of information must arrive intact, embed it in a world artifact
rather than narration:

- Letters, orders, decrees, newspaper articles, lab reports, contracts,
  diary entries, inscriptions.
- The document must have a **scene reason to exist**: someone delivers it,
  finds it, steals it, or forges it. A document that appears only to inform
  the reader is narration wearing a costume.
- Keep it short. A three-sentence decree beats a page of minutes.
- For gameable depth: documents can lie, omit, or be misread — the gap
  between the document and the truth is a planned `continuity/questions/`
  entry.

## Pre-draft exposition audit

For each scene's planned exposition, record in the outline:

1. The fact to deliver (one line).
2. Why the POV character encounters it *now* (scene reason).
3. Whether it's drip-fed, conflict-carried, or document-delivered.
4. If it's a delayed explanation, the question id it was planted under.

A scene whose only answer to (2) is "the reader needs to know" gets its
exposition cut or rescheduled.

# Flashbacks and Time Skips

## Flashback entry and exit mechanics

A flashback must feel like entering and leaving a room, not like a footnote.
Use a two-step entry and a two-step exit:

**Entry:**
1. **Sensory trigger in the present** — a smell, a sound, a phrase that the
   POV character actually perceives right now. The trigger belongs in the
   present scene.
2. **Clean break** — a scene break (`---`) or a hard paragraph transition.
   Then start the flashback *in media res* of the past moment, not with
   "She remembered when..." (that is a filter-word entry — see `deep-pov.md`).

**Exit:**
1. **Echo the trigger** — return on the same sensory detail, now changed by
   what the flashback revealed.
2. **Resume present motion** — the present scene continues; the flashback
   must have *cost* something (time lost, a reaction seen, a decision
   changed) or it was free information.

Record flashbacks in the scene record with `flashback-to: {when}` (a freeform
scalar validated by `story validate` and preserved by the CLI) and the
characters appearing in them under `mentions` (not `characters`), per the
story-init convention — this keeps `story continuity` from flagging
posthumous or temporally-impossible appearances (continuity checks use
`mentions`, not `flashback-to`).

## The flashback-as-tension-cheat warning

A flashback placed at a cliffhanger is a cheat: it pauses the present tension
to spend cheaper past tension. Test every flashback placement:

- **Does the present scene lose urgency because the flashback interrupts it?**
  If yes, move the flashback earlier (plant the memory before the crisis) or
  later (let the memory arrive when the character is safe enough to have it).
- **Does the flashback contain the actual stakes of the story?** If the most
  dramatic events live in flashbacks, the story's timeline is wrong — the
  story should start later.

The legitimate use: a flashback that *deepens* the present stakes (the
ambush matters more because we now know who taught her to fight) placed at a
moment of relative calm, not at a cliffhanger.

## Time skips

When the story jumps forward (days, months, years):

- **Bridge with a single decisive detail** — one line that shows what
  changed: "By spring, the orchard was a field of stumps." Not a summary
  paragraph of everything that happened.
- **Update `continuity/state.md`** for every skipped interval: character
  state, object custody, and knowledge that would have changed. Skips are
  where continuity errors breed.
- **Update `plot/timeline.md`** with the skipped period marked explicitly
  (`Day 40 → Day 120: {what the skip covers}`), so later agents don't assume
  nothing happened.
- **Record the skip in the chapter frontmatter** as
  `time-skip: {from} → {to}`.

## Flashback discipline

- One flashback per chapter is plenty; two needs justification.
- Never open a chapter with a flashback (see `openings.md` — the first page
  must establish present-tense instability, not past context).
- A flashback longer than the present scene around it has become the real
  scene: rename it and restructure.
- Backstory delivered because "the reader should know" belongs in the
  character file, not on the page. Backstory delivered because the POV
  character *needs it now* to make their decision belongs in the sequel
  (see `scene-sequel.md`).

# Openings and Character Introductions

## In medias res

Open the story inside instability, not before it. "In medias res" means the
first page carries a situation already in motion — a decision pending, a
threat present, a want unmet — not the backstory that led to it.

- **Chronology-first planning:** know the full chain of events, then choose
  to *start* at the latest point that still gives the reader a character to
  care about with a problem to follow. Everything before that point is
  backstory, deliverable later via `exposition.md` or `flashbacks-time.md`.
- **Enter late, leave early:** scenes — and the story itself — should open
  as close to the inciting motion as possible and cut before the aftermath
  settles. The reader arrives mid-argument, leaves mid-escape.

## The first-page hook check

Before approving a chapter-one opening (or any chapter opening), verify the
first page delivers all three, in this order of priority:

1. **Voice** — a narration or POV texture that is unmistakably *this
   character's*, not generic narrator prose.
2. **Want** — the POV character wants something concrete, right now, on this
   page. Not a life goal: a scene goal.
3. **Instability** — something is wrong, off, threatened, or about to change.

What must NOT lead the first page:

- Geography (descriptions of the landscape before a person with a problem).
- Backstory (history before stakes).
- Worldbuilding (the system before the character it will hurt).

If the opening leads with any of the three, restructure: move the voice/want/
instability forward, push context into the sequel or later scenes.

## Character introduction technique

Introduce each significant character with this discipline:

1. **Action-first entry.** The character's first appearance shows them *doing*
   something characteristic under mild pressure — working, arguing, fixing,
   fleeing. Never introduce a character at rest being described.
2. **Prompt naming.** Name the character within their first paragraph of
   presence. A named-but-unseen character and a seen-but-unnamed character
   both confuse readers; give the name early.
3. **Behavior over description.** Convey appearance through action and
   other characters' reactions, not through a static description block.
   One or two concrete details land harder than a full portrait. Record the
   full appearance in the character file, not on the page.
4. **Entry with consequence.** The character's entrance should change the
   scene: new information, new tension, a decision forced. An entrance that
   changes nothing can be cut — have them already present instead.

## Chapter-opening checklist

For every chapter opening (not just chapter one):

- [ ] Opens on motion, want, or instability — not on weather, waking up, or
      a landscape pan (unless deliberately subverting the cliché, and then
      the subversion must land on page one)
- [ ] Reader can answer "who, where, when" within the first page
- [ ] Connects to the previous chapter's unresolved question or raises a new
      one within the opening beat
- [ ] New characters follow the action-first / prompt-naming / behavior-over-
      description discipline

# Scene Cards

A scene card is the planning unit between a plot beat and a chapter draft:
one card per scene, each recording what changes. Use cards when a chapter
has multiple POV lines or timelines to braid, or when scenes need reordering
before drafting. They are the cheapest place to fix structure — reordering
cards costs minutes; reordering drafted scenes costs days.

## Card contents

One card per scene, with exactly these fields:

- **Scene id:** `chapter-{NN}-scene-{NN}` (matches the `scenes/` record id)
- **POV:** who carries the scene
- **Location:** where
- **Start state:** the situation, the POV character's emotional state, and
  the open question at the scene's beginning — one line each
- **Change:** what shifts by the scene's end (plot fact, relationship,
  knowledge, or emotional state). If nothing changes, the card has no reason
  to exist — cut, fold, or combine it.
- **End state:** the new situation and the new open question
- **Type:** Scene (goal → conflict → outcome) or Sequel (reaction → dilemma
  → decision); see `scene-sequel.md`
- **Try/fail position:** `try-1`, `try-2`, `try-3`, or `setback` when part
  of an escalation chain; see `try-fail.md`
- **Arcs advanced:** which arcs move in this scene (kebab-case ids)

Store the card in the scene's `scenes/` file under a `## Scene Card` section,
or as a block at the top of the chapter outline. Keep the format identical
everywhere so a later agent can read them.

## Reordering

Lay the cards out and check:

1. **Causality:** each card's start state must follow from the previous card's
   end state. Gaps are plot holes; contradictions are continuity errors.
2. **Escalation:** across the chapter, stakes, pressure, or emotional cost
   rise. A card that lowers tension after the midpoint needs a reason.
3. **Rhythm:** alternate scene types. Two pure action scenes back-to-back
   flatten; a sequel between them deepens both.
4. **Reader knowledge vs character knowledge:** mark cards where the reader
   learns something the POV character doesn't (or vice versa). Unplanned
   dramatic-irony gaps are continuity bugs; planned ones are logged in
   `continuity/questions/`.

## Braiding POV lines

When a chapter or sequence alternates POV characters:

1. Write one card stack per POV line.
2. Interleave so each line's cliffhanger resolves at least two of its own
   cards later — never cut away at a resolution, always at an unresolved
   question.
3. Record the interleave order in the chapter outline and mirror it in the
   `scenes/` card stack.

## When to ask the user

Reordering changes story shape. Present the proposed new order as a card list
(start state → change → end state per card) and get approval before rewriting
scene files or the chapter outline. Do not reorder silently.

# Scene Sequel Mechanics

Scene/Sequel is Dwight Swain's scene-unit framework from *Techniques of the
Selling Writer*. chapter-writing covers Swain's **Scene** half
(goal → conflict → outcome/setback). This reference covers the missing
**Sequel** half: reaction → dilemma → decision. The sequel is where character
interiority, motivation repair, and theme processing happen. Without it, a
chapter becomes a string of incidents with no breathing room.

## When a scene needs a sequel

Not every scene gets a sequel. Write one when:

- The scene outcome was a **setback or disaster** the POV character must process
- The POV character learned something that **changes their understanding** of the lie they live by (see `theme-craft`)
- The next scene needs a **decision** with stakes — the sequel manufactures it
- The pacing needs **breathing room** between action beats (see `try-fail.md`)

Skip the sequel when the outcome was a clear victory with a self-evident next
step, or when the following scene opens mid-action and the reaction can happen
on the move.

## The four beats

**1. Reaction (emotional).** The POV character's immediate, visceral response to
the scene's outcome. Sensory, involuntary, in-the-body: nausea, shaking hands,
laughing when they shouldn't. Keep it short — two beats of prose, not a page
of wallowing.

**2. Dilemma (rational).** The character tries to think their way out. A dilemma
is not a problem with one right answer; it is a choice between two bad
options, or a situation with no good path visible. Frame it as an explicit
question with explicit stakes: "Give up the map and lose the one advantage she
has, or keep it and let the person she promised to protect walk into the
ambush?" Record the dilemma in the scene record's `dilemma` field.

**3. Decision (act of will).** The character commits to a course of action. The
decision must be *theirs* — made from who they are, not imposed by the plot —
and it must cost something. A decision that costs nothing is not a decision.

**4. Action (optional, launches the next scene).** Some writers count the action
taken on the decision as part of the sequel; treat it as the bridge beat that
ends the sequel and opens the next scene.

## Scene record fields

The scene template (`chapter-writing/references/scene-template.md`) carries
`sequel: {true|false}` and `dilemma:` frontmatter plus a `## Sequel` body
section. For scenes with sequel content:

```yaml
sequel: true
dilemma: "{The explicit no-good-options question}"
```

And in the `## Sequel` section, record the three beats:

- **Reaction:** the POV character's emotional processing (one or two beats
  of prose, not a page).
- **Dilemma:** the impossible choice restated with its stakes.
- **Decision:** what the POV character commits to, what it costs, and the
  goal that launches the following scene.

For pure action scenes with no sequel, set `sequel: false` and omit the
rest.

## Planning workflow

1. Read the scene's outcome from the chapter outline or scene record.
2. Write the reaction as **one specific physical detail** — the body's answer
   before the mind's.
3. Draft the dilemma as a single question. If you can find an easy answer,
   sharpen it until both options cost something the character values.
4. Make the decision **reveal** character: a brave character may choose the
   cautious path if it protects what they love; that contradiction is where
   theme lives.
5. Check the dilemma against the character's lie (see
   `theme-craft/references/lie-truth.md`): the lie should be fighting the
   decision. If the lie plays no part, the sequel is skimming the surface —
   deepen it.

# Try/Fail Cycles and the Five Commandments

Two scene-grain structure tools for pacing the middle of chapters and giving
every scene a checkable shape. Both are widely-published craft concepts;
this is a summary, not a reproduction of any commercial methodology.

## Try/Fail cycles

From Dwight Swain's *Techniques of the Selling Writer*: most scenes in a
chapter should be **attempt scenes** — the POV character tries something and
fails. Escalate across attempts within the chapter:

1. **First attempt fails** — the obvious solution doesn't work.
2. **Second attempt fails worse** — the clever solution backfires, and the
   situation is now worse than before the attempt.
3. **Third attempt leads to a setback or disaster** — partial progress at best,
   or the worst outcome, which forces the next scene.

Rules for planning try/fail chains:

- Each failure must be **caused by the attempt itself**, not by random bad
  luck. The reader should feel the POV character earned the worse situation.
- Never resolve an attempt with a **coincidence that saves** the character
  (deus ex machina). Coincidences may *complicate*, never *rescue*.
- Between failed attempts, insert sequel material (reaction/dilemma/decision —
  see `scene-sequel.md`) so the reader feels the rising cost, not just rising
  noise.
- Track each attempt in the chapter outline as `try-1`, `try-2`, `try-3` with
  its failure and its new complication.

## The Five Commandments (Story Grid)

Shawn Coyne's *Story Grid* describes every complete story unit — including a
single scene — as moving through five stages (attributed here as a summary of
the widely-discussed framework, not its full methodology):

1. **Inciting incident** — something disrupts the scene's status quo.
2. **Progressive complications** — the situation worsens or the goal gets
   harder to reach (this is where try/fail cycles live).
3. **Crisis** — the POV character faces an irreversible choice between two
   bad options (or a best-bad-choice).
4. **Climax** — the decision, and the action taken on it.
5. **Resolution** — the new state: what changed, what it costs, what the
   character now knows.

## Scene-grain checklist

For each scene in a chapter, verify:

- [ ] An inciting incident opens the scene or the scene opens on its aftermath
- [ ] At least one complication makes the goal harder before the outcome
- [ ] The crisis presents a genuine either/or (no cost-free choice)
- [ ] The climax shows the POV character acting on their decision
- [ ] The resolution states the change: what is different now than at the
      scene's start (record in `state-changes` in the scene file)

If a scene fails the checklist, it is either a transition (keep it short),
a sequel beat (see `scene-sequel.md`), or it needs a complication and a
crisis added before drafting.