StoryForge supports memoir as a second book category next to fiction. It is activated by book_category: memoir in the frontmatter of the book README. new-book sets it when you choose memoir at the category question.
Memoir shares a lot of craft with fiction: narrative arc, scene work, POV and voice. General non-fiction (how-to, reference, biography, journalism) and the complete autobiography are out of scope.
Memoir is not a trimmed-down fiction workflow. Dedicated skills, four structure types, a system for real people with consent and two memoir checks are tailored to the challenges of a true story.
| Memoir | Fiction | |
|---|---|---|
book_category |
memoir |
fiction (default) |
| Cast | real people in people/ |
invented characters in characters/ |
| World building | no world/, places as notes in research/notes/ |
world/ with travel matrix |
| Structure | four structure types | nine plot structures |
| Mandatory check before export | consent gate (check_memoir_consent), memoir-ethics-checker recommended on top |
pre-export gates |
| Check after the draft | emotional-truth-prompt |
|
| Typical length | 50,000 to 80,000 words | by book type |
When creating with /storyforge:new-book you choose memoir as the category. The README frontmatter then carries:
---
title: "My Memoir Title"
book_type: "novel"
book_category: "memoir"
author: "your-author-slug"
status: "Idea"
---
Every skill reads book_category from the book data. If the value is missing, fiction applies. The scaffold depends on the category too: people/ instead of characters/, no world/, and plot/ with structure.md instead of acts.md and arcs.md.
You create authors with /storyforge:create-author and choose "memoir" or "both" in the path. The memoir path also asks for subject position, relationship to the material and off-limits topics (off_limits), and it names the writing modes Structured, Accumulative and Discovery. On save, update_author normalizes Structured to outliner and Accumulative to plantser; Discovery stays discovery.
The structure is independent of the chronology of what happened. You choose the form that serves the story, not the one that mirrors what actually happened. plot-architect-memoir persists the choice with set_memoir_structure_type in plot/structure.md.
chronological)Events in the order they happened.
thematic)Chapters by topic rather than time. The same phase of life can show up in several chapters from different angles.
braided)Two or more strands, usually then and now, woven scene by scene.
vignette)Short, self-contained scenes connected by theme or a through-line rather than tight causality.
| Question | If yes, consider |
|---|---|
| Is the period bounded and the causality tight? | Chronological |
| Is the central question conceptual, not temporal? | Thematic |
| Does today's vantage add meaning to past events? | Braided |
| Is the material fragmented or non-narrative by nature? | Vignette |
Hybrids are possible, but exactly one of the four values is stored in code. You record the hybrid nuance in your notes. If you cannot name your dominant structure in one word, you do not have a structure yet, you have a draft.
Memoir is about real human beings. StoryForge keeps them under people/ instead of characters/, with an explicit consent status. The person files are Markdown in the book project, and the consent check reads them from there.
my-memoir/
└── people/
├── INDEX.md
├── mother.md
└── ex-partner.md
The file is created by character-creator-memoir through the tool create_person. It carries YAML frontmatter with, among others:
---
name: "Margarete"
relationship: "mother"
person_category: private-living-person
consent_status: confirmed-consent
anonymization: none # none | partial | pseudonym | composite
real_name: "" # only filled when anonymizing
status: "Concept" # set by create_person
---
Sections such as memory anchors (## Memory anchors) and consent and ethics notes follow.
The character hook also checks person files, but only for the required fields name and status. role is not required for memoir person files, nor is it compared against the role list, and the recommended sections of fiction characters do not apply. create_person writes status but no role — a file created that way passes the check right away.
| Value | Who | Approach |
|---|---|---|
public-figure |
politicians, celebrities, authors of public works | public conduct is fair game, private life is not |
private-living-person |
every living person who is not a public figure | highest legal exposure (defamation and privacy) |
deceased |
people no longer living | defamation protection usually ends with death, family sensitivities remain |
anonymized-or-composite |
actively obscured or merged people | must pass the test: would people who know them still recognize them? |
| Value | Meaning | Gate verdict |
|---|---|---|
confirmed-consent |
the person agreed, ideally in writing for delicate portrayals | PASS |
not-required |
public figure on public conduct, deceased or fully anonymized | PASS |
pending |
you intend to ask before publication but have not yet | WARN |
not-asking |
deliberate choice not to ask (estranged, abusive), with documented reasoning | WARN |
refused |
you asked and the person declined | FAIL, export blocked |
A missing or unknown value is not a valid status and yields WARN. A WARN also results when person_category is missing or unknown.
refusedblocks the export. The way forward is to remove the person, anonymize effectively or reframe the portrayal. The skill settles this with you in the "Consent and ethics notes" section.
Seven skills exist only for memoir. Their fiction counterparts refuse to work on memoir books and point to the memoir variant (the chapter writer and chapter reviewer directly invoke the memoir variant).
| Memoir skill | Fiction counterpart | Task |
|---|---|---|
plot-architect-memoir |
plot-architect |
choose a structure type and build the chapter spine |
character-creator-memoir |
character-creator |
person profiles with consent in people/ |
chapter-writer-memoir |
chapter-writer |
chapters with scene-vs-summary discipline and consent gate |
chapter-reviewer-memoir |
chapter-reviewer |
review with 39 points |
manuscript-checker-memoir |
manuscript-checker |
manuscript scan with five extra categories |
emotional-truth-prompt |
emotional truth pass | |
memoir-ethics-checker |
consent and defamation risk |
Runs after book-conceptualizer and before character-creator-memoir. Confirms the through-line, lets you choose one of the four structure types, maps the narrative arc per type, names the typical failure modes of the structure and builds the chapter spine. There is no antagonist phase and no foreshadowing table, because lived events are not "planted". Afterwards the skill creates the timeline with the real start date and the tonal document and sets the book status to Plot Outlined.
Guides you in six steps through identification, person category, consent decision, anonymization, memory anchors and writing the file. Fiction tools such as fatal flaw, GMC or want-vs-need are declined, because they would fictionalize real people. For your own minor child it points to the special care required.
Writes chapters with the same Mode A/B mechanics as chapter-writer, with memoir craft (scene vs summary, emotional truth, memoir anti-AI patterns) and a consent gate: before every scene it reads the consent warnings from the brief. On refused it stops and points to character-creator-memoir so you cut, anonymize or reframe. Missing or open statuses need an explicit decision from you.
Checks 39 numbered points and seven sub-points. Points 1 to 33 follow the categories of the fiction review in memoir-appropriate form, points 34 to 39 are memoir anti-AI points. Differences from the fiction reviewer:
The six extra points appear as their own section in the report:
| Point | Checks |
|---|---|
| 34 | life-wisdom platitudes |
| 35 | "looking back" hinges |
| 36 | tidy lesson endings |
| 37 | hedging as humility (more than two markers per 500 words) |
| 38 | therapeutic reframing |
| 39 | explanation after the image |
Runs all base checks of the manuscript checker plus five memoir categories: anonymization_leak (real name despite anonymization, pre-publication blocker), tidy_lesson_ending, reflective_platitude, timeline_ambiguity and real_people_consistency. It runs at the end of the revision. Details: Quality System.
Runs after the chapter draft and before chapter-reviewer-memoir. The skill finds places where the text drifts into smooth abstraction and asks questions only you can answer from experience. It never rewrites prose. Seven dimensions:
| Code | Dimension |
|---|---|
| ET1 | implicit feeling |
| ET2 | drift of the retrospective vantage |
| ET3 | memory contradiction (suspiciously clean memory) |
| ET4 | avoidance hedge (vague references to charged content) |
| ET5 | thoroughness trap (detail without a function for feeling) |
| ET6 | scene-or-summary error |
| ET7 | "I was wrong" rendering (penance as spectacle) |
Verdicts: PASS (continue to the reviewer), DEEPEN (work the flagged dimensions) and REWRITE (structural revision).
Two passes: first the consent of every person (tool check_memoir_consent), then a scan of the drafts for four defamation patterns:
| Code | Pattern |
|---|---|
| D1 | claim about behavior or condition without a time scope ("He drank too much.") |
| D2 | reconstructed, damaging dialogue as fact |
| D3 | the person's thoughts as fact instead of impression |
| D4 | imputation of crime, incompetence or sexual misconduct without verification |
Verdict: EXPORT CLEAR, RESOLVE BEFORE EXPORT (WARN or D1 to D3) or EXPORT BLOCKED (refused consent or D4). The skill is the recommended step before export. For memoir, export-engineer itself calls check_memoir_consent: on FAIL it stops, on WARN it asks. Only memoir-ethics-checker runs the defamation scan.
These skills work for both categories and branch internally on book_category:
| Skill | Memoir behavior |
|---|---|
book-conceptualizer |
five phases: premise, theme, scope (instead of conflict), structure, pitch in memoir format |
brainstorm |
memoir mode: asks "what happened?", does not suggest topics itself |
create-author, study-author |
memoir path and voice excavation from your own texts |
rolling-planner |
"life so far" instead of "plot so far" |
world-builder |
setting notes under research/notes/ instead of world/ |
continuity-checker |
real chronology, people log, real-world plausibility instead of a travel matrix |
voice-checker |
extra dimension with memoir AI tells |
chapter-voice-harvest |
classification (dimension, direction) must already be in place when logging, not added later, and raw text is never stored; adopted patterns are saved as style_principles with the genre tag memoir, without names of people from the book; capturing your own edits (get_self_edit_hunks) and a draft baseline exist only for fiction |
sensitivity-reader |
skips the representation and harmful-tropes categories that are built for invented characters |
chapter-fixer |
pre-publication blocker (anonymization_leak) and book_rule_violation are excluded from batch approval |
cover-artist, promo-writer |
memoir conventions for cover and blurb |
researcher |
verifies dates, period details and remembered facts |
export-engineer |
consent gate before the export checks |
book_type is independent of book_category. The values are short-story, novelette, novella, novel and epic. novel is the usual value for a complete memoir. In new-book the suggested target for novel is 80,000 words.
1. /storyforge:create-author
→ author profile (memoir or both path)
2. /storyforge:new-book
→ category memoir, genres as thematic tags
3. /storyforge:book-conceptualizer my-memoir
→ premise, theme, scope, structure, pitch
4. /storyforge:plot-architect-memoir my-memoir
→ structure type, chapter spine, timeline, tonal document
5. /storyforge:character-creator-memoir my-memoir
→ one profile per significant person, with consent status
6. /storyforge:chapter-writer-memoir my-memoir 1
→ consent gate before scenes with real people
7. /storyforge:emotional-truth-prompt my-memoir 01-chapter
→ before the reviewer, not after
8. /storyforge:chapter-reviewer-memoir my-memoir 01-chapter
→ 39 points including the memoir anti-AI points
Repeat 6 to 8 for each chapter, fix findings with /storyforge:chapter-fixer,
then chapter-humanizer and chapter-proofreader.
9. /storyforge:continuity-checker my-memoir
10. /storyforge:manuscript-checker-memoir my-memoir
11. /storyforge:memoir-ethics-checker my-memoir
→ consent and defamation risk
12. optionally /storyforge:voice-checker my-memoir
13. /storyforge:export-engineer my-memoir epub
→ checks the consents first
Discovery memoir (less planning):
create-author → new-book (memoir) → book-conceptualizer →
character-creator-memoir (core people) →
[rolling-planner → chapter-writer-memoir → emotional-truth-prompt → chapter-reviewer-memoir] (repeat) →
continuity-checker → manuscript-checker-memoir → memoir-ethics-checker → export-engineer
Under book_categories/memoir/craft/ there are six memoir documents:
| File | Content |
|---|---|
memoir-structure-types.md |
the four structure types with examples, failure modes and a decision tree |
scene-vs-summary.md |
when to dramatize, when to reflect |
emotional-truth.md |
failure modes of felt experience (ET1 to ET7) |
real-people-ethics.md |
consent model, person categories, anonymization, defamation patterns D1 to D4 |
memoir-anti-ai-patterns.md |
memoir-typical AI tells |
memoir-theme-development.md |
themes in memoir |
The memoir skills load them automatically. You can also read them directly.
See also: Back to StoryForge Main Page · Skills Reference · Quality System