StoryForge Writing Modes

Deutsche Version

Back to StoryForge Main Page

Overview

StoryForge has three writing modes that change the workflow noticeably. The author_writing_mode field belongs to the author profile (~/.storyforge/authors/{slug}/profile.md). Valid values for fiction: outliner, plantser, discovery. The default in the profile template is outliner.

Memoir authors have their own vocabulary at creation time: in the memoir path, /storyforge:create-author asks for Structured, Accumulative or Discovery. On save, update_author normalizes that to the fiction terms: Structured becomes outliner, Accumulative becomes plantser, Discovery stays discovery. In the profile, and for every reading skill including book-conceptualizer, it is then outliner, plantser or discovery. A value that is none of the three memoir terms is stored unchanged, and a profile you edit by hand is not normalized.

You set the mode when creating an author with /storyforge:create-author, or later with /storyforge:configure. If an older profile has no such field, /storyforge:new-book asks once and writes your answer back to the profile.

By default the mode applies to all books by that author. When you create a book, new-book asks whether this book should deviate. A deviation is stored in the book (author_writing_mode in the README frontmatter, only once you deviate) and takes precedence over the profile, but not everywhere:

• plot-architect reads the effective value through get_book_full (field effective_author_writing_mode) and honors the book override. new-book also bases its recommendation on the effective mode.
• chapter-writer, chapter-writer-memoir, book-conceptualizer and rolling-planner read author_writing_mode from the author profile and ignore the book override.

If you deviate for one book, change the profile as well where needed, or expect chapter-writer and book-conceptualizer to decide by the profile.

The writing mode is not a matter of taste, it is a decision about how you work. Outliners are rarely happy with a discovery workflow and vice versa.

The mode mainly decides three things:

• which skill book-conceptualizer and new-book recommend next (plot-architect or rolling-planner). For memoir books book-conceptualizer names plot-architect-memoir for outliner and plantser, while new-book still names plot-architect in its closing message, memoir included.
• how extensive plot-architect is
• whether chapter-writer offers the rolling-planner before the first scene plan

All quality checks (hook, reviewer, humanizer, proofreader, checkers) run the same way in every mode.

The Three Modes

Outliner: the full planner

Profile: You want the entire structure in place before the first scene is written.

Pros:

• No plot dead ends while drafting
• Clean foreshadowing because you know the ending
• Timeline consistency from the start
• In a series, overarching arcs can be laid out cleanly

Cons:

• A long planning phase before the first chapter
• Characters have little room to move because you have fixed them
• Disappointment when the plan does not survive contact with the prose

Good for:

• Mystery, thriller and whodunit, where clues must sit in the right place
• Epic fantasy and sci-fi with complex worlds
• Series

plot-architect runs its full workflow here: structure, beat map, subplots, foreshadowing table, character arc alignment, chapter plan, story timeline and tonal document. The skill produces a scene list only in the snowflake flow. Scenes are planned later by chapter-writer per chapter.

Plantser: the hybrid

Profile: You want a compass, not a map. Surprises are welcome, total deviations are not.

Pros:

• Faster start than the outliner
• Room for creative surprises
• Still a safety net for the plot
• The rolling-planner provides structure in small portions

Cons:

• The middle can sag if the Minimal Viable Outline is too sparse
• Usually more revision than the outliner

Good for:

• Most genre novels (romance, contemporary, drama)
• Authors who started as outliners and want more freedom
• Pantsers who have already hit plot dead ends

In plantser mode plot-architect aims at a Minimal Viable Outline (six sentences) instead of a full beat sheet. Steps 4 to 6 (subplots, foreshadowing table, character arc alignment) are skipped unless you ask for them. The skill suggests Snowflake or 3-Act (minimal) as the structure. If you pick 3-Act, the chapter plan, the story timeline and the tonal document still run. If you pick Snowflake, its own flow replaces steps 3 to 8, including chapter plan and story timeline, and only the tonal document is added at the end.

Discovery Writer (pantser): the explorer

Profile: You write to find out what happens. Planning takes away your curiosity.

Pros:

• You can start writing right after the concept
• Characters lead the story
• Turns emerge organically
• There is no plan that can break

Cons:

• Often more revision work (cutting, rearranging)
• Timeline drift is very likely without the continuity checker
• Hard for mystery and thriller, because clues must be retrofitted
• Plot dead ends are possible

Good for:

• Literary fiction and character-driven drama
• Short stories and novellas
• Authors who have failed with outlines before

In discovery mode plot-architect stops and points you to the rolling-planner. You can explicitly override that, the skill does not force it.

Direct Comparison

Workflow per Mode

Outliner workflow

graph TD
    A["create-author (outliner)"] --> B["new-book"]
    B --> C["book-conceptualizer"]
    C --> D["plot-architect<br/>complete plan"]
    D --> E["character-creator<br/>all characters"]
    E --> F["world-builder"]
    F --> G["chapter-writer"]
    G --> H["chapter-reviewer"]
    H --> I{"All chapters<br/>done?"}
    I -->|No| G
    I -->|Yes| J["manuscript-checker"]
    J --> K["export-engineer"]

create-author → new-book → book-conceptualizer → plot-architect →
character-creator → world-builder → [chapter-writer → chapter-reviewer →
chapter-humanizer → chapter-proofreader] (per chapter) →
manuscript-checker → export-engineer

Plantser workflow

graph TD
    A["create-author (plantser)"] --> B["new-book"]
    B --> C["book-conceptualizer"]
    C --> D["plot-architect<br/>Minimal Viable Outline"]
    D --> E["character-creator<br/>core cast"]
    E --> F["rolling-planner<br/>3-5 scenes"]
    F --> G["chapter-writer"]
    G --> H["chapter-reviewer"]
    H --> I{"Book done?"}
    I -->|No| F
    I -->|Yes| K["continuity-checker"]
    K --> L["manuscript-checker"]
    L --> M["export-engineer"]

create-author → new-book → book-conceptualizer → plot-architect (minimal) →
character-creator → [rolling-planner → chapter-writer → chapter-reviewer] (repeat) →
continuity-checker → manuscript-checker → export-engineer

Discovery workflow

graph TD
    A["create-author (discovery)"] --> B["new-book"]
    B --> C["book-conceptualizer"]
    C --> D["character-creator<br/>core cast"]
    D --> E["rolling-planner<br/>next scene"]
    E --> F["chapter-writer"]
    F --> G["continuity-checker<br/>in between"]
    G --> H{"End reached?"}
    H -->|No| E
    H -->|Yes| I["manuscript-checker"]
    I --> K["export-engineer"]

create-author → new-book → book-conceptualizer →
character-creator (core cast) →
[rolling-planner → chapter-writer] (repeat) →
continuity-checker → manuscript-checker → export-engineer

In all three modes the chapter-humanizer and the chapter-proofreader are part of the standard path after the reviewer. The voice-checker is an optional overall check. /storyforge:next-step tells you what is due next at any time.

Choosing a Mode: a Decision Tree

graph TD
    A{"Have you finished<br/>a book before?"} -->|No| B{"Do you write<br/>mystery or thriller<br/>with clues?"}
    A -->|Yes| C{"How did the<br/>revision go?"}

    B -->|Yes| D["Outliner recommended<br/>(clue integrity matters)"]
    B -->|No| E["Plantser recommended<br/>(safe middle road)"]

    C -->|Few rewrites| F["Outliner: stay with it"]
    C -->|Many rewrites,<br/>but you enjoy discovery| G["Discovery"]
    C -->|Many rewrites,<br/>often dead ends| H["Plantser: more plan"]

Practical Examples

The examples are invented and only show the flow.

Example: outliner with a mystery

Planning:

/storyforge:brainstorm
/storyforge:book-conceptualizer the-lighthouse-keeper
  → premise, theme, target audience
/storyforge:plot-architect the-lighthouse-keeper
  → 3-act structure, 18 chapters, all clues plotted
/storyforge:character-creator the-lighthouse-keeper   (per character)
/storyforge:world-builder the-lighthouse-keeper
  → locations, travel matrix

Writing: Every chapter follows the plan. The chapter writer loads the plan, previous chapters, canon facts, timeline and the tonal document (plot/tone.md) and writes scene by scene:

/storyforge:chapter-writer the-lighthouse-keeper 1
→ scene 1 (~900 words): you give inline feedback, the skill corrects
→ scene 2, scene 3 ...
→ chapter review by you
/storyforge:chapter-reviewer the-lighthouse-keeper 01-arrival
→ findings (for example adverb density, filter words), then fix them

Revision:

/storyforge:manuscript-checker the-lighthouse-keeper --interactive
/storyforge:export-engineer the-lighthouse-keeper epub

Example: discovery writer with a literary novel

Minimal setup:

/storyforge:book-conceptualizer lavender-field-notes
  → premise and core tension, nothing more
/storyforge:character-creator lavender-field-notes
  → only the core characters

Writing as discovery:

/storyforge:rolling-planner lavender-field-notes
→ scene recipe for the next scene (goal, conflict, consequence)

/storyforge:chapter-writer lavender-field-notes 1
→ While writing, a minor character emerges.
→ You write: "Rule: The child must return in chapter 3."
→ The PreCompact hook copies the rule into the book rules as soon as the
  context is compacted (not when you type it).

/storyforge:rolling-planner lavender-field-notes
→ Reads the book data, the author profile and the summaries of the
  chapters so far, and plans the next scene from them.

The rolling-planner does not load book rules or callbacks. The new rule only takes effect when chapter-writer writes the chapter: it then appears in the chapter writer's brief among the rules it has to honor.

After a few chapters:

/storyforge:continuity-checker lavender-field-notes
→ reconstructs timeline and travel matrix from the written text

The hook only picks up single-line messages that start with one of the prefixes Rule:, Regel:, Workflow: or Callback: (case-insensitive, the text at most 300 characters long), and it only runs when the context is compacted. Everything else stays transient.

Example: plantser with dark fantasy

/storyforge:plot-architect blacklead
→ plantser variant: Minimal Viable Outline, six sentences that carry the
  arc roughly (for example opening, call, midpoint, crisis, climax,
  resolution; the labels are only an illustration)

/storyforge:rolling-planner blacklead
→ 3 to 5 scenes toward the next beat, then a new rolling session

That gives you a plot compass without detail shackles.

Switching Modes Mid-Book

This is possible but not recommended. If you move from discovery to outliner, you have to capture the existing text backwards. The continuity checker helps:

/storyforge:continuity-checker my-book
→ reconstructs timeline, travel matrix and canon from the chapters
/storyforge:plot-architect my-book
→ reads README, plot/outline.md and characters/ and plans from those

plot-architect does not read the existing chapters. So carry what the continuity checker found into the outline beforehand.

The reverse (outliner to discovery) is easier: you leave the plan alone and use the rolling planner. You change the mode in /storyforge:configure (profile). For a single book there is the override in the book, which only steers plot-architect and the recommendation of new-book.

Chapter Writer: Session Rules in Scene Mode

chapter-writer has two modes: Mode A (scene by scene, recommended) and Mode B (whole chapter at once). In Mode A, three rules protect quality across session boundaries.

Scene plan persistence

Before the first scene, chapter-writer builds a scene plan for the whole chapter (rule of thumb about 900 words per scene). Once you confirm it, the skill saves it under ## Scene Plan in the chapter's README.md. In a new session it loads the saved plan instead of deriving it again. Scenes already written are marked Written ✓ and locked.

Limit: two scenes per session

After two approved scenes, chapter-writer proactively tells you to start a new session. The reason: correction loops burn context quickly, and prose written after a loss of context gets worse. The limit is a quality rule, not a technical one. On the next start you simply run /storyforge:chapter-writer {book-slug} {chapter-number} again and the saved plan is loaded.

Detection of plantser and discovery

If the author profile says plantser or discovery and the chapter has no scene plan yet, chapter-writer asks at the start:

• Rolling planner first (recommended): you run /storyforge:rolling-planner {book_slug} {chapter_slug}. chapter-writer stops at this point and is started again afterwards.
• Skip: the plan is derived directly from the scene beats in the chapter README.

With outliner or no mode set, it continues without asking.

Common Pitfalls per Mode

Outliner traps

• Endless planning: months of planning, not a single chapter. Set yourself a deadline for planning.
• Characters as marionettes: if characters are never allowed to deviate, the prose feels mechanical. Allow small deviations.
• Plot over character: in a pure outliner workflow, characters easily end up serving the plot instead of the other way round.

Plantser traps

• Outline too coarse: six sentences do not carry a whole book. The rolling planner has to run regularly.
• Buffer too small: one scene ahead is discovery. Three to five scenes is the skill's rule of thumb.
• Plot drift: without interim checks the plot drifts away from the outline. Run the continuity-checker now and then.

Discovery traps

• Plot dead ends: very likely. Expect to discard several thousand words at times.
• Timeline chaos: run the continuity-checker regularly, not only at the end.
• No end in sight: set a rough target word count and check progress with /storyforge:book-dashboard.
• Tonal drift: without a tonal document the second half often sounds different from the first. Create a short plot/tone.md early.

Recommendation for First-Time Authors

If you have never finished a book:

1. You like to plan: start as an outliner and switch to plantser once you are in flow.
2. You like to just write: start as a discovery writer, but build a minimal outline after the first chapters.
3. You are unsure: plantser is the best entry point. Enough plan to not get lost, enough freedom to discover.

If you get stuck, /storyforge:unblock helps. The skill diagnoses the root cause of a writer's block (fear, perfectionism, procrastination or distraction) and gives targeted steps based on your book.

← Back to StoryForge Main Page