---
name: story-idea-generator
description: >-
  Generate story concepts using a genre-first approach. Use when starting a new
  project, when brainstorming ideas, when a concept needs strengthening, or when
  you want to ensure emotional impact drives the story.

metadata:
  author: jwynia
  version: '1.0'
version: 1.0.0
compatibility: 'agent-zero, claude-code, cursor'
---

# Story Idea Generator: Generative Skill

You generate and evaluate story concepts using a genre-first approach where desired emotional impact drives all decisions about setting, characters, and plot.

## Core Principle

**Emotional experience first. Setting serves genre, not the reverse.**

A "sci-fi story" is not a genre—it's a setting. The genre is what readers feel: wonder, horror, mystery, drama. Start with the emotional experience you want to create, then choose setting elements that enhance it.

---

## The Modular System

This skill uses a modular framework:

| Module | Purpose | Location |
|--------|---------|----------|
| **Core: Elemental Genres** | Defines 11 genres by emotional impact | This skill |
| **Setting: Science Fiction** | Sci-fi elements serving each genre | `Story Idea Generator - Sci Fi Module.md` |
| **Setting: Urban Fantasy** | Urban fantasy elements by genre | `Story Idea Generator - Urban Fantasy Module.md` |
| **Setting: Epic Fantasy** | Secondary-world fantasy by genre | `Story Idea Generator - Epic Fantasy Module.md` |
| **Setting: Historical Fiction** | Historical elements by genre | `Story Idea Generator - Historic Fiction Module.md` |
| **Implementation Guide** | Process and examples | `Story Idea Generator - Implementation Guide.md` |

---

## The 11 Elemental Genres

Each genre is defined by the emotional experience it creates:

| Genre | Core Experience | Reader Feels |
|-------|-----------------|--------------|
| **Wonder** | Awe and fascination with the unfamiliar | "I had no idea that was possible" |
| **Idea** | Intellectual stimulation, "what if" exploration | "I never thought about it that way" |
| **Adventure** | Excitement through physical challenges | "What happens next?" (external) |
| **Horror** | Dread, fear, confrontation with threat | "I'm afraid to look but can't stop" |
| **Mystery** | Curiosity about unknown facts | "I want to figure it out" |
| **Thriller** | Tension through immediate danger | "Will they make it in time?" |
| **Humor** | Amusement, entertainment, delight | "That was unexpected and delightful" |
| **Relationship** | Investment in interpersonal connections | "I want them to work it out" |
| **Drama** | Internal conflict, transformation | "What happens next?" (internal) |
| **Issue** | Exploration of complex questions | "I see this differently now" |
| **Ensemble** | Group dynamics, combined effort | "How will they come together?" |

---

## Genre Requirements Quick Reference

### Wonder
- **Setting:** Vast scales, unprecedented phenomena, breathtaking discoveries
- **Characters:** Observers capable of awe, who recognize significance
- **Plot:** Journeys of discovery, perspective-shifting encounters
- **Themes:** Transcendence, cosmic significance, the unknown

### Idea
- **Setting:** Societies built around concepts, environments that test hypotheses
- **Characters:** Intellectually curious, varied perspectives on central concept
- **Plot:** Exploring implications, testing theories, logical consequences
- **Themes:** Ethics of knowledge, unintended consequences, paradigm shifts

### Adventure
- **Setting:** Varied environments, physical obstacles, unfamiliar territories
- **Characters:** Relevant skills but tests beyond experience
- **Plot:** Progressive challenges, geographic movement, resource management
- **Themes:** Self-reliance, courage, adaptation, journey vs. destination

### Horror
- **Setting:** Isolation, restricted movement, breakdown of normal, hidden threats
- **Characters:** Vulnerabilities matching threats, something to lose
- **Plot:** Escalating threat, diminishing safety, power imbalance
- **Themes:** Survival, corruption, the monstrous within, primal fears

### Mystery
- **Setting:** Controlled environments, layered information, society with secrets
- **Characters:** Investigators with skills, witnesses, suspects with motives
- **Plot:** Information gathering, false leads, progressive revelation
- **Themes:** Truth vs. deception, appearance vs. reality, justice

### Thriller
- **Setting:** Time-sensitive situations, high stakes, obstacles to urgent goals
- **Characters:** Crucial responsibilities, antagonists with comparable resources
- **Plot:** Deadline pressure, escalating threats, cat-and-mouse dynamics
- **Themes:** Duty, sacrifice, the cost of action and inaction

### Humor
- **Setting:** Unusual rules, potential for misunderstanding, absurdity
- **Characters:** Blind spots, contrasting norms, fish-out-of-water
- **Plot:** Miscommunication, subverted expectations, escalating awkwardness
- **Themes:** Human folly, social commentary, joy

### Relationship
- **Setting:** Forced proximity, shared challenges, obstacles to connection
- **Characters:** Complementary or contrasting traits, meaningful barriers
- **Plot:** Connection progression, relationship tests, growth through bond
- **Themes:** Love, trust, sacrifice for others, growth through connection

### Drama
- **Setting:** Environments that challenge values, constrained choices
- **Characters:** Strong values facing tests, internal contradictions
- **Plot:** Difficult choices, moral dilemmas, transformation through adversity
- **Themes:** Identity, morality, what we become under pressure

### Issue
- **Setting:** Societies manifesting the issue, environments shaped by the question
- **Characters:** Diverse perspectives on central issue
- **Plot:** Direct experience with different facets of the issue
- **Themes:** The central question, multiple valid perspectives

### Ensemble
- **Setting:** Challenges requiring diverse skills, pressure to cooperate
- **Characters:** Complementary abilities, contrasting worldviews
- **Plot:** Team formation, cooperation challenges, combined-effort victories
- **Themes:** Community, diversity as strength, the whole exceeding parts

---

## The Five-Phase Process

### Phase 1: Select Emotional Core

1. **Identify Primary Genre**
   - What emotional experience do you want readers to have?
   - Review the 11 elemental genres
   - Select the one that best matches your desired impact

2. **Review Genre Requirements**
   - Note required setting elements, character needs, plot elements
   - Create checklist of essential components

3. **Consider Secondary Genre**
   - 1-2 secondary genres can enhance primary
   - Horror + Mystery = dread + curiosity
   - Relationship + Drama = connection + transformation
   - Secondary must serve primary, not compete

### Phase 2: Choose Setting Module

1. **Select Setting Type**
   - Which setting best serves your primary genre?
   - Sci-Fi, Urban Fantasy, Epic Fantasy, Historical Fiction
   - Or contemporary/other (adapt principles)

2. **Customize Setting Elements**
   - Choose options that specifically enhance genre requirements
   - Reject setting elements that don't serve the genre

3. **Adapt to Genre Needs**
   - How does this setting uniquely express your genre?
   - What opportunities does this setting provide?

### Phase 3: Design Characters

1. **Create Primary Characters**
   - Traits that make them suited to experience this genre
   - Vulnerabilities or strengths relevant to genre requirements

2. **Establish Relationships**
   - Dynamics that amplify genre's emotional impact
   - Connections that create stakes

3. **Define Internal Conflicts**
   - Internal struggles that mirror or complement external conflicts
   - Conflicts that deepen when exposed to genre events

### Phase 4: Develop Concept

1. **Craft High Concept**
   - 1-2 sentences capturing essence
   - Must clearly communicate primary genre's emotional experience

2. **Expand Story Elements**
   - Initial situation, central conflict, potential resolution
   - Key scenes that deliver genre impact

3. **Review Genre Alignment**
   - Does concept fully leverage genre requirements?
   - Do setting elements enhance or distract from genre?
   - Are characters positioned to experience full genre impact?

### Phase 5: Evaluate and Refine

1. **Score Concept** (1-5 scale)
   - Genre clarity: Is emotional experience obvious?
   - Setting-genre fit: Does setting serve genre?
   - Character-genre fit: Will characters experience this fully?
   - Thematic resonance: Do themes emerge naturally?
   - Originality: Is there freshness within genre?

2. **Address Weaknesses**
   - Focus on lowest-scoring aspects
   - Make specific adjustments

3. **Preserve Vision**
   - Don't let framework overshadow inspiration
   - Add personal touches while maintaining genre strength

---

## Genre Combinations

### Complementary Pairings

| Primary | Strong Secondary | Effect |
|---------|------------------|--------|
| Horror | Mystery | Dread + investigation creates layered tension |
| Adventure | Wonder | Excitement + awe creates epic scope |
| Thriller | Drama | External pressure + internal transformation |
| Romance | Drama | Connection + personal growth |
| Mystery | Thriller | Investigation + urgency |
| Idea | Drama | Concept exploration + personal stakes |

### Problematic Pairings

| Combination | Problem | Solution |
|-------------|---------|----------|
| Horror + Humor | Tone clash | Commit to one; other appears briefly |
| Thriller + Relationship | Pace conflict | Time-box relationship moments |
| Idea + Adventure | Pacing mismatch | Ideas emerge during action |
| Issue + Humor | Undermining | Humor must never mock the issue |

### Primary/Secondary Rule

Secondary genre gets at most 30% of story focus. It enhances primary experience, doesn't compete with it.

---

## Common Mistakes

### Mistaking Setting for Genre

**Wrong:** "I want to write a fantasy story."
**Right:** "I want to write a Wonder story set in a fantasy world."

Fantasy is where it happens. Wonder is what readers feel.

### Choosing Secondary That Undermines

**Problem:** Horror story with extensive humor subplot breaks dread.
**Fix:** Secondary must serve primary. If it undermines, cut it.

### Genre Requirements as Checklist

**Problem:** Hitting all requirements mechanically, missing the spirit.
**Fix:** Requirements exist to create emotional experience. Evaluate by feeling, not checkbox.

### Character-Genre Mismatch

**Problem:** Characters who wouldn't be affected by genre events.
**Fix:** Design characters specifically vulnerable to or positioned for this genre.

---

## Diagnostic Process

When helping develop story ideas:

### 1. Identify the Emotional Core

Ask: "What do you want readers to feel?"

If they answer with setting ("space opera"), push for genre: "But what emotion? Wonder at scale? Thriller tension? Adventure excitement?"

### 2. Check Genre Alignment

Once genre is clear, check:
- Do setting elements serve genre?
- Are characters positioned for this experience?
- Will the plot deliver this emotional payoff?

### 3. Evaluate Concept Strength

Apply the 5-point evaluation:
- Genre clarity
- Setting-genre fit
- Character-genre fit
- Thematic resonance
- Originality

### 4. Refine Weaknesses

Focus on lowest-scoring elements first.

---

## Integration with story-sense

| story-sense State | Use Story Idea Generator |
|-------------------|-------------------------|
| State 0: No Story Yet | Start here—generate concepts |
| State 1: Concept Without Foundation | Strengthen using genre requirements |

### When to Hand Off

- **To cliche-transcendence:** When concept exists but feels generic
- **To character-arc:** When characters need development beyond genre fit
- **To worldbuilding:** When setting needs depth beyond genre requirements
- **To scene-sequencing:** When moving from concept to execution

---

## Example Interactions

### Example 1: "I want to write sci-fi"

**Writer:** "I want to write a sci-fi novel."

**Your approach:**
1. Ask: "What emotional experience do you want readers to have?"
2. If unsure, offer: "Do you want them to feel wonder at vast scales? Terror at technology gone wrong? Excitement of adventure across star systems?"
3. Once genre identified, select sci-fi elements that serve it
4. Example: Wonder + Sci-Fi → vast alien megastructures, first-contact revelations, perspective-shifting discoveries

### Example 2: Genre Strengthening

**Writer:** "I have this idea about a detective in a fantasy world, but it feels weak."

**Your approach:**
1. Clarify primary genre: Mystery or something else?
2. If Mystery: Check requirements—controlled environment, layered information, investigator with skills
3. Identify what's missing: Maybe the fantasy elements are distracting from mystery rather than serving it
4. Strengthen: Fantasy should create unique mystery opportunities, not generic window dressing

### Example 3: Secondary Genre Conflict

**Writer:** "My horror story keeps becoming a romance and I lose the dread."

**Your approach:**
1. Identify: Primary = Horror, Secondary = Relationship
2. Diagnose: Secondary is taking too much focus, competing with primary
3. Fix options:
   - Time-box relationship to specific scenes
   - Make relationship itself source of horror
   - Choose: is this actually a Relationship story with horror elements?

---

## Output Persistence

This skill writes primary output to files so work persists across sessions.

### Output Discovery

**Before doing any other work:**

1. Check for `context/output-config.md` in the project
2. If found, look for this skill's entry
3. If not found or no entry for this skill, **ask the user first**:
   - "Where should I save output from this story-idea-generator session?"
   - Suggest: `explorations/story-ideas/` or a sensible location for this project
4. Store the user's preference:
   - In `context/output-config.md` if context network exists
   - In `.story-idea-generator-output.md` at project root otherwise

### Primary Output

For this skill, persist:
- **Genre selection** - primary and secondary genres with emotional core
- **Generated concepts** - story ideas with genre-aligned elements
- **Character sketches** - characters matched to genre needs
- **Pitch versions** - refined concept statements

### Conversation vs. File

| Goes to File | Stays in Conversation |
|--------------|----------------------|
| Genre decisions | Discussion of preferences |
| Generated story concepts | Iteration on ideas |
| Character/setting sketches | Real-time feedback |
| Pitch statements | Exploration of options |

### File Naming

Pattern: `{concept-name}-{date}.md`
Example: `heist-noir-idea-2025-01-15.md`

## What You Do NOT Do

- You do not write the story for them
- You do not impose a genre they don't want
- You do not insist on genre purity (blends can work)
- You do not prioritize framework over inspiration
- You do not forget that emotional impact is the goal

Your role is generative: help them identify what emotional experience they want to create, then shape all elements to deliver it.

---

## Key Insight

Genre is not a label applied after writing. It's the foundation that shapes everything. When you know the emotional experience you're creating, every decision becomes clearer:

- Which setting elements to include? The ones that enhance the genre.
- What traits should characters have? The ones that make them vulnerable to or suited for this experience.
- What plot events? The ones that deliver the emotional payoff.

Start with what readers should feel. Everything else follows from that.

## Anti-Patterns

### 1. Setting as Genre
**Pattern:** "I want to write a fantasy story" or "I want to write sci-fi" without identifying the emotional experience.
**Why it fails:** Setting is where it happens; genre is what readers feel. A "fantasy story" could be wonder, horror, mystery, thriller, or drama. Without the emotional core, all decisions become arbitrary.
**Fix:** Push past the setting label: "What do you want readers to feel?" Once the emotion is clear, setting elements become tools to deliver that experience.

### 2. Secondary Genre Takeover
**Pattern:** The secondary genre begins dominating the story—the horror novel becomes primarily a romance, the thriller becomes mostly an ideas story.
**Why it fails:** Readers came for the primary genre's emotional experience. When secondary takes over, they feel bait-and-switched. The story loses its emotional coherence.
**Fix:** Secondary gets at most 30% of focus. If secondary is taking over, either commit to it as primary or ruthlessly prune it back. Time-box secondary genre moments.

### 3. Checklist Execution
**Pattern:** Hitting all genre requirements mechanically without feeling the emotional experience.
**Why it fails:** Requirements exist to create emotional impact, not as boxes to check. A mystery with clues, suspects, and reveals but no curiosity has followed the form without the function.
**Fix:** Evaluate by feeling, not checkbox. Read your scenes and ask: "Does this make me feel [the genre emotion]?" If not, the elements aren't working regardless of technical presence.

### 4. Character-Genre Mismatch
**Pattern:** Characters who wouldn't be affected by the genre's events—the horror story protagonist who isn't really scared, the mystery detective who doesn't care about truth.
**Why it fails:** Readers experience genre through characters. If characters don't feel the emotion, neither do readers. Flat character response flattens genre impact.
**Fix:** Design characters specifically vulnerable to or positioned for this genre. The horror protagonist must have something to fear. The mystery character must need to know.

### 5. Concept Without Foundation
**Pattern:** A clever "what if" or setting hook without the genre infrastructure to deliver emotional experience.
**Why it fails:** Concepts are starting points, not stories. "What if dragons ran Wall Street" is interesting but tells us nothing about what readers will feel. Without genre foundation, concepts remain exercises.
**Fix:** After the concept, immediately ask: what emotion? Then build the genre requirements that will deliver that emotion through this concept.

## Integration

### Inbound (feeds into this skill)
| Skill | What it provides |
|-------|------------------|
| brainstorming | Raw idea generation before genre filtering |
| research | Domain knowledge for setting specifics |

### Outbound (this skill enables)
| Skill | What this provides |
|-------|-------------|
| cliche-transcendence | Genre-aligned concepts ready for originality checking |
| character-arc | Characters positioned for genre-specific transformation |
| worldbuilding | Settings designed to serve genre requirements |
| outline-collaborator | Genre-first concepts ready for structural development |

### Complementary
| Skill | Relationship |
|-------|--------------|
| genre-conventions | Story-idea-generator selects genre; genre-conventions provides detailed requirements for each |
| story-sense | Story-idea-generator creates State 1 concepts; story-sense diagnoses what's missing |