/genre-craft

name: genre-craft
description: This skill should be used when the user asks about "mystery", "fair play", "clue", "red herring", "romance beats", "HEA", "thriller", "ticking clock", "horror", "dread", "MG", "YA", "middle grade", "young adult", "science fiction", "sci-fi", "fantasy", "quest", "chosen one", "historical fiction", "period voice", "anachronism", "comedy", "humour", "humor", "romcom", "farce", "satire", "running gag", "serial", "episodic", "web serial", "genre conventions", or wants genre-specific structural craft for a story project. NOT for a clue check as a revision pass (use revision-continuity).

Genre Craft

Overview

Genre-specific structural packs: the codified craft each genre expects, as checkable rules, ledgers, and audits. Packs cover mystery (fair play + clue ledger), romance (beats + HEA contract), thriller (ticking clock, power imbalance, set pieces), horror (dread/terror ordering, monster rules), MG/YA (category constraints), science fiction (load-bearing speculative elements), fantasy (quest structure, magic paid off by its rules and costs), historical fiction (period voice, anachronisms, real people), comedy (escalation, comic set-ups and payoffs, tone), and serial/episodic structure. Use at story-init (pick the pack, set the constraints) and in revision (run the pack's audit).

Prerequisites

A story project must already exist (created via the story-init skill) with its genre recorded in `story.md`. A plot structure (plot-structure) should exist or be in progress.

When to Use

• Starting or re-categorizing a story in one of the covered genres
• Planning genre load-bearing elements (clues, clocks, season goals)
• Auditing a draft against its genre's contract
• NOT for line-level genre voice (that belongs to the `better-writing`

skill's genre work); these packs are structural

• NOT for literary fiction as a pack — its conventions resist deterministic

encoding by design

Workflow

1. **Pick the pack.** Read `story.md` for genre/sub-genre and load the matching reference:

• Mystery / crime / detective → `references/mystery-fair-play.md`
• Romance → `references/romance-beats.md`
• Thriller / action / suspense → `references/thriller.md`
• Horror → `references/horror.md`
• Middle grade / young adult → `references/mg-ya.md`
• Science fiction → `references/scifi-pipeline.md`
• Fantasy (epic, quest, secondary-world) → `references/fantasy.md`
• Historical fiction → `references/historical.md`
• Comedy (romantic comedy, farce, satire, cosy comedy) →

`references/comedy.md`; a cosy mystery not played for laughs needs only the mystery pack

• Serial / episodic / web serial → `references/serial-episodic.md`
• Multi-genre stories: load each applicable pack; where packs conflict

(e.g. horror's slow dread vs. thriller's cliffhangers), decide with the user which genre's contract dominates per section and record the decision in `story.md` notes. 2. **Set the constraints up front.** Apply the pack's structural requirements during planning:

• Mystery: create `continuity/clues/` and ledger every clue and red

herring via `story add clue '...' --planted chapter-NN --payoff chapter-NN`, with `significance-delayed` frontmatter where the reader sees the clue before understanding it and `red-herring: true` on misleading clues (`story add clue '...' --red-herring`; their `payoff` is the chapter that debunks them). Run `story clues .` for the fair-play matrix and `story diagram clues` for the plant-to-reveal flow.

• Thriller: log every promised deadline in `continuity/promises/` and

give every scene a `date` and `time`, so `story timeline .` shows the story clock.

• Serial: record `season-goal:` in `story.md` and `episode-question:`

in each installment's frontmatter, and the release cadence as `release-every:` (days, or months such as `1 month`) and `release-start:` (YYYY-MM-DD) in `story.md`, or `release-date:` on a chapter. `story next .` shows the next episode due and warns when one due within `release-warn-days:` (default 3) has no prose.

• MG/YA: record `target-words:` in `story.md` and check the category

constraints (protagonist age, minimized adult involvement).

• Sci-fi: write the speculative element's rules, costs, and limits in

`worldbuilding/systems/` before the climax exploits them.

• Fantasy: write the magic's rules, costs, and limits in

`worldbuilding/systems/` (the `worldbuilding` skill designs them) and log the quest goal and any prophecy in `continuity/promises/`.

• Historical: record `setting-era` in `story.md`, the chosen period

register in the style sheet, and a `research/` note (the `research` skill) for every fact the plot leans on and every real person; run the `editorial-review` real-people pass for anyone living or recently dead.

• Comedy: record the comic sub-genre in `story.md`, the tone line (where

comedy stops) in its `## Tone & Style` section, each comic lead's flaw in their character file, and each running gag or call-back the reader is owed a payoff on as one promise in `continuity/promises/`. Sentence-level comic timing belongs to the `line-editing` skill. 3. **Draft against the pack.** Use the pack's beat concepts and rules alongside the `chapter-writing` workflow and the `scene-craft` scene-grain tools. Cross-link thriller pacing to the Fichtean curve note in `references/thriller.md`, and check thriller and serial chapter endings with `story pacing .` (chapter `hook` values, and runs of `resolution` endings); cross-link serial book-level canon to the `series-continuity` skill. 4. **Run the pack audit in revision.** Each reference ends with an audit checklist. Run it as part of a developmental revision pass (see the `revision-continuity` skill) and record findings in the revision plan. 5. **Reco