Story-Driven Content Craft
A story-craft skill for agents: diagnose the first broken rung in a piece, rebuild beats with conflict and consequence, write the ending first, choose a sharper lens, and reject flat internet-native stories before they ship.
Sources
3
Refs
1
Steps
16
Outputs
3
What It Does
Use it when the job needs a real procedure.
Draft or rewrite a blog post, essay, video script, or social post that already has a thesis but is structurally flat.
Audit a draft that "feels off" — diagnose which rung of the ladder fails first, then rewrite that rung.
Convert a brain-dump or transcript into a structured piece.
Stress-test a founder narrative, pitch deck, or fundraising story for retention craft.
Generate candidate lenses when a topic is saturated and the founder needs a non-obvious angle.
Outputs
The page is for humans first. The files in the rail make the same procedure available to agents.
Try It
Start with one of these prompts.
Audit this draft for the first attention break and rewrite that section.
Try in BuildOSHelp me turn this product update into a founder story with a clear payoff.
Try in BuildOSProcedure
The operating path
- 1
Source the inquiry first. If the founder hasn't done the upstream work, extract the lived material, contradiction, or hard-won opinion this piece will explore. → nonfiction-writing-from-lived-conviction
- 2
Generate 5+ lenses. Stratify by tier. Default to Tier 3 or Tier 4. Reject Tier 1 unless a non-obvious proof is attached.
- 3
Write the last line. "The last dab" — so memorable a stranger would text it to a friend. For looping content, write the first line at the same time and test continuity.
- 4
Outline beats. Discrete beats, not paragraphs. Between every two beats, insert but or therefore. Reject and then. Map the intensity curve: open at ~70/100, hit ~90 within the first 1–2 minutes (or first 200 words), release to ~30, re-peak every 2–5 minutes (or every 400–600 words).
- 5
Restack the W's. What + why first. Who + how second. Where + when last.
- 6
Stack rebuys. For each peak-and-release, open a new loop within 30 seconds (video) or one paragraph (blog). Aim for 3–4 closed-loop cycles across the piece.
- 7
Name the one reader. The founder writes to that one person, by name, in their head. Reread as if texting them.
- 8
Run the ladder check. State the question implanted at the 5-second mark (or first paragraph). State what the viewer is anticipating mid-piece. Verify the validation is non-obvious.
- 9
Pair every point with a visual. B-roll brief per beat for video. Hero image / scene / number / quote for blog. For abstract points without a visual, swap in a metaphor that can be drawn.
- 10
Draft prose using rhythm rules. One sentence per line. Mix short / medium / long. Read aloud. Confirm the right-edge jaggedness.
- 11
Write the hook last. Once the body and last line exist, write the opener. First line names the topic in 6–8 words. For the full slot grammar / archetype / four-mistake diagnostic on the hook itself → hook-craft-short-form.
- 12
Run the seven-mistake reject pass. Walk the seven mistakes in order. On any fire, route back to the corresponding craft move.
- 13
Walk the dopamine ladder in order. State explicitly: - Did the first 1–2 seconds (or first sentence) visually distinguish from the feed / noise? - At the 5-second mark (or first paragraph), what is the question implanted in the viewer's head? If you can't articulate it, captivation failed — fix that first. - Mid-piece, what is the viewer anticipating? If unclear, anticipation broke. - Is the payoff non-obvious? Could a smart viewer have written it before consuming? - Across the channel, is the persona / problem area consistent?
- 14
Stop at the first failed rung. Do not propose holistic rewrites. Fix that rung; re-evaluate.
- 15
Run the seven-mistake reject pass. If a mistake fires, route to the corresponding craft move.
- 16
Rebuild the prose only after structure is clean. Apply Rhythm and Tone passes last; they are surface-level relative to the ladder rungs and craft moves.
Boundaries
What the skill refuses or checks carefully
No and then connectors between beats. Reject any outline where every transition is additive.
No bell-curve intros. Pieces opening below ~70/100 intensity (scene-setting, throat-clearing, "for years I've wondered…") fail by default.
No leading with where/when. What + why first.
No single-loop pieces. A piece with one peak and a slow descent will lose 80% before the descent finishes.
No hero without a villain. If you can't name the antagonist (process, methodology, incumbent, status quo, idea), kill the draft.
No piece without explicit audience-mapping in the first 30 seconds (video) or first paragraph (blog).
Examples
Runtime examples
Worked Example
- Inquiry / thesis: I did everything the productivity gospel says — six apps, real discipline — and still missed my own launch. The fix was the opposite of organizing. (Lived material supplied; no upstream skill load needed.)
- Lens (5 candidates, tier-ranked):
- T1: "My two-year solo-building journey" — rejected, saturated.
- T2: "Why I abandoned six note apps" — comparison, common.
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