---
name: story-architecture
description: "Guides building and analyzing internal story architecture: misbelief, desire, third rail, worldview, origin scenes, 'What If' premise, scene cards, and blueprinting. Use this skill whenever the user mentions protagonist misbelief, character desire, third rail, internal struggle, worldview, origin scene, What If premise, scene cards, story blueprint, building a story from inside out, protagonist's wound, backstory excavation, or asks why their story feels flat despite having good plot events. Also use when diagnosing why a story lacks emotional power or when a writer needs to develop their protagonist's internal architecture before plotting."
---

# Story Architecture

Story is not plot. Plot is the sequence of external events; story is the internal transformation those events force upon the protagonist. The brain processes narrative as a survival simulation — readers track what happens *inside* the protagonist's mind, not what happens around them. A novel with spectacular events but no internal engine is neurologically inert. The reader puts it down.

This skill covers the internal architecture that powers a story: the structural components that make a reader unable to stop reading.

## Core Components

Every functioning story requires these interlocking elements:

### 1. The Misbelief
A specific false conclusion about how the world works, rooted in a painful past experience, that governs the protagonist's behaviour. The misbelief is not a character flaw — it is a coping strategy that once made sense. It protected the protagonist. Now it imprisons them.

The misbelief must be:
- **Specific** — not "she has trust issues" but "she believes that letting anyone see her real feelings will get her abandoned, because that's what happened when she was twelve and told her mother the truth about her stepfather"
- **Earned** — traceable to a concrete origin experience
- **Active** — currently shaping decisions and relationships, not sitting inertly in backstory

### 2. The Desire
Something the protagonist has wanted, perhaps for years, that the misbelief prevents them from achieving. Desire and misbelief are in permanent conflict — every time the protagonist moves toward what they want, the misbelief sabotages them.

### 3. The Third Rail
The protagonist's internal struggle is the electrical current that powers the entire novel. Like a subway's third rail, it runs beneath every scene. External plot events matter only insofar as they connect to this rail. Scenes that don't touch it are dead weight.

### 4. The Worldview
The protagonist's subjective interpretive filter — not a bird's-eye view, not a political position, but the specific, idiosyncratic lens ground by their past experiences. It determines what they notice and ignore, what frightens them, what they desire, and what they refuse to see.

The brain is a prediction machine. The protagonist's worldview is their prediction engine. The novel is the story of what happens when reality refuses to match their predictions.

### 5. The Origin Scene
The specific moment in the protagonist's past when the misbelief took root. This is not backstory filler — it is the foundation of the entire story. Write it as a full scene in the protagonist's subjective POV.

### 6. The "What If" Premise
The story's core premise. A story-worthy What If must contain:
- **Context** — the specific world and circumstances
- **Conflict** — the seed of internal struggle
- **A point** — the thematic question the story will interrogate

A neutral What If ("What if a man lost his job?") is insufficient. It must imply the collision between the protagonist's misbelief and reality.

## Scene Cards

Every scene must be tracked with a Scene Card capturing:

| Element | Question |
|---------|----------|
| **External event** | What happens? |
| **Internal meaning** | How does this force the protagonist's internal struggle forward? |
| **Urgency hook** | What question does this raise for the reader? |
| **Cause** | What scene triggered this one? |
| **Effect** | What will this scene trigger next? |

If you cannot fill in the "internal meaning" row, the scene has no business being in the novel. External events without internal meaning are noise.

## Diagnostic Checklist

When analyzing a story or helping a writer develop one, check:

- [ ] Can you state the protagonist's misbelief in one specific sentence?
- [ ] Can you trace the misbelief to a concrete origin experience?
- [ ] Is the desire in direct conflict with the misbelief?
- [ ] Does the protagonist's worldview visibly filter every scene?
- [ ] Does the novel begin at the last possible moment — when avoidance becomes impossible?
- [ ] Does the inciting event directly threaten the misbelief?
- [ ] Is there a ticking clock creating urgency?
- [ ] Does every scene touch the third rail?
- [ ] Can you trace cause-and-effect from scene to scene through the internal story?
- [ ] Does the "Aha!" moment feel earned, specific, and tied to the third rail?

## The Blueprinting Process

The blueprint is not a traditional outline. It is built scene by scene, grounded in the internal story, and developed iteratively alongside drafting. The process:

1. Find the What If (premise with context, conflict, and thematic point)
2. Identify the protagonist (whose internal change is this about?)
3. Excavate the misbelief and desire
4. Write the origin scene
5. Write escalating backstory scenes showing the misbelief deepening
6. Determine the opening moment (last possible moment of avoidance)
7. Determine the ending (the Aha! moment — internal climax)
8. Build Scene Cards connecting opening to ending
9. Draft and blueprint simultaneously — they inform each other

Stories grow in spirals, not lines. Each pass deepens rather than merely extends.

## When to Read Reference Files

- **For detailed excavation of misbelief, desire, and worldview** — read `references/misbelief-desire-worldview.md`
- **For the full blueprinting system and scene card process** — read `references/blueprinting-and-scene-cards.md`
- **For origin scenes and escalating turning points** — read `references/origin-scenes-and-escalation.md`
- **For the neuroscience of why internal story matters** — read `references/inner-issue-and-protagonist-goal.md`

## Exercises to Offer Writers

When a writer is developing their story architecture, suggest these exercises as appropriate:

1. **Write your What If** — a concise, specific premise including context, conflict, and thematic point
2. **Write a protagonist bio** focused on internal life — want, misbelief, emotional state at novel's opening
3. **Write the origin scene** — the moment the misbelief formed, rendered as a full scene in subjective POV
4. **Write 3-5 escalating backstory scenes** — moments where the misbelief deepened, always tying external events to internal emotional meaning
5. **Interrogate with "Why?"** — for every uncertain plot point, ask "Why would this character do this?" until you reach bedrock (a specific past experience that makes the action inevitable)
