Story

Input: $ARGUMENTS

Step 1: DETERMINE THE STORY TYPE

What kind of story is needed?

Type	Purpose	Structure
PARABLE	Teach a principle through analogy	Setup → Conflict → Resolution → Moral
SCENARIO	Explore a possible future	Context → Events → Consequences
VIGNETTE	Make an abstract idea concrete	Moment → Detail → Insight
ALLEGORY	Represent complex dynamics with simpler ones	World-building → Parallel events → Recognition
FABLE	Illustrate a moral through characters	Characters → Choices → Outcomes → Lesson
THOUGHT EXPERIMENT	Test an idea by inhabiting it	Premise → “What if…” → Implications

If the user specifies a type, use it. Otherwise, choose the best fit for the input.

Step 2: EXTRACT THE CORE

What is this story really about?

Theme: What idea, tension, or question does it explore?
Stakes: What matters? What’s at risk?
Perspective: Whose eyes do we see through?
Emotion: What should the reader feel?

CORE:
Theme: [the idea]
Stakes: [what matters]
Perspective: [whose story]
Target emotion: [what the reader should feel]

Step 3: BUILD THE ELEMENTS

Characters (if applicable)

Who wants what?
What’s in their way?
What do they believe that gets tested?

Setting

When and where?
What makes this world different from ours (if anything)?
What rules govern this world?

Conflict

What tension drives the story?
Is it person vs person, person vs system, person vs self, or person vs nature?
What makes it hard to resolve?

Arc

Beginning: What is the status quo?
Middle: What disrupts it?
End: What is the new state?

Step 4: WRITE THE STORY

Write the story. Follow these principles:

Show, don’t tell — Use concrete detail, not abstract summary
Start in the middle — Begin where it’s interesting, not at the chronological start
Specific > generic — “A cracked blue mug” not “a cup”
Earn the ending — The conclusion should feel inevitable in hindsight. Don’t end with hope unless the story earned it — “and they understood something new” is not an ending, it’s a retreat from one.
Trust the reader — Don’t explain the meaning; let the story carry it
Appropriate length — Match length to complexity. A vignette can be 200 words. An allegory might need 2000.
Not AI prose — The story should not sound like an AI wrote it. No “a profound sense of,” no “in that moment, she realized,” no rhythmically identical paragraphs. Read it back — if it sounds like it came from a generator, rewrite until it doesn’t.
Earn the moral — If the story’s moral is the most obvious one for this premise, find a more interesting angle. The first moral that comes to mind is the cached one. What does this story actually show when you follow the characters honestly instead of steering them toward the expected lesson?

Step 5: THE STORY

[Title]

[The story itself]

Step 6: REFLECTION (optional, only if requested)

If the user wants analysis of the story:

STORY ANALYSIS:
Theme: [what it explores]
Key insight: [what the story reveals]
Connection to input: [how it relates to what was asked]
What the story tests: [what assumption or idea is being examined]

Failure Modes

Failure	Signal	Fix
Voice collapse	Prose sounds like any AI output — same rhythm, same transitions, “profound” and “realized” everywhere	Rewrite with a specific voice. Read it aloud. If it sounds generated, it is.
Cached narrative	Story arrives at the most obvious moral/lesson for this premise	Follow the characters honestly instead of steering toward the expected takeaway. What does the story actually show?
Aspiration ending	Story ends with vague hope or unearned epiphany (“and in that moment, everything changed”)	Delete the last paragraph. If the story is better, the ending was a crutch. End where the story actually ends.
Performed emotion	Characters feel what they’re supposed to feel on cue — grief, wonder, resolve — without earning it	Show the behavior, not the feeling. Cut every sentence that names an emotion.

Integration

Use with:

/w -> For non-fiction writing
/stl -> For style guidance
/utp -> Generate a utopian story
/dys -> Generate a dystopian story
/fut -> Ground stories in plausible futures
/eth -> Explore ethical dilemmas through narrative

story - Story