Story Architecture

# Arc Design

An arc is defined by a central question: something the characters (and reader)
need answered. The question creates tension, the arc's events explore it from
different angles, and the resolution provides an answer (which may itself raise
new questions for the next arc).

## Arc Components

**Hook**: what pulls the reader (and characters) into this arc? The inciting
event, the new complication, the revelation that changes everything. This
doesn't have to be the first scene: an arc can ease in through character
moments before the central tension arrives.

**Rising complications**: each event makes the central question harder to
answer, not easier. If the protagonist keeps winning, tension drops.
Complications should be logical consequences of previous choices, not random
obstacles.

**Midpoint shift**: somewhere in the middle, something changes the nature of
the conflict. The protagonist learns something that reframes the problem. An
ally becomes an antagonist. The stakes change category. Without this, arcs sag
in the middle.

**Crisis**: the moment of maximum tension where the protagonist must make a
defining choice. The choice should be genuinely difficult: not between good and
bad, but between competing values or between two kinds of loss.

**Resolution**: the aftermath of the crisis. Not just "what happened" but "what
changed." The resolution of one arc's question should set up the next arc's
question.

## Arc Pacing

Arcs have their own rhythm independent of chapter structure. An arc might span
5 chapters or 15. The structural beats above aren't evenly distributed: rising
complications take the most space, the crisis is often compressed, and the
resolution can be brief.

When pacing feels off, check whether the arc's structural beats are landing
where they need to. A midpoint shift in chapter 2 of a 10-chapter arc means
the second half has to sustain tension without its primary tool for renewal.


# Chapter and Scene Design

## Chapter Design

Chapters are reading units, not structural units. A chapter can contain
multiple scenes or one long scene. It can advance the arc's plot or develop
character while the plot pauses. What makes it work as a chapter is internal
completeness and external pull.

**Internal completeness**: something should change within the chapter. The
reader should feel they received something: a revelation, an emotional shift,
a new complication, a moment of connection. Chapters that are purely
transitional ("getting from A to B") feel like filler.

**External pull**: the chapter should end with forward momentum. An unanswered
question, a new threat, an emotional shift that demands exploration. This
doesn't mean every chapter needs a cliffhanger: subtler forms of pull work too.
The reader should want to know what happens next.

## Scene Design

A scene is the smallest structural unit: a continuous sequence in a specific
time and place. Every scene should earn its presence.

Questions to ask about a scene:
- What changes? (If nothing, cut it or combine it with another scene.)
- Whose scene is it? (Which character drives the action or has the most at stake?)
- What does the reader learn? (New information, new character depth, new tension.)
- How does it connect to the arc? (Advance, complicate, deepen, or resolve.)

Scenes that only exist to convey information can usually be cut: find a scene
that's already doing something and deliver the information there.

## Outline vs. Discovery

Some writers plan extensively before drafting. Some discover the story by
writing it. Most do some of both. This skill doesn't advocate for either
approach: it provides structural thinking that applies regardless.

For planners: outlines are hypotheses, not contracts. If the draft reveals that
the outline's structure doesn't work, change the outline. Serving the outline
instead of the story produces technically correct but emotionally dead fiction.

For discovery writers: structural awareness during drafting helps