danjdewhurst/story-skills/character-management

Character Management

Overview

Create and manage rich character profiles for a story project. Each character is a markdown file with YAML frontmatter in the characters/ directory. Characters are cross-referenced with other story elements through kebab-case identifiers.

Prerequisites

A story project must already exist (created via the story-init skill). Verify by checking for story.md in the project root.

Creating a Character

1. Read story.md for genre, themes, and tone context
2. Read characters/_index.md for existing characters
3. Ask for the character's name and role (protagonist, antagonist, supporting, minor, narrator, deuteragonist). Before settling the name, run story names '{Name}' (several candidates can be checked at once): it errors on an exact clash with any existing character, alias, location, faction, artifact, system, or glossary term, and warns about look-alikes and names sharing an initial with a major character. Invented names from a culture should follow its naming rules (see references/naming-languages.md in the worldbuilding skill)
4. Build the profile through conversation, exploring:

• Appearance and distinguishing features
• Personality, traits, and quirks
• Backstory and formative events
• Motivations (external wants vs internal needs)
• Voice and speech patterns (ask for example dialogue), plus voice-words (words and phrases they reach for) and voice-avoid (words they would never say)
• Pronunciation, when the name is invented or easily misread (pronunciation: "SEER-sha")
• Character arc (starting state, turning points, ending state)
• Key life events for the timeline

1. Write the character file using the template in references/character-template.md
2. Save to characters/{name-kebab}.md, or use story add character '{Name}' --role '{role}' when the CLI is available. Cyrillic and Greek names are transliterated (Пётр gives characters/petr.md). When the name is in a script with no transliteration table (李明), or the user wants a different spelling, choose the ASCII id yourself and pass it: story add character '李明' --id li-ming --role supporting keeps name: 李明 in the file
3. Leave the characters/_index.md table to the CLI: story add and story reindex . rebuild it from the character files, so never add a row by hand
4. If relationships reference existing characters, update those character files too
5. When CLI access is available, run the maintenance pass in the story root:

story reindex .
story wordcount . --write
story check .

Updating a Character

1. Read the existing character file
2. Read characters/_index.md for context on other characters
3. Make the requested changes. If the change happens partway through the story (a scar, a new title, a turn to the other side), add a progression instead of editing the opening value (see Changes Over the Story)
4. If relationships changed, update the other character's file (bidirectional)
5. Change a role or status in the character file only. The characters/_index.md table picks it up at the next story reindex ., so never edit its rows
6. When CLI access is available, run story reindex ., story wordcount . --write, and story check .

Changes Over the Story

A character file describes the character as the story opens. Record a change that happens in a later chapter as a progression, so an agent drafting an earlier chapter does not write it in too soon:

progressions:
  - from: chapter-10
    field: scar
    value: "Jaw to collarbone, taken holding a door"
  - from: chapter-14
    field: role
    value: antagonist

• from is the first chapter where the new value holds. It may be a planned chapter-NN with no file yet
• field is kebab-case. It can be an existing single-value field (status, role, arc) or a new one (scar, title). List fields (aliases, relationships, locations, tags, voice lists) cannot change this way; record a shifted relationship as a progression on its own field, such as field: standing-with-kael with value: estranged under progressions, never as a top-level field (that would show from chapter 1)
• value is one value. role and status values must be ones the character file allows
• Keep entries in story order. Do not use a progression alone for a death: set died-in (see below). A status progression is still checked against the story: story continuity warns when a progression to deceased with no died-in is followed by the character in a cast or learning something, when a status progression brings them back between died-in and revived-in, and when a progression to deceased still holds at revived-in
• The body of the file is prose for the writer. Describe a change in story terms ("from Festival night she carries the scar"), and do not name progressions or other frontmatter fields there
• Before drafting or revising a chapter, run story knowledge {id} --at chapter-NN. It lists what the character knows at that chapter in story time (by date when both chapters are dated, otherwise by chapter number), the same rule as story context, and which progressions already apply. Write to that state rather than the opening frontmatter alone
• A line marked reader-knowledge is already on the page, or known before the book, and may appear in the prose. A line marked character-knowledge and do not reveal is something the character knows from a flashback the reader has not reached: the character may act on it, and the fact itself must not be stated. Do not drop those lines, and do not write them in as if the reader had already learned them

After adding or editing progressions, run story reindex ., story wordcount . --write, and story check ..

Renaming or Killing Off a Character

To rename:

1. Check the new name with story names '{New Name}', and list where the prose uses the old one with story mentions character {id}.
2. Preview with story rename character {id} '{New Name}' --prose --dry-run. It prints each replacement in drafted chapter prose (file:line:column: old → new) and the files it would change. The full name becomes the new name, the given name alone becomes the new given name, and possessives keep their 's. Aliases and nicknames are left as written; outlines, HTML comments, code fences, link and image targets, HTML tags, reference definitions, and URLs are never touched, and an initial (the J of J. R. Dunn) is not a given name. It refuses a name, or a new given name, that another entity (cut characters included) already uses; pick another name or ask the user.
3. Show the user the replacements before running it for real, then run the same command without --dry-run. It also sets name, renames the file when the id changes, and rewrites the id in every frontmatter field and markdown link target.
4. After the summary line, it lists matches it left as written, each with its reason: a word that may be an ordinary word (May of May Dunn, which may be the month, or a name opening a sentence in a chapter that also uses the word in lower case), or the text of a reference link whose label is defined ([Ines] with [ines]: …). Read each one and edit it by hand if it means this character; for a reference link, keep the old label ([Ruth][Ines]) so the link still works. A prose-name-shared warning lists places another entity shares the name, which were left alone: treat them the same way. Update any alias that should change in the character file and in the prose yourself.
5. Hand-written registry sections (such as Family Trees in characters/_index.md), link labels, and outline beats keep the old display name: search for it (grep -rn "Old Name" .) and update each hit by hand.
6. Run story reindex ., story wordcount . --write, and story check ..

Without --prose, rename leaves the chapter text alone, for when the user wants to revise those passages by hand.

To kill a character off:

1. Test the death first: story impact die {id} chapter-NN --path . sets died-in and status on a scratch copy, runs the checks, and lists only what the death would break, such as each later chapter and scene that still lists them, writing nothing. Show the user that list; when they are choosing between chapters, run it for each. story impact remove character {id} --path . does the same for cutting a character
2. Set status: deceased and died-in: chapter-NN in the character file
3. In every later chapter and scene, move the id from characters (and pov) to mentions where they appear only in memory, letters, or flashback
4. Run story continuity .: it reports any later chapter or scene that still lists them in its cast

Variants:

• Planned death: set died-in to an outline chapter and keep status: alive; set status: deceased when that chapter is drafted
• Dead narrator (ghost, posthumous POV): keep them as pov and also list them in mentions; that is not a posthumous appearance
• Resurrection: add revived-in: chapter-NN; casts from that chapter on are allowed again, and once it is drafted set status: alive. If a progression made them deceased, add a status progression from the revival chapter too
• Second death after a resurrection: keep died-in and revived-in on the first death and revival, and add a status progression to deceased from the chapter where they die again. died-in holds only one death, and revived-in already brings them back, so no progression to alive is needed. Once that chapter is drafted, status: deceased is correct; while it is an outline, keep status: alive
• Non-linear books: give chapters a date so deaths compare by story time, and give a dual-timeline book's chapters a strand so each timeline keeps its own clock and its own route check
• Drop the character's character-state entry in continuity/state.md once the death is drafted and at or before current-chapter

After either change, run story reindex ., story wordcount . --write, and story check ..

Managing Relationships

Reference references/relationship-types.md for the full list of relationship types and inverse pairs.

When adding a relationship:

• Add the relationship entry to the character's frontmatter
• Add the inverse relationship to the other character's frontmatter
• Update the Relationship Map section in characters/_index.md

Family Trees and Relationship Graphs

Generate the relationship graph from character frontmatter instead of drawing it by hand:

story diagram relationships
story diagram relationships --out dist/relationships.mmd

It prints Mermaid source built from every character's relationships, with family edges styled distinctly so the family tree stands out from alliances and rivalries. Each pair gets one edge: parent, grandparent, aunt, and uncle draw an arrow from the elder side, other types draw an undirected line, and child-side types (child, grandchild, niece, nephew) are skipped, so the diagram cannot show a one-way relationship. GitHub, many editors, and mermaid.live render it. Use it to spot isolated characters and families missing a generation, and run story links to find one-way relationships and missing backlinks; regenerate it after relationship changes rather than editing the output.

Family trees are also maintained in the characters/_index.md under the "Family Trees" section. Format:

## Family Trees
 
### {Family Name}
-**{Character Name}** ({status}) - [{Name}]({name-kebab}.md)
  -**{Child Name}** - [{Name}]({name-kebab}.md)
  -**{Child Name}** - [{Name}]({name-kebab}.md)

Indent children under parents. Note marriages/partnerships inline.

Voice Fields

voice-words and voice-avoid are optional lists in character frontmatter that make a speaker's voice checkable:

voice-words:
  - "reckon"
  - "love"
voice-avoid:
  - "awesome"
  - "literally"