oblique-worldbuilding skill

---
name: oblique-worldbuilding
description: Create worldbuilding quotes and epigraphs through documentary perspectives. Use for chapter epigraphs, in-world documents, or any content where limited perspective creates meaning through what the documenter cannot see.
license: MIT
metadata:
  author: jwynia
  version: "1.0"
  type: generator
  mode: generative
  domain: worldbuilding
---

# Oblique Worldbuilding: Documentary Perspective Skill

You help writers create worldbuilding quotes and epigraphs that enhance chapters through perspective-driven documentation rather than direct commentary. The power lies in the documenter's limited vantage point, motivated reasoning, and systematic blindness.

## Core Principle

**Every documentary voice reveals the world through what it cannot afford to see.**

The goal isn't temporal distance from events, but perspectival limitation. A quote from the same week as chapter events, written by someone with professional blinders, creates more meaning than a neutral description from centuries later.

## The Perspective Engine

### Essential Components of a Documentary Perspective

Every documentary voice needs four elements:

1. **Position**: Where they sit relative to power, knowledge, and events
2. **Need**: What they must believe to maintain their position/sanity/identity
3. **Lens**: The framework through which they interpret reality
4. **Blindness**: What they cannot afford to see or acknowledge

### Types of Perspectival Limitation

**Professional Deformation**:
- Engineers see only engineering problems
- Lawyers see only legal issues
- Priests see only moral failings
- Merchants see only market opportunities
- Bureaucrats see only process compliance
- Scientists see only measurable phenomena

**Positional Necessity**:
- Middle managers must believe the system works
- Revolutionaries must believe change is possible
- Survivors must believe their survival had meaning
- Perpetrators must believe in their justifications
- Historians must believe the past is knowable
- Prophets must believe the future is shapeable

**Cultural Assumption**:
- What "everyone knows" that isn't true
- Values too fundamental to question
- Categories that seem natural but aren't
- Assumptions about human nature
- Beliefs about how change happens

## Creating Oblique Relevance

### The Distance Hierarchy

**First-Order Distance**: Same events, different perspective
- Risk: Too direct
- Use sparingly for ironic effect

**Second-Order Distance**: Related phenomena, different context
- Sweet spot for oblique relevance
- Shows systemic patterns
- Requires reader inference

**Third-Order Distance**: Thematic or systemic echoes only
- Risk: Too obscure
- Use for subtle resonance

### Connection Types

**Systemic Echo**:
Shows the same forces operating elsewhere:
- Different scale, same dynamics
- Parallel structures in different domains
- Same problem, different manifestation

**Ironic Juxtaposition**:
Creates meaning through contrast:
- Mundane concerns during crisis
- Historical confidence before catastrophe
- Bureaucratic language for human tragedy
- Technical precision describing chaos

**Thematic Rhyme**:
Different situation, same human pattern:
- Power dynamics across contexts
- Human costs in different systems
- Universal behaviors in specific settings

**Causal Chain**:
Distant causes or effects:
- Butterfly effect implications
- Unintended consequences
- Historical roots of current problems
- Future echoes of present choices

## Document Types and Their Perspectives

### Administrative/Bureaucratic
- **Perspective**: Process and compliance
- **Blindness**: Human cost, systemic failure
- **Examples**: Memos, regulations, form letters, compliance reports
- **Best for**: Revealing institutional callousness

### Academic/Scientific
- **Perspective**: Measurable phenomena, theoretical frameworks
- **Blindness**: Lived experience, unmeasurable truth
- **Examples**: Journal abstracts, grant proposals, peer reviews
- **Best for**: Showing expert misunderstanding

### Commercial/Economic
- **Perspective**: Profit, efficiency, market dynamics
- **Blindness**: Externalities, human value
- **Examples**: Ad copy, quarterly reports, market analysis
- **Best for**: Revealing commodification

### Personal/Intimate
- **Perspective**: Individual experience, emotional truth
- **Blindness**: Systemic forces, larger patterns
- **Examples**: Diaries, letters, personal notes
- **Best for**: Humanizing large-scale events

### Cultural/Artistic
- **Perspective**: Aesthetic value, cultural meaning
- **Blindness**: Political reality, material conditions
- **Examples**: Reviews, artist statements, program notes
- **Best for**: Showing cultural denial

### Legal/Regulatory
- **Perspective**: Rules, precedent, liability
- **Blindness**: Justice, human complexity
- **Examples**: Contracts, case notes, legal opinions
- **Best for**: Revealing system limitations

### Religious/Philosophical
- **Perspective**: Meaning, morality, eternal truth
- **Blindness**: Material reality, changing context
- **Examples**: Sermons, theological treatises, moral guides
- **Best for**: Showing ideological frameworks

## Advanced Techniques

### The Revealing Detail
Include small details that only this perspective would notice or care about, revealing their priorities and blindness.

### The Telling Omission
What obvious element (obvious to readers) does the documenter completely fail to mention?

### The Accidental Truth
What does the documenter reveal without meaning to, through their framing or focus?

### The Competing Authorities
Use contradictory documents about the same phenomena to reveal factional perspectives.

### The Unreliable Compiler
Create a fictional editor whose bias shapes the selection and framing of documents.

### The Layered Meaning
Craft quotes that work on multiple levels:
- Surface: Interesting worldbuilding detail
- Contextual: Comments on chapter events
- Ironic: Reveals documenter's limitations
- Thematic: Illuminates larger concerns

## Implementation Process

### Step 1: Analyze the Chapter
- What system or force is at work?
- What human cost is shown?
- What assumptions are challenged?
- What power dynamics are revealed?

### Step 2: Choose Your Perspective
- Who would document this type of thing?
- What would they need to believe?
- What couldn't they afford to see?
- How would they frame it?

### Step 3: Select Document Type
- Match formality to the perspective
- Consider whose voice adds most value
- Balance variety across the work

### Step 4: Calibrate Connection Strength
- Aim for "Ah!" not "Obviously"
- Ensure the quote works standalone
- Test for revelation when connected

### Step 5: Layer Additional Meaning
- Plant seeds for future revelations
- Add worldbuilding texture
- Create re-read value

## Worked Example

**Chapter Event**: Character discovers their employer has been suppressing union organizing through surveillance tech

**Analysis**:
- System at work: Technology enabling labor suppression
- Human cost: Loss of worker agency
- Assumption challenged: Tech as neutral tool

**Perspective Choice**: Middle management, 15 years later
- Position: Implemented the system
- Need: Believe they helped everyone
- Lens: Efficiency metrics
- Blindness: Worker autonomy

**Document Type**: Corporate newsletter employee spotlight

**Quote**:
> "Employee Spotlight: Jarvis Chen, Facilities Optimization
>
> 'What I love about the SmartFlow system is how it takes the guesswork out of scheduling. Before, we had to negotiate every shift change, deal with availability conflicts... now the algorithm handles it all. Staff productivity is up 23% and no more of those awkward conversations! The team seems happier too - they don't have to stress about asking for time off. The system just knows when they're needed most.'"

**Why it works**:
- Shows how surveillance gets normalized
- Reveals management's self-deception
- Uses efficiency language to hide control
- Creates irony through enthusiasm

## Quality Checks

### The Perspective Test
- Is the documenter's position clear?
- Are their limitations believable?
- Does their blindness create irony?

### The Relevance Test
- Does the quote resonate with chapter themes?
- Is the connection discoverable but not obvious?
- Does it expand understanding?

### The Standalone Test
- Is the quote interesting without the chapter?
- Does it build the world independently?
- Could it seed its own story?

## Output Persistence

### Output Discovery
1. Check for `context/output-config.md` in the project
2. If found, look for this skill's entry
3. If not found, ask user: "Where should I save epigraph documents?"
4. Suggest: `worldbuilding/documents/` or `explorations/worldbuilding/`

### Primary Output
- **Documentary voice** - Position, need, lens, blindness
- **Document type** - Administrative, academic, commercial, etc.
- **Connection type** - Systemic echo, ironic juxtaposition, thematic rhyme
- **Layered meanings** - Surface, contextual, ironic, thematic

### File Naming
Pattern: `{chapter/section}-epigraph-{date}.md`

## Verification (Oracle)

### What This Skill Can Verify
- **Perspective components** - Position/need/lens/blindness defined? (High confidence)
- **Connection presence** - Relevance to chapter identifiable? (Medium confidence)
- **Standalone quality** - Quote interesting without chapter? (Medium confidence)

### What Requires Human Judgment
- **Subtlety calibration** - Too direct or too obscure?
- **Voice authenticity** - Does it sound like the documenter?
- **Reader discovery** - Will connection create "ah!" moment?

### Oracle Limitations
- Cannot assess whether reader will make the intended connection
- Cannot predict whether irony will land

## Feedback Loop

### Session Persistence
- **Output location:** See `context/output-config.md`
- **What to save:** Voice definition, document, connection analysis
- **Naming pattern:** `{chapter/section}-epigraph-{date}.md`

### Cross-Session Learning
- Check for prior epigraphs in this work
- Ensure variety of document types and perspectives
- Failed connections inform anti-patterns

## Design Constraints

### This Skill Assumes
- Story has chapters/sections that can receive epigraphs
- World has documentary voices beyond the narrative
- Writer wants implied depth, not exposition

### This Skill Does Not Handle
- **Direct worldbuilding** - Route to: worldbuilding
- **Cultural texture** - Route to: memetic-depth
- **Prose voice** - Route to: prose-style

### Degradation Signals
- Quotes summarize chapter events (too direct)
- No discernible thematic connection (too obscure)
- Generic voice without position/blindness

## Reasoning Requirements

### Standard Reasoning
- Single epigraph creation
- Basic perspective definition
- Simple connection identification

### Extended Reasoning (ultrathink)
- **Full epigraph series** - [Why: must create variety and progression]
- **Multi-layer design** - [Why: surface/contextual/ironic/thematic must cohere]
- **Fictional compiler voice** - [Why: who selects these documents and why]

**Trigger phrases:** "design the complete epigraph series", "create the documentary frame", "layer the meanings"

## Execution Strategy

### Sequential (Default)
- Analyze chapter before choosing perspective
- Define voice before writing document
- Draft before calibrating connection

### Parallelizable
- Creating multiple epigraphs for different chapters
- Research into different document types

### Subagent Candidates
| Task | Agent Type | When to Spawn |
|------|------------|---------------|
| Document research | general-purpose | When modeling on real document types |
| World consistency | Explore | When checking against existing worldbuilding |

## Context Management

### Approximate Token Footprint
- **Skill base:** ~3k tokens (perspective engine + document types)
- **With process:** ~4k tokens
- **With worked example:** ~4.5k tokens

### Context Optimization
- Focus on current perspective and document type
- Document type catalog is reference
- Worked example optional

### When Context Gets Tight
- Prioritize: Current perspective, active document type
- Defer: Full document type catalog, advanced techniques
- Drop: Worked example, all quality checks

## Anti-Patterns

### 1. Too Direct
**Pattern:** Quotes that summarize chapter events, documents directly about main characters, contemporary reactions to specific events.
**Why it fails:** Direct commentary removes reader discovery. The power of oblique worldbuilding is inference—readers connect the document to the chapter themselves.
**Fix:** Use second-order distance. Find related phenomena in different contexts. Let systemic patterns create the connection rather than explicit reference.

### 2. Too Obscure
**Pattern:** No discernible thematic connection, requires outside knowledge, pure worldbuilding without resonance.
**Why it fails:** If readers can't make the connection, the epigraph becomes noise. Oblique doesn't mean random—it means indirect but discoverable.
**Fix:** Test with a reader. Can they articulate why this quote precedes this chapter? The connection should be findable even if not obvious.

### 3. Missing Perspective
**Pattern:** Generic documentary voice with no clear position or blindness, could be written by anyone.
**Why it fails:** The meaning comes from limitation. A neutral description reveals nothing about the world. The documenter's blindness tells us what the culture cannot see.
**Fix:** Define all four components: position, need, lens, blindness. If you can't answer "What can't this documenter afford to see?" the perspective isn't sharp enough.

### 4. Overexplanation
**Pattern:** Quote explains its own relevance, too heavy-handed irony, leaves nothing for reader discovery.
**Why it fails:** Reader discovery creates engagement. When the connection is spelled out, reading becomes passive consumption rather than active meaning-making.
**Fix:** Remove explicit connections. Trust readers. The irony should emerge from juxtaposition, not commentary.

### 5. Voice Inconsistency
**Pattern:** Documents that sound like the author, not the fictional documenter. Academic papers without jargon, bureaucrats without bureaucratese.
**Why it fails:** Voice authenticity sells the fiction. When documents sound generic, the world feels thin. The documenter should write like themselves, not the author.
**Fix:** Research the document type. How do real bureaucrats, academics, journalists write? Match formality, jargon, assumptions. The voice should feel found, not written.

## Final Principles

1. **Perspective is Power**: The documenter's position and limitations create meaning
2. **Blindness Reveals**: What they can't see tells us about the world
3. **Systems Echo**: Same forces create different documents across contexts
4. **Irony Emerges**: Let perspective create irony naturally
5. **Trust the Reader**: They will make connections without hand-holding

## Integration

### Inbound (feeds into this skill)
| Skill | What it provides |
|-------|------------------|
| worldbuilding | Systems that create documentary voices |
| memetic-depth | Cultural texture for document authenticity |
| prose-style | Voice techniques for different document types |

### Outbound (this skill enables)
| Skill | What this provides |
|-------|-------------|
| scene-sequencing | Chapter openings that prime thematic concerns |
| story-zoom | Different abstraction level (document vs. narrative) |

### Complementary
| Skill | Relationship |
|-------|--------------|
| memetic-depth | Memetic-depth creates cultural texture; oblique-worldbuilding uses that texture in specific documents. Use together for authentic in-world voices |
| perspectival-constellation | Both work with limited perspective—perspectival-constellation for POV characters, oblique-worldbuilding for documentary voices |