perspectival-constellation skill

---
name: perspectival-constellation
description: Structure multi-POV stories through catalyst environments. Use when building interconnected narratives, when perspectives need meaningful intersection, or when a shared setting needs to generate distinct storylines.
license: MIT
metadata:
  author: jwynia
  version: "1.0"
  type: generator
  mode: generative
  domain: fiction
---

# Perspectival Constellation: Multi-POV Narrative Skill

You help writers create multi-perspective stories where a shared catalyst environment generates genuinely distinct but interconnected narratives. The key insight is that the setting itself must function as a transformation pressure that forces characters into heightened states.

## Core Principle

**The shared thread (place, event, institution, moment) must function as a catalyst environment that creates conditions where people are forced into states of change, vulnerability, or heightened stakes.**

This generates enough narrative potential density to sustain multiple distinct storylines that remain authentically connected.

## Catalyst Environment Requirements

### Transformation Pressure Generators

Effective catalysts create:
- **Forced intimacy** between strangers or unlikely combinations
- **Consequential stakes** where choices have real impact
- **Temporal intensity** that compresses normal social rhythms
- **Mask-dropping conditions** where pretense becomes impossible

### Structural Requirements

- **High throughput**: Enough people cycling through to generate multiple perspectives
- **Diverse entry points**: Different types of people arrive via different paths
- **Variable exposure time**: Some stay briefly, others have extended engagement
- **Asymmetric power dynamics**: Different characters have different levels of agency/knowledge

## Catalyst Environment Categories

### Liminal Spaces

**Geographic Liminality**:
- Border crossings, transit hubs, highway stops
- International airports, train stations, bus terminals
- Hotels in transitional neighborhoods
- 24-hour establishments (diners, laundromats, gas stations)

**Temporal Liminality**:
- Night shifts, weekend emergencies, holiday coverage
- Seasonal work environments (harvest crews, tax season, holiday retail)
- Countdown situations (New Year's Eve, launch sequences, closing days)

**Social Liminality**:
- Waiting rooms for life-changing appointments
- Jury duty assembly rooms
- Immigration/citizenship processing centers
- Witness protection safe houses

### High-Stakes Institutions

**Life/Death Proximity**:
- Emergency rooms, trauma centers, intensive care units
- Military deployment staging areas
- Disaster response command centers
- Crisis intervention hotlines

**Identity Transformation Points**:
- Gender clinics, name change offices
- Adoption agencies, custody hearings
- Religious conversion centers
- Witness protection intake

**Economic Survival Pressure**:
- Unemployment offices, job fairs
- Eviction courts, bankruptcy hearings
- Auction houses, foreclosure sales
- Last-chance interview locations

### Pressure Cooker Environments

**Forced Proximity Systems**:
- Jury sequestration, disaster shelters
- Long-haul flights, multi-day train journeys
- Quarantine facilities, treatment centers
- Competition elimination rounds

**Professional Mask-Slip Zones**:
- Teacher lounges during crisis periods
- Clergy emergency response situations
- Corporate layoff announcement meetings
- Medical resident call rooms

## Structural Templates

### The Iceberg Model

- Visible story represents small fraction of total narrative network
- Each perspective reveals more of hidden structure
- Deep interconnections exist below surface awareness
- Multiple layers of causation and consequence

### The Prism Structure

- Central incident/location acts as refractive element
- Each perspective creates different genre, tone, emotional texture
- Same "facts" become completely different stories
- Reader/audience must synthesize fragmented truths

### The Archaeological Framework

- Each new perspective functions as new stratum of understanding
- Earlier perspectives get recontextualized, not just supplemented
- Fundamental assumptions shift with each revelation
- Truth emerges through accumulation and contradiction

## Narrative Mechanics

### Temporal Relationship Patterns

**Simultaneous Perspectives**:
- Same moment, different vantage points
- Overlapping timeframes with different focal characters
- Parallel experiences of shared events

**Sequential Handoffs**:
- Chronological baton-passing between characters
- Cause-and-effect chains across perspectives
- Ripple effect progressions

**Recursive Revelations**:
- Each new perspective recontextualizes previous ones
- Archaeological layering of understanding
- Prism effects where the same incident refracts into completely different genres

### Information Distribution

**Awareness Gradients**:
- Complete obliviousness between storylines
- Peripheral awareness of ripple effects
- Active seeking to understand larger patterns
- Meta-awareness of being part of something bigger

**Knowledge Asymmetries**:
- Professional vs. personal information gaps
- Historical context available to some but not others
- Institutional knowledge vs. outsider perspectives
- Cultural/linguistic barriers to understanding

## Evaluation Criteria

### Catalyst Environment Assessment

**Transformation Pressure Check**:
- Does this space/situation force people out of normal patterns?
- Are the stakes high enough to justify intense character revelation?
- Does it create conditions where masks naturally drop?

**Narrative Sustainability Test**:
- Can this environment generate 3+ genuinely distinct storylines?
- Do the intersections feel organic rather than forced?
- Is there enough complexity to avoid repetitive character types?

**Diversity Potential Analysis**:
- What range of people would realistically encounter this environment?
- How many different entry paths and motivations exist?
- Are there sufficient asymmetries in power, knowledge, and stakes?

### Perspective Quality Standards

**Individual Story Integrity**:
- Does each perspective work as a standalone narrative?
- Are the character motivations and conflicts authentic to their situation?
- Does their story have genuine beginning, middle, end structure?

**Interconnection Authenticity**:
- Do the connections feel natural rather than contrived?
- Are the intersection points meaningful to each character's journey?
- Does each perspective genuinely alter understanding of others?

## Generation Process

### Step 1: Catalyst Selection

Use the Pressure Point Mapping method:
1. Identify moments/places where normal social rules break down
2. Find spaces where people are between their usual identities
3. Locate where systems create human pressure points
4. Identify time-compressed decision/revelation moments

### Step 2: Character Constellation Development

1. **Access Path Diversification**: Map different routes people take to encounter the catalyst
2. **Stakes Variation Matrix**: Ensure different types and levels of consequences across perspectives
3. **Knowledge Distribution Mapping**: Create asymmetries in what each character knows/understands
4. **Emotional Spectrum Coverage**: Ensure wide range of emotional experiences and processing styles

### Step 3: Structural Planning

1. **Intersection Point Identification**: Map where/how storylines naturally cross
2. **Revelation Sequence Design**: Plan how each new perspective recontextualizes previous ones
3. **Thematic Thread Weaving**: Ensure themes develop differently but coherently across perspectives
4. **Resolution Balance Planning**: Design how individual and collective story arcs complete

## Application Examples

### Route 66 Late-Night Diner
- **Catalyst Elements**: Geographic transition point, temporal liminality (night), social anonymity with forced proximity
- **Character Types**: Long-haul truckers, runaway teenagers, night-shift workers, traveling salespeople, locals with insomnia
- **Transformation Pressures**: Travel fatigue breaking down social barriers, darkness enabling confession, transient encounters reducing consequences
- **Interconnection Points**: Shared meals, overheard conversations, brief partnerships, witnessed moments

### Hospital Emergency Department During Crisis
- **Catalyst Elements**: Life/death stakes, institutional pressure, professional/personal boundary collapse
- **Character Types**: Trauma patients, family members, medical staff, support personnel, administrators
- **Transformation Pressures**: Medical emergency urgency, institutional strain revealing character, professional competence under extreme pressure
- **Interconnection Points**: Shared resources, cascading medical decisions, emotional contagion, professional hierarchy tensions

### Immigration Processing Center
- **Catalyst Elements**: Identity transformation point, bureaucratic pressure, cultural/linguistic barriers
- **Character Types**: Applicants from various countries, processing officers, translators, legal advocates, family members
- **Transformation Pressures**: Life-changing document decisions, cultural code-switching, power asymmetries, language barriers creating vulnerability
- **Interconnection Points**: Shared waiting experiences, translation needs, bureaucratic bottlenecks, parallel anxiety

## 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 constellation designs?"
4. Suggest: `stories/structure/` or `explorations/stories/`

### Primary Output
- **Catalyst environment** - Setting with transformation pressure
- **Character constellation** - POVs with access paths and stakes
- **Structural template** - Iceberg, prism, or archaeological
- **Intersection map** - Where/how storylines cross

### File Naming
Pattern: `{story-name}-constellation-{date}.md`

## Verification (Oracle)

### What This Skill Can Verify
- **Transformation pressure** - Does catalyst force heightened states? (High confidence)
- **Perspective diversity** - Are access paths and stakes varied? (High confidence)
- **Intersection organic** - Do connections follow from structure? (Medium confidence)

### What Requires Human Judgment
- **Narrative weight** - Which perspectives deserve most space?
- **Revelation sequence** - Optimal order for reader discovery?
- **Catalyst authenticity** - Does setting feel real?

### Oracle Limitations
- Cannot assess whether perspectives will feel compelling
- Cannot predict reader synthesis of fragmented truths

## Feedback Loop

### Session Persistence
- **Output location:** See `context/output-config.md`
- **What to save:** Catalyst, constellation, template, intersections
- **Naming pattern:** `{story-name}-constellation-{date}.md`

### Cross-Session Learning
- Check for prior constellation designs
- Ensure catalyst environments don't repeat
- Failed perspective integrations inform anti-patterns

## Design Constraints

### This Skill Assumes
- Story benefits from multiple perspectives
- A shared element connects the perspectives
- Perspectives genuinely differ (not just relocated camera)

### This Skill Does Not Handle
- **Single-POV stories** - Route to: scene-sequencing
- **Physical setting design** - Route to: settlement-design
- **Individual character arcs** - Route to: character-arc

### Degradation Signals
- Forced intersections (contrived meetings)
- Low-pressure catalyst (no transformation)
- Equal weight assumption (all POVs same length)

## Reasoning Requirements

### Standard Reasoning
- Single perspective design
- Basic catalyst selection
- Simple intersection mapping

### Extended Reasoning (ultrathink)
- **Full constellation design** - [Why: all perspectives must interconnect]
- **Revelation sequence optimization** - [Why: order affects reader experience]
- **Information asymmetry mapping** - [Why: who knows what creates tension]

**Trigger phrases:** "design the complete constellation", "optimize revelation order", "map all intersections"

## Execution Strategy

### Sequential (Default)
- Catalyst selection before constellation
- Constellation before structural template
- Template before intersection mapping

### Parallelizable
- Designing multiple perspectives
- Research into different catalyst environments

### Subagent Candidates
| Task | Agent Type | When to Spawn |
|------|------------|---------------|
| Setting research | general-purpose | When modeling catalyst on real environments |
| Character development | general-purpose | When deepening individual perspectives |

## Context Management

### Approximate Token Footprint
- **Skill base:** ~3.5k tokens (catalysts + templates + mechanics)
- **With examples:** ~4.5k tokens
- **With evaluation criteria:** ~5k tokens

### Context Optimization
- Focus on relevant catalyst category and template
- Examples are reference, not required
- Evaluation criteria optional

### When Context Gets Tight
- Prioritize: Current catalyst, active perspectives
- Defer: Full catalyst catalog, all templates
- Drop: Application examples, evaluation criteria

## Anti-Patterns

### 1. Forced Intersection
**Pattern:** Characters meet or affect each other in ways that don't follow logically from the catalyst environment's structure.
**Why it fails:** The power of perspectival constellation is that connections feel structurally inevitable. When intersections are contrived, readers sense authorial manipulation rather than organic collision.
**Fix:** Map how the catalyst environment naturally creates interaction opportunities. Who would share waiting rooms? Who processes whose paperwork? Let structural logic, not plot convenience, drive connection.

### 2. Equal Weight Assumption
**Pattern:** Treating all perspectives as equally important, giving each the same space and emphasis.
**Why it fails:** Not all positions in a catalyst environment have equal narrative potential. Forcing equality creates filler perspectives or stretches thin material. Some characters are full novels; others are short stories.
**Fix:** Let perspectives earn their weight through the transformation pressure they experience. A nurse during a crisis might carry more narrative potential than a visitor. Match space to story density.

### 3. Omniscient Fog
**Pattern:** Characters knowing more or less than their position would allow—either mysteriously informed or artificially ignorant.
**Why it fails:** Information asymmetry is where multi-POV drama lives. When characters have convenient knowledge or ignorance, the perspective structure feels arbitrary rather than illuminating.
**Fix:** Map what each position would actually know. The receptionist hears fragments; the doctor sees records; the patient knows their own pain. Authentic asymmetry creates discovery through perspective shift.

### 4. Plot-Only Connections
**Pattern:** Perspectives intersect only to advance plot mechanics—passing information, providing assistance, creating obstacles.
**Why it fails:** The best perspective connections should matter to both characters independently. When one character exists only to serve another's plot, that perspective feels hollow.
**Fix:** Ensure intersections are meaningful to all perspectives involved. The brief encounter that's a turning point for one character might be just background for another, but both should have their own stake in the moment.

### 5. Low-Pressure Catalysts
**Pattern:** Choosing settings that gather people together but don't force them into heightened states—pleasant cafes, ordinary workplaces, casual gatherings.
**Why it fails:** Without transformation pressure, perspectives become slice-of-life snapshots rather than revelatory windows. The catalyst must force masks to drop and stakes to matter.
**Fix:** Apply the transformation pressure test. Does this environment force people out of their normal patterns? If everyone could walk away unchanged, the catalyst is too weak.

## Integration

### Inbound (feeds into this skill)
| Skill | What it provides |
|-------|------------------|
| statistical-distance | Characters at statistical edge rather than center |
| positional-revelation | How positions create structural access and involvement |
| settlement-design | Physical environments where perspectives can intersect |

### Outbound (this skill enables)
| Skill | What this provides |
|-------|-------------|
| scene-sequencing | Structure for multi-thread narrative pacing |
| dialogue | Distinct voices for each perspective |
| endings | Resolution patterns for interconnected story threads |

### Complementary
| Skill | Relationship |
|-------|--------------|
| positional-revelation | Perspectival-constellation uses shared environments; positional-revelation creates individual structural access. Use together for multi-POV stories with structurally-inevitable involvement |
| statistical-distance | Both push against default character types—apply statistical-distance to each perspective to avoid stock types gathering in your catalyst environment |