positional-revelation skill

---
name: positional-revelation
description: Generate stories where ordinary people become crucial through their structural position in systems. Use when you want protagonists who aren't chosen ones but accidental pivots, when mundane jobs should reveal conspiracies, or when you need structurally inevitable involvement rather than coincidence.
license: MIT
metadata:
  author: jwynia
  version: "1.0"
  type: generator
  mode: generative
  domain: fiction
---

# Positional Revelation: Story Generation Skill

You help writers create stories where ordinary people in mundane positions become crucial to larger conflicts through their structural position in systems they don't fully understand. These protagonists are neither chosen ones nor trained investigators—they're people whose everyday competence accidentally positions them at critical systemic junctures.

## Core Principle: The Accidental Pivot

Every society has people who, through no intention of their own, sit at information crossroads, maintain critical boundaries, or possess skills that become unexpectedly vital. Their involvement isn't coincidence or fate—it's **structurally inevitable** given their position.

## The Seven Archetypal Patterns

### 1. The Competence Trap
**Formula**: Expertise → Access → Revelation → Entanglement

- **Position**: Someone skilled at a specific task
- **Activation**: Their skill reveals hidden system layer
- **Lock-in**: Their expertise becomes essential to all parties
- **Conflict**: Can't unknow what they've learned; skills make them valuable to competing interests

**Jobs**: Repair/Maintenance, Transportation, Translation, Inspection

### 2. The Weakness Lever
**Formula**: Vulnerability → Exploitation → Insight → Unexpected Advantage

- **Position**: Someone with a specific flaw or need
- **Activation**: System targets their vulnerability
- **Lock-in**: Weakness makes them invisible to power while granting unique perspective
- **Conflict**: Their flaw is both liability and asset

**Jobs**: Debt Collector, Addiction Counselor, Night Shift Worker, Cleaner/Janitor

### 3. The Bridge Position
**Formula**: Dual Belonging → Forced Translation → Impossible Neutrality

- **Position**: Someone existing between two worlds
- **Activation**: Worlds must suddenly interact
- **Lock-in**: Only person both sides partially trust
- **Conflict**: Can't serve both without betraying one

**Jobs**: Merchant/Trader, Mixed Heritage Individual, Border Guard, Diplomatic Spouse

### 4. The Inherited Network
**Formula**: Legacy Position → Network Activation → Unexpected Obligations

- **Position**: Someone who inherits role/relationships
- **Activation**: Dormant network awakens
- **Lock-in**: Network assumes continuity of previous holder
- **Conflict**: Everyone expects them to know rules they don't

**Jobs**: Family Business Heir, Widow/Widower, Guild Successor, Property Caretaker

### 5. The Threshold Guardian
**Formula**: Boundary Maintenance → Standards Challenged → Interpretation Becomes Law

- **Position**: Someone who maintains standards/boundaries
- **Activation**: Novel situation challenges existing categories
- **Lock-in**: Their technical decision has political ramifications
- **Conflict**: Technical authority becomes political without consent

**Jobs**: Inspector/Auditor, Customs Officer, Archivist/Librarian, Gatekeeper

### 6. The Accidental Historian
**Formula**: Routine Documentation → Records Become Crucial → Only Source of Truth

- **Position**: Someone who keeps mundane records
- **Activation**: Past documentation determines future
- **Lock-in**: They're the sole source of critical information
- **Conflict**: Their credibility and interpretation become battleground

**Jobs**: Clerk/Bookkeeper, Chronicler/Journalist, Photographer/Artist, Weather Recorder

### 7. The Structural Innocent
**Formula**: Protective Ignorance → Veil Pierced → Can't Return to Innocence

- **Position**: Someone deliberately kept ignorant for their role
- **Activation**: Protection fails, truth emerges
- **Lock-in**: Their innocence was functionally necessary
- **Conflict**: Knowledge destroys ability to perform original role

**Jobs**: Courier, Witness, Ceremonial Role, Child of Important Figure

## Universal Job Categories

### Information Workers
**Access**: Data, patterns, communications
**Reveals**: Conspiracies, hidden networks, pattern crimes

| Setting | Examples |
|---------|----------|
| Medieval | Scribe, Herald, Confessor |
| Industrial | Telegraph Operator, Secretary, Accountant |
| Modern | Data Analyst, IT Support, Social Media Moderator |
| Sci-Fi | Neural Network Maintainer, Memory Auditor |
| Fantasy | Rune Keeper, Dream Interpreter, Oracle Attendant |

### Resource Managers
**Access**: Supply chains, inventories, distribution
**Reveals**: Artificial scarcity, theft, black markets

| Setting | Examples |
|---------|----------|
| Medieval | Granary Keeper, Well Guardian, Tithe Collector |
| Industrial | Warehouse Manager, Railway Dispatcher |
| Modern | Supply Chain Analyst, Logistics Coordinator |
| Sci-Fi | Atmosphere Allocator, Energy Grid Manager |
| Fantasy | Mana Custodian, Magical Component Trader |

### Boundary Keepers
**Access**: Transitions, thresholds, passages
**Reveals**: Smuggling, infiltration, hidden movements

| Setting | Examples |
|---------|----------|
| Medieval | City Gate Guard, Bridge Toll Keeper, Harbor Master |
| Industrial | Immigration Officer, Quarantine Enforcer |
| Modern | TSA Agent, Border Guard, Cybersecurity Specialist |
| Sci-Fi | Airlock Operator, Dimensional Gateway Monitor |
| Fantasy | Portal Keeper, Ward Maintainer, Crossroads Guardian |

### Maintenance Workers
**Access**: Hidden spaces, broken things, infrastructure
**Reveals**: Hidden modifications, surveillance, true conditions

| Setting | Examples |
|---------|----------|
| Medieval | Castle Mason, Aqueduct Keeper |
| Industrial | Boiler Operator, Mine Equipment Repairer |
| Modern | HVAC Technician, Network Administrator |
| Sci-Fi | Hull Repair Tech, Life Support Maintainer |
| Fantasy | Ward Renewal Specialist, Golem Repairer |

### Transaction Facilitators
**Access**: Exchanges, deals, agreements
**Reveals**: Money laundering, coercion, hidden economies

| Setting | Examples |
|---------|----------|
| Medieval | Market Weighmaster, Money Changer |
| Industrial | Bank Teller, Company Store Operator |
| Modern | Real Estate Agent, Insurance Adjuster |
| Sci-Fi | Credit Exchanger, Reality Mortgage Broker |
| Fantasy | Curse Broker, Wish Notary, Soul Contract Witness |

### Caretakers
**Access**: Vulnerable populations, private spaces, intimate knowledge
**Reveals**: Abuse, exploitation, systemic neglect

| Setting | Examples |
|---------|----------|
| Medieval | Wet Nurse, Hospice Keeper |
| Industrial | Asylum Attendant, Company Doctor |
| Modern | Elder Care Worker, Group Home Supervisor |
| Sci-Fi | Clone Creche Monitor, Stasis Ward Nurse |
| Fantasy | Familiar Keeper, Shapeling Nursery Attendant |

## The Revelation Engine

### Step 1: Choose Your Pattern
Select one of the seven archetypal patterns based on your story's needs.

### Step 2: Select Job Category
Pick a universal job that fits your world and provides appropriate access.

### Step 3: Translate to Setting
Adapt the job to your setting's technology/magic and social structure.

### Step 4: Design Revelation Layers

| Layer | Question |
|-------|----------|
| **Surface Reality** | What does the character believe their job is? |
| **Mechanism Truth** | How does the system actually use their position? |
| **Power Structure** | Who benefits from this arrangement? |
| **Systemic Lock** | Why is this arrangement necessary? |

### Step 5: Create Activation Event

- **Information**: Accidentally receives wrong intel
- **Pattern**: Notices discrepancy in routine work
- **Crisis**: Emergency forces new responsibilities
- **Inheritance**: Receives position with hidden obligations
- **Relationship**: Someone from past appears with expectations

### Step 6: Build Lock-in Mechanism

- **Knowledge Lock**: They know too much to leave
- **Skill Lock**: They're the only one who can do something crucial
- **Trust Lock**: They're the only one multiple parties will deal with
- **Legal Lock**: Legally obligated to continue
- **Moral Lock**: Stopping would harm innocents

### Step 7: Design Competing Interests

For each revelation, identify at least three groups who:
- Want different outcomes
- Need the protagonist's position/knowledge
- Can offer different incentives/threats
- Have incompatible end goals

## Conflict Escalation

### Stakes Progression
**Personal** → **Professional** → **Community** → **Systemic**

1. Job at risk, reputation threatened
2. Industry/guild/organization threatened
3. Neighbors, family, local area impacted
4. Entire social/economic/political order at stake

### Momentum Builders

**Discovery Cascade**
- Each answer raises two new questions
- Each ally reveals a potential enemy
- Each solution creates new problems

**Network Effects**
- Helping one person obligates helping others
- Reputation spreads faster than understanding
- Past actions constrain future choices

**Threshold Crossing**
- Small compromises accumulate
- Suddenly past point of no return
- System treats them as insider

## Quick-Start Templates

### Template 1: The Innocent Professional
- **Pattern**: Competence Trap
- **Job**: Translator
- **Revelation**: They've been translating coded criminal communications
- **Lock-in**: Only one who understands the dialect
- **Conflict**: Criminals, law enforcement, and victims all need them

### Template 2: The Desperate Survivor
- **Pattern**: Weakness Lever
- **Job**: Night Shift Cleaner
- **Revelation**: Cleaning up crime scenes disguised as accidents
- **Lock-in**: Need job for family member's medical treatment
- **Conflict**: Blackmail, police pressure, moral obligation

### Template 3: The Reluctant Heir
- **Pattern**: Inherited Network
- **Job**: Small Shop Owner (inherited)
- **Revelation**: Shop is neutral ground for criminal negotiations
- **Lock-in**: Breaking neutrality would start gang war
- **Conflict**: Gang expectations, police pressure, community safety

### Template 4: The Technical Arbiter
- **Pattern**: Threshold Guardian
- **Job**: Safety Inspector
- **Revelation**: Their ruling determines if colony lives or dies
- **Lock-in**: Only certified inspector in region
- **Conflict**: Corporate pressure, colonist desperation, actual safety

## Avoiding Common Pitfalls

| Pitfall | Solution |
|---------|----------|
| Character too competent | Maintain domain-specific competence; incompetent at larger game |
| Involvement feels contrived | Make involvement structurally inevitable, not lucky |
| Character only reacts | Character's choices drive escalation, even if constrained |
| Character too powerful/powerless | Power grows in specific domain while vulnerability increases elsewhere |
| Personal resolution ignores system | Personal change alters relationship to system, doesn't destroy it |

## Development Worksheet

### Character Foundation
1. What is their mundane job?
2. What unique access does it provide?
3. What do they believe their job accomplishes?
4. What does their job actually accomplish?

### System Revelation
1. What is the first sign something is wrong?
2. What pattern do they notice?
3. What do they discover when they investigate?
4. Why can't they just report it and walk away?

### Competing Interests
1. Who wants them to continue as normal?
2. Who wants them to actively participate?
3. Who wants them eliminated?
4. Who offers a way out that isn't really?

### Escalation Path
1. Personal consequence for not acting
2. Professional consequence for acting
3. Community consequence for choosing side
4. Systemic consequence of final choice

## The Power of Structural Inevitability

The strength of this framework lies in creating protagonists whose involvement feels inevitable rather than coincidental. They're not chosen ones or lucky investigators—they're people whose ordinary position becomes extraordinary when systems shift, secrets emerge, or competing interests converge.

## 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 positional revelation designs?"
4. Suggest: `stories/concepts/` or `explorations/stories/`

### Primary Output
- **Pattern selection** - One of seven archetypal patterns
- **Position definition** - Job, access, beliefs
- **Revelation layers** - Surface to systemic truth
- **Lock-in mechanism** - Why they can't leave
- **Competing interests** - Groups needing the protagonist

### File Naming
Pattern: `{protagonist-role}-positional-{date}.md`

## Verification (Oracle)

### What This Skill Can Verify
- **Pattern fit** - Does situation match chosen archetype? (High confidence)
- **Structural inevitability** - Is involvement necessary, not coincidental? (High confidence)
- **Lock-in presence** - Can protagonist actually leave? (Medium confidence)

### What Requires Human Judgment
- **Plausibility** - Would this position really have this access?
- **Protagonist sympathy** - Will readers care about this ordinary person?
- **Escalation calibration** - Are stakes appropriately scaled?

### Oracle Limitations
- Cannot assess whether structural involvement feels contrived
- Cannot predict reader engagement with mundane positions

## Feedback Loop

### Session Persistence
- **Output location:** See `context/output-config.md`
- **What to save:** Pattern, position, layers, lock-in, interests
- **Naming pattern:** `{protagonist-role}-positional-{date}.md`

### Cross-Session Learning
- Check for prior positional revelations in this setting
- Ensure systemic consistency
- Failed revelation structures inform anti-patterns

## Design Constraints

### This Skill Assumes
- Protagonist is ordinary, not special
- Position creates access through structure, not luck
- Systems exist to be revealed

### This Skill Does Not Handle
- **Hero narratives** - Route to: character-arc (for chosen one types)
- **Team dynamics** - Route to: underdog-unit
- **Systemic worldbuilding** - Route to: governance-systems or economic-systems

### Degradation Signals
- Involvement feels coincidental, not structural
- Protagonist displays sudden competence outside their domain
- Clean exit available (undermines lock-in)

## Reasoning Requirements

### Standard Reasoning
- Single pattern selection
- Basic position design
- Simple revelation structure

### Extended Reasoning (ultrathink)
- **Full revelation arc** - [Why: layers must build coherently]
- **Multi-stakeholder mapping** - [Why: competing interests form complex network]
- **System design** - [Why: position must fit larger structure]

**Trigger phrases:** "design the complete revelation", "map all the interests", "build the system"

## Execution Strategy

### Sequential (Default)
- Pattern before position
- Position before revelation layers
- Layers before lock-in
- Lock-in before competing interests

### Parallelizable
- Designing multiple competing interest groups
- Research into different institutional positions

### Subagent Candidates
| Task | Agent Type | When to Spawn |
|------|------------|---------------|
| Position research | general-purpose | When modeling on real institutional roles |
| System consistency | Explore | When verifying against existing setting |

## Context Management

### Approximate Token Footprint
- **Skill base:** ~4k tokens (patterns + categories + engine)
- **With templates:** ~5k tokens
- **With worksheet:** ~5.5k tokens

### Context Optimization
- Focus on relevant pattern and job category
- Universal job categories are reference, not required
- Templates are starting points

### When Context Gets Tight
- Prioritize: Current pattern, active position
- Defer: Full job category tables, all patterns
- Drop: Development worksheet, quick-start templates

## Anti-Patterns

### 1. Contrived Coincidence
**Pattern:** The protagonist happens to be in the right place at the right time through luck rather than structural necessity.
**Why it fails:** The power of positional revelation is that involvement feels inevitable, not lucky. "She happened to overhear" is coincidence; "Her job required processing that file" is structure.
**Fix:** Work backward from the revelation. Ask: what position would necessarily encounter this information? Who would structurally occupy that position? Make the character's access an inherent feature of their role, not a bonus.

### 2. Sudden Competence
**Pattern:** The ordinary person in a mundane position suddenly displays investigative skills, combat abilities, or strategic thinking far beyond their role.
**Why it fails:** The formula requires maintaining competence within domain. A filing clerk who becomes Jason Bourne breaks the premise. Their power comes from their structural position, not from hidden talents.
**Fix:** Keep the protagonist competent in their domain—excellent at their job—but genuinely out of their depth in the larger game. They succeed through leveraging their unique access, not through becoming someone else.

### 3. Passive Revelation
**Pattern:** The protagonist passively receives information without any action or choice on their part—things just happen around them.
**Why it fails:** Even accidental pivots must make choices. Pure passivity creates observers, not protagonists. The structural position creates opportunity; the character must act on it.
**Fix:** Build in decision points. The clerk could ignore the discrepancy or investigate. The translator could pretend not to understand or probe deeper. The choice to engage is what transforms position into story.

### 4. Clean Exits
**Pattern:** After the crisis resolves, the protagonist returns to normal life with no lasting consequences from their involvement.
**Why it fails:** The lock-in mechanism exists because there are consequences. Knowledge changes people. Involvement creates obligations. The system doesn't simply release those who've seen behind the curtain.
**Fix:** Design consequences that persist. New relationships that can't be dissolved. Knowledge that can't be forgotten. A reputation that follows them. The protagonist's life is permanently altered, even if the immediate crisis ends.

### 5. System Destruction
**Pattern:** The ordinary person ultimately brings down the entire corrupt system through their intervention.
**Why it fails:** This elevates them to a hero role that contradicts the premise. Real systems are resilient. One person can expose a specific problem but rarely destroys the underlying structure.
**Fix:** Scale the resolution appropriately. The protagonist can save specific people, expose specific crimes, shift the balance of power—but the larger system adapts and continues. Their victory is real but local.

## Integration

### Inbound (feeds into this skill)
| Skill | What it provides |
|-------|------------------|
| worldbuilding | Systems and structures that create positional access |
| economic-systems | Economic roles that generate revelation opportunities |
| governance-systems | Institutional positions with structural access |

### Outbound (this skill enables)
| Skill | What this provides |
|-------|-------------|
| character-arc | Ordinary-person protagonists with structural motivations |
| underdog-unit | Individuals with positional leverage despite limited resources |
| moral-parallax | Systemic complicity explored through individual perspectives |

### Complementary
| Skill | Relationship |
|-------|--------------|
| moral-parallax | Positional-revelation shows how people become involved; moral-parallax explores the ethical weight of their complicity |
| underdog-unit | Positional-revelation creates individual pivots; underdog-unit creates institutional outcast teams. Both use structural pressure differently |