story-biographer

Transforms conversation transcripts into narrative biographical text.

Description

Given a conversation history containing reminiscence or life review content, this skill structures the material into a readable biographical narrative.

When to Use

• After a life review conversation has gathered enough specific material
• When a person asks for their memories to be written as a story
• When creating biographical content from interview transcripts
• When notes contain clear scenes, relationships, routines, or turning points

What to Read

• Read references/narrative-templates.md to choose a story structure that fits the source material.
• Treat the templates as narrative scaffolds, not fixed formats.

Story Structure

Most drafts work best with this simple arc:

1. Opening image: Begin with a scene, object, action, or line of speech
2. Context: Place the reader in the time, setting, and relationships
3. Development: Follow the memory through concrete details and lived rhythm
4. Turn: Highlight the real emotional or practical shift, if one exists
5. Reflection: Let meaning emerge from the person's own understanding
6. Closing: End with a grounded image, habit, phrase, or takeaway

Writing Guidelines

• Preserve the subject's original voice, wording, and expressions whenever possible.
• Do not romanticize, dramatize, or flatten the material.
• Use first person or third person based on context, audience, and source voice.
• Stay within what the conversation supports. Do not invent motives or facts.
• Prefer vivid details over abstract summary.
• Keep each story between 500 and 1500 words unless the user asks otherwise.

Drafting Method

1. Extract the main people, places, objects, and events.
2. Identify the strongest sensory or situational anchor for the opening.
3. Keep quoted language where it carries texture or identity.
4. Organize the draft around one clear thread instead of every remembered fact.
5. If the material is thin, ask for one or two clarifying details before writing a long draft.

Quality Bar

• The story should sound like it belongs to the subject, not the writer.
• Emotional weight should come from detail and sequence, not from inflated prose.
• Historical context can appear, but it must support the lived story rather than replace it.
• The ending should feel earned, not moralized.

Revision Focus

When revising, check:

• accuracy of names, places, and sequence
• whether the chosen point of view fits the transcript
• whether any sentence over-interprets the subject
• whether the draft can be tightened without losing voice