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:

• Opening image: Begin with a scene, object, action, or line of speech
• Context: Place the reader in the time, setting, and relationships
• Development: Follow the memory through concrete details and lived rhythm
• Turn: Highlight the real emotional or practical shift, if one exists
• Reflection: Let meaning emerge from the person's own understanding
• 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

• Extract the main people, places, objects, and events.
• Identify the strongest sensory or situational anchor for the opening.
• Keep quoted language where it carries texture or identity.
• Organize the draft around one clear thread instead of every remembered fact.
• 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