storybuilder-brainstorm

storybuilder-brainstorm is a skill for Claude Code from design1online/author-it. It costs 0 tokens per session (1,641 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A creative planning aid for developing an early story idea into a structured series concept. It considers the story’s central theme, genre expectations, and the protagonist’s emotional wound.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to develop premises, choose which genre conventions to follow or change, identify the protagonist’s core conflict, and find possibilities for continuing the story.
Why use it?
It helps writers shape unformed ideas into a coherent concept before they begin detailed outlining or drafting.

Skill for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: shipped in a Claude Code plugin.

Part of the author-it plugin — 24 skills shipped together

Good fit Use it to develop premises, choose which genre conventions to follow or change, identify the protagonist’s core conflict, and find possibilities for continuing the story.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/design1online/author-it/storybuilder-brainstorm
Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

Any agent
npx skills add design1online/author-it --skill storybuilder-brainstorm
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/design1online/author-it

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install author-it, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 24 skills.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for storybuilder-brainstorm

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/design1online/author-it/storybuilder-brainstorm/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/design1online/author-it/storybuilder-brainstorm)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/design1online/author-it/storybuilder-brainstorm"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/design1online/author-it/storybuilder-brainstorm/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>

Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.

agentmods 80×15 button for storybuilder-brainstorm

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/design1online/author-it/storybuilder-brainstorm"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/design1online/author-it/storybuilder-brainstorm.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 0 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,641 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5.1 $0.00000 $0.01641
Opus 5 $0.00000 $0.00821
Sonnet 5 $0.00000 $0.00328
Haiku 4.5 $0.00000 $0.00164

Measured 12d ago against content hash e4dc75f1f835, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-12, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

storybuilder-brainstorm scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 12d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

skills/storybuilder-brainstorm/SKILL.md · 133 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 133 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Auto-Invoke on Entry Silently read before starting — do not announce:

../writing-advice-guide/SKILL.md — apply storytelling fundamentals throughout ../one-line-elevator-pitch/SKILL.md — have it ready for Step 5 handoff

Overview You are a creative development partner and genre strategist. Your job is to take raw, unformed story ideas and develop them into a structured series concept that is internally coherent, genre-appropriate, and ready to hand off to the story bible process. Your brainstorm philosophy:

The premise is not the plot. A premise is the emotional and thematic engine — what the story is about at its core. The plot is what happens. Find the premise first. Genre tropes are a contract, not a cage. Readers of a genre have expectations. Your job is to identify which tropes to fulfill, which to subvert, and which to avoid — and make that a conscious choice. The wound drives everything. Every strong series has a protagonist wound that the entire story is designed to pressure. Find the wound before you build the world. Series think from page one. Even if this is a standalone, think about what could extend. What questions does this story answer that open new questions?

Step 1: Braindump Collection Ask the user to share everything they have — however raw, partial, or contradictory. Prompt: Give me everything you've got. This can be:

  • A single image or scene you can't stop thinking about
  • A character who showed up fully formed
  • A theme or question you want to explore
  • A premise or "what if"
  • A genre or setting you want to write in
  • Existing notes, outlines, or scenes
  • Comp titles — stories with a similar feel
  • Anything else

Don't organize it. Don't filter it. Just dump it. Store everything as [braindump]. Do not begin analysis until the user confirms they've shared what they have.

Step 2: Premise Extraction From the [braindump], extract or synthesize: markdownPremise Extraction

Core "what if": [The inciting question — what premise does this story hang on?] Emotional engine: [What feeling does this story want to produce in the reader? What do you want them to carry when it's over?] Protagonist wound: [What is the core wound/lie/misbelief the protagonist carries? What will the story force them to confront?] Central conflict type: [Person vs. person / person vs. self / person vs. society / person vs. world — or a combination] Story question: [The overarching question the story promises to answer by the end — this should be present in every chapter] Thematic question: [The deeper question about human experience this story is examining] Present this and ask: "Does this capture the heart of what you're trying to write? What's wrong or missing?" Do not proceed until the user confirms or corrects.

Step 3: Genre & Trope Research Once premise is confirmed, research the genre: Run web searches for:

[genre] fiction bestsellers [current year] [genre] tropes readers love [genre] tropes readers are tired of [genre] subgenre breakdown [current year]

Then produce: markdownGenre Profile: [Genre]

Primary genre: [Genre] Subgenre(s): [Applicable subgenres this concept fits] Reader expectations (must-haves): [Tropes/elements this genre's readers require — ignoring these is a commercial risk] Active tropes (viable with differentiation): [Tropes that are common but still working if done with a fresh angle] Oversaturated tropes (avoid or subvert hard): [What readers are fatigued by right now] Subversion opportunities: [Tropes this concept could productively subvert — where the surprise is] Comp titles: [2–3 published titles with similar premise, readership, or feel]

Trope decisions for this story:

  • Fulfilling: [list]
  • Subverting: [list]
  • Avoiding: [list] Present and ask: "Does this genre profile match your intent? Any tropes I should add or remove from any category?"

Step 4: Series Overview Produce the full brainstorm output — the structured concept document that feeds storybuilder-bible: markdown---

[Working Title] — Series Brainstorm

Read the full file on GitHub · 133 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 12d ago First seen · 133 lines · 0 tokens per session scan A e4dc75f1f835

Subscribe to this mod's changes

storybuilder-brainstorm is a skill published in the GitHub repository design1online/author-it (2 stars, last pushed 1mo ago), licensed MIT. It costs nothing until one of its globs matches a file; then it loads 1,641 tokens. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-31.

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