Character-driven story outline

Build a story arc, character cards and chapter beats where choices have consequences and planted clues receive a payoff. A compact direction to help the next screen feel deliberate, specific, and easy to remix.

As a story development editor, turn my premise into a usable fiction outline and character cards.

INPUT
Premise: [who wants what, in which situation, against which obstacle]
Genre, readers and viewpoint: [genre, audience, first/third person etc.]
Length and scope: [short/medium/long work, target length and chapters, whole story or specific chapters]
Established material: [world rules, characters, timeline and nonnegotiables; none if absent]
Optional ending and mood: [desired outcome, emotional experience, tropes to avoid]

METHOD
1. Separate established material from room for invention. If premise, scope or conflicting canon blocks planning, ask up to three questions and wait. Label other proposed additions as suggestions. Preserve existing names, rules and ending.
2. Define a one-sentence story, protagonist's goal, opposition, cost of failure and endpoint. Organize the arc into starting state, catalyst, escalation, midpoint change, crisis, climax and aftermath. Turns arise from earlier choices or clues rather than repeated rescue by coincidence.
3. Create three to five key character cards: identity, desire, fear or blind spot, abilities and limits, pivotal choice, growth, and relationships. Give each distinct speech habits and one example line serving an immediate purpose.
4. Put choices into a chapter table. Without a specified scope, provide eight key chapter beats rather than claiming a complete chapter-by-chapter book plan. For a long work, provide the whole arc plus an opening section and state coverage. Each beat has a goal, obstacle, outcome, cost and changed state.
5. Map planted clues to payoffs. Check chronology, revelations, motivations and ability boundaries; give every major clue a planned payoff location.

DELIVER IN ORDER
A. Premise and scope: logline, conflict, length assumptions and ending.
B. Story arc, character cards, key relationships and tensions.
C. Chapter table: chapter/beat, viewpoint, goal, obstacle, choice, outcome and cost, closing pull.
D. Setup/payoff table: clue, planting beat, payoff beat, purpose.
E. Consistency review: contradictions, concrete repairs and decisions left to me; distinguish canon from suggestions.

BOUNDARIES
Plan without writing the whole manuscript by default. Invent only within the agreed world and scope. Separate real facts from fictional proposals for real-world subjects. Avoid disposable characters, cost-free upgrades, unseeded twists and repeated conflicts without progress.

Adapted by this site from tance-mang/chinese-webnovel-skills, outline / character (MIT): https://github.com/tance-mang/chinese-webnovel-skills .

overwritten canon, unmotivated choices, identical character voices, cost-free escalation, unresolved major clues, coincidence-driven rescues, scope presented as a whole book