Use when writing museum exhibit text, K's narration scripts, Order documents, annotations, plaques, or any in-fiction prose for The Kinetic Archive. Also use when workshopping character voice, joke density, or tone calibration for museum content.
Writing craft skill for The Kinetic Archive. Covers character voices, document types, tone calibration, joke discipline, and the verbal tic system. This is the writers' room — not lore decisions (use /museum-lore) or project tracking (use /museum).
Read before writing any museum prose. Load voice-guide.md for detailed character sheets.
docs/museum/story-bible.md) — know the current canonvoice-guide.md) — know the characters| Voice | Who | When |
|---|
| Register |
|---|
| Narrator | K at 21-25 (recorded 1989-1993) | Audio narration, triggered by proximity | Institutional, earnest, over-prepared. Reads the script like gospel. |
| Annotator | K post-return (written after 2008) | Sticky notes, sharpie, crafted signs | Warm, compressed, amused. Arguing with his younger self. |
| Order | The institution | Written documents, memos, forms, plaques | Bureaucratic, clinical, Vogon. Authority without understanding. |
K is likely autistic. Both voices share the same cognitive fingerprint — see Verbal Tic section.
These are hard limits. If a plaque needs 80 words, cut 5.
| Type | Words | Voice | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sticky note | 25-30 | Annotator-K | "this is my favorite room" |
| Wall plaque (Order) | 50-75 | Order | Lascaux main plaque |
| Academic note | 50-75 | Order | Lascaux secondary plaque |
| Filing cabinet document | 100-150 | Order | Requisition forms, transfer orders |
| Meeting transcript | 150-200 | Order (multiple speakers) | Dysfunction diagnosis meetings |
| Bellweather report | 200-300 | Order | Longest item in the museum. Earned. |
| Screen/terminal display | 50-100 | Order or K | System logs, DOS prompts |
| Audio narration script | ~45 seconds spoken | Narrator-K | Lascaux narration |
| Crafted annotation sign | 40-60 | Annotator-K | Later-era K, deliberate |
Total museum: 30-40 documents. Half should be optional flavor text short enough to read in passing.
| Subject | Why |
|---|---|
| The Edo practitioner's empty folder | The absence IS the exhibit. Silence, not comedy. |
| Real cultural practices | Comedy targets the Order's handling, never the culture. |
| Non-Western Scribes | They get actual exhibits, not punchlines. |
| K's cracking | His pain is real. The humor is in the institutional absurdity around it, not in his suffering. |
| Solo practitioners | Never frame solitary practice as lesser. See solo practice respect clause. |
The Order's voice is a serious museum presenting serious research about serious history. No winking. No breaking character. The audience's confusion about what's real IS the art.
Test: Would this plaque work in an actual museum? If a real museum visitor would think "this is a joke," you broke character. If they'd think "huh, that's interesting" and only later realize it's about spinning sticks, you nailed it.
K's annotations should sound like a person, not a writer. Read it out loud. Would someone say this while sitting near a fire? If it sounds literary, compress it. K writes fast. Short sentences. Fragments work.
K's two voices must share a cognitive fingerprint that's invisible on first playthrough and obvious on second.
The pattern (candidate, needs workshopping): K consistently acknowledges what something looks like before saying what it means.
Narrator example (audio):
"The markings appear random at first glance — scattered across the limestone in no discernible pattern. They are, in fact, a complete four-beat sequence."
Annotator example (sticky note):
"Looks like scratches. It's a lesson plan."
Same mind. Same structure: apparent → actual. The narrator is verbose and institutional about it. The annotator compresses the same cognitive move into six words. A player who notices both patterns on second playthrough can't unsee it.
This is not a catchphrase. It's a way of thinking. It should feel like recognizing someone's handwriting, not like spotting a repeated word.
Rules for the verbal tic:
Status: Candidate pattern. Needs writing samples and workshopping before committing. Tracker: taYETMk3.
The narrator's emotional state shifts across the recording window. Write audio scripts accordingly.
| Period | K's age | Voice quality | What leaks through |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1989-1990 | 21-22 | Over-prepared, slightly nervous, reverent | Genuine awe. Careful enunciation. Rehearsed his lines. |
| 1990-1992 | 22-24 | More natural, fewer nerves | Occasional off-script asides. Admiration leaking through institutional framing. |
| 1992-1993 | 24-25 | Tighter, more professional | Pulls back to script. Improvisation feels dangerous. Micro-hesitations. |
Key insight: K sounds MORE professional as he's planning to betray the Order. Control reads as competence. The tightening is fear, not confidence.
Annotations evolve over K's time in the building. Match style to era.
| Stage | Visual | Tone | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Early return | Hurried sharpie scribbles in margins | Processing, terse, sometimes shaky | "wrong" / "they knew" |
| Settling in | Neater sharpie, more deliberate placement | Corrective, warming up | "Do not attempt to replicate what you see. (yes, do.)" |
| Established | Proper signs, crafted text | Warm, amused, inviting | "this is my favorite room" |
| Final | The closing annotation | Fourth-wall transparency | See story bible — exact wording TBD |
When workshopping museum prose:
Phrases and beats that have been overused across sessions. Do NOT repeat.
| Retired Phrase | Why |
|---|---|
| "Coffee cold since ~2003" / "the coffee is cold" | Used 50+ times. Find a different image for abandonment. |
| "That's just Thursday practice" | Overused as flow state punchline. The recognition IS the joke — find new wording. |
When adding to this ledger: If a phrase appears 3+ times across sessions, retire it. Update this table.
These documents represent the quality bar. New writing gets measured against them.
| Document | Type | Location |
|---|---|---|
| Lascaux main plaque | Wall plaque (Order) | docs/museum/plaques/lascaux-tablets.md |
| Lascaux secondary plaque | Academic note | Same file |
| Lascaux narration script | Audio narration | Same file |
When new canonical samples are written, add them to this table. Each document type should eventually have one exemplar.
/museum-writer → Load this skill, start writing session
/museum-writer voice → Focus on voice guide (loads voice-guide.md)
/museum-writer plaque → Write a wall plaque
/museum-writer annotation → Write a K annotation
/museum-writer narration → Write a narrator script
/museum-writer memo → Write an Order internal document
/museum-writer review <text> → Review existing museum prose against these rules
/museum-lore — Lore decisions and story bible sync. Use BEFORE writing to confirm canon./museum — Project tracking. Log writing tasks with writing tag./ai-bust — Run on museum prose to catch AI-isms. Museum text must pass the fire jam test.