museum-writer

---
name: museum-writer
description: 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.
---

# Museum Writer

## Overview

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.

## Before Writing

1. **Read the story bible** (`docs/museum/story-bible.md`) — know the current canon
2. **Read the voice guide** (this skill's `voice-guide.md`) — know the characters
3. **Check the joke ledger** below — don't repeat retired material
4. **Know your document type** — word counts are strict

## The Two Characters (Three Voices)

| 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.

## Document Types and Word Budgets

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.

## Tone Rules

### Joke Density

- **Never two jokes in the same document.** One joke per plaque, memo, or annotation. If the document is funny, it's funny once.
- **The institution is never in on the joke.** The Order is sincere. The comedy comes from the content being absurd while the presentation is completely earnest.
- **K-as-narrator is unintentionally funny.** He doesn't know he's being funny at 21. The humor is in his earnestness about absurd material.
- **K-as-annotator knows exactly how absurd this is.** His humor is warm, not cruel. The amusement of someone who lived through it.
- **Escalation across wings, not within them.** Each wing can be slightly funnier than the last. Within a wing, maintain consistent register.

### What's Never Funny

| 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 Commit-to-the-Bit Rule

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.

### The Fire Jam Test (Annotations Only)

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.

## The Verbal Tic System

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:**
- Use in ~30% of narrator passages, ~30% of annotations. Not every one.
- Vary the surface form. Sometimes it's "appears X, is actually Y." Sometimes it's "you might think X. You'd be wrong." Sometimes it's just a two-sentence structure where the second sentence contradicts the first.
- The annotator version is always shorter than the narrator version.
- Neither voice comments on the pattern. It's structural, not conscious.

**Status:** Candidate pattern. Needs writing samples and workshopping before committing. Tracker: taYETMk3.

## Narrator-K Vocal Stages

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.

## Annotator-K Evolution

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 |

## Writing Sessions

When workshopping museum prose:

1. **Identify the document type** and voice from the tables above
2. **Write a first draft** at 1.5x the word budget (you'll cut)
3. **Apply the Lascaux test:** Does this read like a real museum document about absurd content? Or does it read like a joke about a museum?
4. **Cut to budget.** Every word must earn its place.
5. **Check the verbal tic.** If this is a narrator or annotator piece, does it use the apparent→actual pattern? Should it? (Only ~30% of pieces should.)
6. **Check the joke ledger.** Are you repeating a retired phrase or beat?
7. **Read it out loud.** Narrator pieces should sound like museum audio guides. Annotations should sound like a person.

## Joke Ledger / Retired Material

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.

## Canonical Samples

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.

## Quick Reference

```
/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
```

## Integration with Other Skills

- **`/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.