Film Storytelling Kit

Illustrated cards and prompts for developing stories, exploring film craft, and testing creative decisions.

Creative tools

The StoryTeller web app showing the Lenses layer as illustrated genre cards — The web app on the Lenses layer. Card artwork comes from a generated and reviewed image archive.

Status: Card deck authored, web app working
Tools: Markdown, YAML, TypeScript schema, Next.js

A deck of storytelling cards for planning and pressure-testing a story. Each card holds one idea, such as a genre, a tone or a structural beat, with a plain explanation, real examples and prompts to push your own story forward.

Decisions

Order the deck by the decision it shapes

Cards sit in six layers, from how the story is framed (Lens) through structure, foundation and development to texture, plus Operator cards for remixing a draft.

The Structure layer of the deck: three-act and Freytag's pyramid cards such as Setup, Inciting Incident, Midpoint and Climax — The Structure layer, where you pick one skeleton. Captured from the kit's web app running locally; card artwork comes from a generated and reviewed image archive.

Cards are files with a strict schema

Each card is Markdown with YAML front matter, validated against a schema and compiled into one manifest, so a front end can browse the deck or draw a random hand from it.

One card opened: the Drama card's front with its artwork, and its back with an explanation, films it appears in and spark prompts — One card opened, front and back: the explanation, where it is seen, spark prompts and the cards it pairs with. Captured locally.

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Film Writer