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Writing Skills
15 skills that teach your AI to work like an editor, not a ghostwriter.
A skill is a set of instructions you install once. After that, Claude, ChatGPT, or Gemini follows it whenever the work calls for it, reading your pages as evidence instead of rewriting them into smooth, anonymous prose. These replace our retired custom GPTs and Gems. Free, no account, yours to edit.
Works in Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini · Plain text you can read first
Build your story
Develop characters, research real places, and plan scenes visually.
Character-Smith
Draws a character out of your ideas through questions and keeps a living profile: want, need, flaw, arc, and voice.
- Reach for it when
- A character is new, flat, or not yet earning their place, or you need a villain or foil with real pressure.
- You get back
- A character profile built from your choices, with its suggestions marked, plus the next question worth answering.
Location Scout
Researches a real place, today or in history, for the sensory and social detail a scene needs.
- Reach for it when
- Your story is set somewhere real and you need to know how it looked, sounded, cost, and felt at that time.
- You get back
- A location dossier with facts marked documented, typical, or plausible, plus sources and what to verify.
Storyboarder
Turns your own script or scene into a faithful cinematic storyboard, without changing your story.
- Reach for it when
- You want to visualize, pitch, or plan a scene you have already written.
- You get back
- Panel-by-panel shots with camera, mood, and image prompts, plus continuity guides and shot lists on request.
Draft and revise
Read your own pages as evidence before you change them.
Find What's Alive
Reads rough notes and fragments for the material still carrying energy, and tells you what to cut.
- Reach for it when
- You have messy pages, false starts, or flat AI output and want to salvage rather than polish.
- You get back
- A salvage sheet: quoted live fragments, what may be underneath them, and three ways back in.
Read the Draft
Diagnoses what a draft is actually doing before anyone starts changing sentences.
- Reach for it when
- A draft is complete enough to assess and you want the real problems, not a line edit.
- You get back
- A diagnosis memo: the draft's current center, where the reading changes, and three ranked revision problems.
Keep the Voice
Builds a voice guide from your own strongest pages, then checks a revision for flattening.
- Reach for it when
- You are revising with AI and want your sentence habits protected rather than sanded down.
- You get back
- A voice guide drawn from your anchors, plus a flattening audit of the revision.
Dialogue Ear
Listens to your dialogue for distinct voices, subtext, and turns, and quotes exactly where it goes flat.
- Reach for it when
- A conversation feels stiff, expository, or interchangeable, or you can't tell whether it's doing any work.
- You get back
- A dialogue report: what's alive, a voice map, the flat moments and why, and three experiments to try.
Grammar Coach
Teaches the grammar in your own sentences, line by line, without flattening your voice.
- Reach for it when
- You want to understand and fix your own errors rather than have them silently corrected.
- You get back
- Sentence-by-sentence notes with the rule and the smallest fix, your recurring patterns, and a short lesson.
Get and give feedback
Workshop your pages, and turn other people's notes into decisions.
Read It Two Ways
Gives one passage two independent readings — a craft read and a resistant first-reader read — then maps the gap.
- Reach for it when
- Feedback is contradictory, or you need both how it is built and how it lands before deciding.
- You get back
- Two separate readings and an agreement-and-disagreement map, with the disagreement kept intact.
Give Useful Feedback
Helps you respond to someone else's pages specifically, without rewriting their draft for them.
- Reach for it when
- You are workshopping, beta reading, or answering a critique partner and want to be genuinely useful.
- You get back
- A reader letter: what held, where your reading changed, and the questions you are left with.
Sort the Feedback
Turns a pile of conflicting notes into revision decisions you actually chose.
- Reach for it when
- You have comments from several readers and cannot tell signal from noise.
- You get back
- A decision sheet: what to take now, what to test, what to set aside, and the calls only you can make.
Writers' Group
A five-member critique circle reads your pages from five angles, then a facilitator pulls it together.
- Reach for it when
- You want workshop feedback on an excerpt and don't have a group, or want more perspectives before revising.
- You get back
- Five labeled critiques on structure, emotion, risk, craft, and audience, then shared themes and one next question.
Learn and publish
Study the craft in books you admire, and get your work out the door honestly.
Close Reading Companion
Guides you through a passage you admire until you can see the craft choices behind its effect.
- Reach for it when
- You want to learn how an author does something, or study a mentor text for your own work.
- You get back
- A guided reading in layers and a craft card: the move, where it happens, why it works, and an exercise.
Query Letter Coach
Reads your query letter the way a busy agent would, and shows where attention rises and drops.
- Reach for it when
- You are about to query, or the form rejections are piling up and you want to know why.
- You get back
- What the agent took away, what's working, the three biggest fixes, and an element-by-element checklist.
AI Disclosure Helper
Inventories how you used AI, checks it against a market's policy, and drafts an honest disclosure.
- Reach for it when
- You are submitting somewhere with an AI policy and aren't sure what to say or whether your process qualifies.
- You get back
- A process inventory, a stage-by-stage policy comparison with a bottom line, and a short disclosure to confirm.
New to skills?
The tutorial covers what a skill actually is, what a .md file is, and the exact steps to install one in Claude, ChatGPT, or Gemini, including what to do when the upload is rejected.
Before you install anything
A skill gives an AI new instructions, so only install ones you trust. Every file in these is plain text with no scripts, and you can read each one in full before downloading. Location Scout and AI Disclosure Helper ask your AI to use its own web search, when it has one, so research can be cited. Apply the same standard to skills you find elsewhere.