Character Archetypes

Character Archetypes

Diagnostic vocabulary for character archetypes — narrative-role functions (Hero, Mentor, Trickster, and the rest of Vogler/Campbell's eight) and Jungian personality types (Sage, Rebel, Caregiver, and the rest of the Mark & Pearson twelve) — plus four modes for using them across a manuscript: naming a pairing, auditing for cliché, checking for drift, and balancing a cast.

Archetype is a starting scaffold, not a finished character. This skill complements fiction-workshop's Want/Need/Wound/Lie framework (see references/character-work.md there) rather than replacing it — the archetype names the pattern; the Core Four individualizes it.

When to Use

This skill is for:

• ✅ Fiction manuscripts — novels, novellas, short stories, screenplays-in-prose-form
• ✅ Naming a character's narrative-role and personality-type pairing
• ✅ Checking whether an established archetype is being used well or as cliché
• ✅ Checking whether a character's actions still match their established archetype, or have drifted without explanation
• ✅ Checking whether a cast's archetypes are balanced (no redundancy, no structural gaps)

When NOT to Use

This skill is NOT for:

• ❌ Narrative nonfiction (memoir, self-help) — author-voice and reader-persona archetypes are a different, unaddressed problem. Use narrative-nonfiction instead.
• ❌ Enneagram or other personality typologies — this skill covers exactly two canonical frameworks (Vogler narrative-role, Jungian twelve). Adding more blurs into general personality-typing rather than archetype work.
• ❌ Plot- or genre-level archetypes (monomyth stages, genre tropes) — this skill is character-scoped only. For plot-level structure, use fiction-workshop's references/developmental-editing.md.
• ❌ Building a character from scratch with no story context — Analyzer's "recommend" direction needs at least a stated story role to work from.

Session Continuity

Archetype pairings are meant to persist in the project's Story Bible, not be re-derived each session.

• At session start: If a Story Bible exists, check each main character's entry for an existing Archetype Profile block (see assets/archetype-profile-template.md). Don't re-run Analyzer on a character who already has one unless the author asks for a re-check.
• When a pairing is newly named or changed: Hand the profile block back to the author to paste into the Story Bible yourself — this skill does not write to the Story Bible directly (see each mode's stop condition below).

The Two Taxonomies

A character gets tagged with one archetype from each list — they describe different things (plot function vs. psychology) and normally combine (e.g., narrative-role Mentor + personality Sage).

Both files state explicitly that the archetype is a starting scaffold, not a finished character — individualizing detail (voice, wound, specific flaw, from fiction-workshop's Want/Need/Wound/Lie) is what keeps an archetype from reading as a stock type.

The Four Analysis Modes

Ordering guidance: Analyzer → (optional) Audit → Conformance → Ensemble. Skip straight to Audit or Conformance if the archetype is already decided. Ensemble is a late-stage check — run it once most main characters already have an assigned archetype, not as a starting point.

Load only the reference file matching the currently invoked mode. Do not preload all references at session start — it wastes context budget. If switching modes mid-session, load the new reference file and treat the prior one as out-of-scope.

Workflow

1. Identify the mode the author is invoking (see table above). If unclear, ask.
2. Load only that mode's reference file (and the taxonomy file(s) it needs — Analyzer and Audit need both taxonomies; Conformance and Ensemble need whichever taxonomy the character's existing profile already names).
3. Run the mode's workflow exactly as documented in its reference file.
4. Stop at the mode's documented stop condition (see Stopping Points below). Hand results back to the author.
5. If a new or changed Archetype Profile results, offer the assets/archetype-profile-template.md block for the author to paste into their Story Bible — do not write it there yourself.

Integration with fiction-workshop

• fiction-workshop/references/character-work.md links here as a complementary lens alongside Want/Need/Wound/Lie.
• assets/archetype-profile-template.md is designed to paste directly into the Story Bible character entry format shown in fiction-workshop/SKILL.md, immediately after the Voice Notes field.
• This skill never restructures fiction-workshop/assets/story-bible-template.md — it only adds an optional block to individual character entries.

Stopping Points

Each mode has a defined end. Stop at it. Do not auto-advance to the next mode, do not silently expand scope, do not write to the Story Bible without being asked.

Finding Format

Audit, Conformance, and Ensemble mode output (diagnostic — cliché flags, drift flags, cast-balance gaps) conforms to ../../references/finding-schema.json: audit = the mode name ("archetype-audit", "archetype-conformance", "archetype-ensemble"), technique = the specific archetype pattern involved (e.g. "Mentor archetype cliché" or "Trickster/Shadow cast overlap"), severity, location, issue, confidence: "judgment", exemplar optional (inline one-liner; no curated library yet). Analyzer mode (pairing/recommendation, not a flag) is NOT in scope for this contract.

Common Mistakes

Quick Reference Commands

Files

• references/narrative-role-archetypes.md - Vogler/Campbell's 8 character functions
• references/personality-archetypes.md - Jungian 12 (Mark & Pearson model)
• references/archetype-analyzer.md - Diagnose or recommend an archetype pairing
• references/archetype-audit.md - Flag stock/cliché archetype use
• references/archetype-conformance.md - Check for unexplained archetype drift
• references/archetype-ensemble.md - Check cast-level archetype balance
• assets/archetype-profile-template.md - Story Bible block for an archetype pairing