Define References

Skill: define-references

What it does. Builds or updates .project/config/references.md — the sheets of authors and works informing this book's voice. Turns "I love Murakami" into instructions a generation skill can actually follow.

Triggers

• "define the references"
• "/define-references"
• "add {author} as a reference"
• "let's work on the influences"
• Equivalent phrasing in the project's output language

Input. Optionally, a starting list of authors/works from the author.

Output. .project/config/references.md, one sheet per reference.

Write the file in the project's output language.

Core principle

A reference is a borrowing instruction, not an homage.

"I'm inspired by Vonnegut" is a feeling. It cannot be loaded into a generation pass. What can:

"From Vonnegut: the flat delivery of catastrophic events — one plain sentence where another author would write a paragraph. NOT the authorial intrusions or the refrain tags — this book's narrator doesn't address the reader."

Every sheet must answer three questions:

1. What exactly to take — a concrete, imitable device
2. What explicitly NOT to take — the parts of that author that would poison this book
3. Where it shows up — a passage in the manuscript that already does it, or a place it should

The NOT list matters as much as the take list. Influence without exclusions drifts into pastiche.

Protocol

Step 1 — Load context

1. .project/config/project.yaml — output language
2. .project/config/references.md — current state
3. .project/config/persona.md — the author's own voice (references complement it, never override it)
4. Manuscript samples, if any exist — to ground "where it shows up"

Step 2 — Elicit the raw list

Ask the author which authors/works inform this book — not their favourites in general. The distinction matters: a beloved author can be irrelevant to this project, and a book the author dislikes can still be a structural reference.

Also ask for anti-references directly: "What should this book never be mistaken for?"

Step 3 — Interrogate each reference

This is the heart of the skill. For each author named, do not accept the name — drill until the borrowing is concrete:

a) Locate the device. "When you say {author}, what specifically? A sentence rhythm? A way of handling time? How they enter scenes late? Their dialogue?"

If the author struggles, offer candidates: name 3–4 recognizable devices of that writer and ask which one resonates. This usually unlocks the real answer, which is often "none of those — it's actually X".

b) Make it imitable. Push from adjective to mechanism:

• ❌ "The melancholy tone"
• ✅ "Emotion is never named at the moment it happens — it surfaces two scenes later, in a domestic detail"

The test: could a generation pass follow this instruction without having read the reference author? If not, it is not yet concrete.

c) Draw the exclusion line. "What part of {author} would ruin this book?" Every strong influence has a poison for a given project. Naming it is what prevents pastiche.

d) Anchor it. If a manuscript exists: "Where do you already do this?" Quote the passage into the sheet. If nowhere: "Where should it show up?" — this doubles as a revision note.

Step 4 — Check for collisions

References can contradict each other or the persona:

• One reference pulls toward long recursive sentences, another toward telegraphic cuts — when does each apply? (Often the answer is per-register: narrator vs. interludes, calm vs. crisis.)
• A reference device the author already does naturally belongs in persona.md as their own signature, not here as borrowed.
• A reference that contradicts a persona signature: surface it, let the author rule.

Record resolution rules in the sheet ("applies only in X contexts").

Step 5 — Build the anti-reference list

For each anti-reference: what specifically to avoid, stated as detectably as the positive devices. "Not generic epic fantasy" is weak; "no expository worldbuilding in dialogue, no invented-term glossaries" is checkable.

Step 6 — Validate

Present the sheets. For each, ask: "If a generation pass followed only this instruction, would the result feel like the influence you meant?" Iterate on the ones that miss.

What to avoid

Name-dropping mode. A list of admired authors with no devices attached. Loads nothing.

Pastiche instructions. "Write like {author}" is the failure case, not the goal. References season the author's voice; the persona is the dish.

Too many references. Past 5–6 active references, they cancel each other. If the list is long, ask which 3 matter most for this book and archive the rest.

Vague exclusions. An anti-reference without detectable markers cannot protect anything.

Confusing reference with persona. If the author already does the device naturally, it is theirs — move it to persona.md. This file is for what is consciously borrowed.

Relationship to other skills

Maintenance

• When the author's revision patterns show an unlisted influence ("this cut mirrors {author}'s economy"), propose adding it.
• When a borrowed device becomes habitual — appearing naturally in the author's unassisted writing — promote it to persona.md.
• Per book. References are project-specific. A new book inherits nothing automatically; re-run this skill.