# Mode: narrative

Story-arc persuasion. Carry the audience through situation → tension → resolution, using suspense, turns, and human framing so the point lands emotionally before it lands logically. For pitches, case studies, brand journeys, fundraising.

---

## 1. Narrative skeleton

**Arc across the deck and within suitable beats**: scenario → conflict → resolution. Set a stake, raise tension, resolve it, and bridge to the next beat without forcing the complete arc onto every page.

**Suspense and payoff**: pose a question at the right moment and answer it at the beat where the evidence lands. Let curiosity pull the audience forward.

**Human framing**: anchor abstract points in a protagonist, a moment, a concrete stake ("a team that shipped in two weeks instead of three months").

**Narrative movement**: use a reframe, reveal, or change in stakes where the material supports it. The sequence should move rather than merely relabel flat exposition.

Titles read as beats that advance the arc ("Then the numbers stopped adding up"), not as labels.

---

## 2. Page-structure tendencies

- Vary dense and breathing beats according to tension, payoff, and audience fatigue; do not enforce a mechanical alternation.
- Visual weight guides the eye through each beat (hero image, one focal number, a pull quote).
- Continuity within a chapter, variation between chapters.

> Structure serves the arc, not a grid. Layout / chart geometry lives in [`templates/charts/`](../../templates/charts/) and [`executor-base.md`](../executor-base.md); this mode decides *the emotional beat of each page*.

---

## 3. Speaker-notes register

Conversational narration — like talking with the audience, not reading a report. Use scenario-conflict-resolution within a page when that beat benefits from it. Metaphors make the abstract tangible ("like adding a turbocharger"). Plain rhetorical questions create suspense; bridge each page from the prior one. Conversational data ("nearly a third", "more than doubled"). (Common framework: [`executor-notes.md`](../executor-notes.md) §1.)

---

## 4. Page skeleton example

```
Page 3 (turn):   full-bleed image + one line — "Then deployment broke."
Page 4 (payoff): the reframe — what changed, one focal number
Notes:           "You might be wondering where the opportunity is…" (bridges, builds)
```
