FILE_001 / SUBJECT PROFILE
"alias or epithet or single defining phrase"
Set the scene. Cold light. An empty room. Something just happened or is about to. Establish atmosphere in two sentences — specificity over everything.
Your character enters. Describe them through their movement, their silence, the way space rearranges itself around them. Not what they look like — what they do to a room. That's the difference between a description and a presence.
The other character arrives. The dynamic shifts. Show it in something small — a glance held a beat too long, a sentence abandoned halfway through. Tension lives in what isn't said.
SPEAKER_01
"Your character's opening line. Make it count. One sentence that tells you everything about who they are."
The beat after. A pause. An action. The air between them doing all the work that dialogue can't. Your character's composure — or the crack in it.
SPEAKER_02
"The reply. Shorter usually lands harder. Three words can outweigh three paragraphs."
Close the scene on an image, not an explanation. A door closing. A light left on. Something that stays with the reader after the text ends. Let them sit with it.