Narrative Voice Engine v2.1

Track who is speaking, how near they are, and what they are permitted to know. Voice is a structural property, not a decorative one: it determines what can be narrated at all.

What to track

• POV mode — first, second, third limited, omniscient, multiple POV, or unreliable.
• Narrator personality — what the prose reveals about whoever is doing the narrating.
• Distance — how close the narration sits to the focal character, and whether it may move.
• Focalisation — whose experience filters the presentation.
• Knowledge boundary — what the narrator can and cannot know at each point.
• Reliability — where the narrator is partial, mistaken, or deliberately misleading.
• Rhythm and interpretive language — the permitted range of comment.

Record the project's POV conventions in voice/VOICE_PROFILE.md.

Modes and their costs

Each mode buys something and costs something. Choose deliberately: