Higgsfield Character Design — Story Bible

The rest of this skill library answers "how do I prompt this?" This skill answers the question upstream of it: "what am I prompting, and why this and not generic AI slop?" It is the pre-production layer — premise, world, character, story, and a locked visual style — that you build before writing a single generation prompt, then hand off to higgsfield-prompt and the model guides.

Attribution. The framework, worksheet structure, and the "world first" method are adapted from Higgsfield's official Character Design materials by @vavavinca. We reuse the schemas and method; all examples here are original. Credit Vinca when sharing.

QUICK FACTS

Routing aids — read the linked sections for the actual method.

• World first, always. Lock the world before you cast a character; the world is the gravity that shapes who they have to become →
• Six steps, each locks an output you do not revisit: Premise → World → Character → Story Spine → Style Sheet → hand-off →
• The flagship artifact is the 9-Question Character Sheet — thematic role, external/internal goal, psychological/moral need, wound, spark, silhouette, contradiction →
• The strongest anti-slop tool is the Forbidden List in the Style Sheet — naming what the world is NOT is often more useful than the palette →
• Specificity beats adjectives: if any character could say it, it's a stereotype; keep asking "why?" until the answer surprises you →
• Fillable worksheets live in ../../templates/character-design/ — hand them to the user or fill them together →
• Construction laws for the sheet as an artifact: plain grey background · creature sheets get two close-ups (mouth open + closed) · the face-lock crop · a size-ref frame for scale at extreme ratios no true landmark can express [FIELD] — grey and the one-face law are canonical in ../../templates/ad-asset-prep.md →
• Once the character looks right, don't jump to scenes — run a screen test: casting read → role options → playable lines → voice triggers → one audition prompt [EMPIRICAL] →
• This skill produces inputs; it does not generate. Hand the locked Visual DNA + character sheet to higgsfield-prompt →