Structure Consulting Storyline

Turn an approved answer into a sequence that changes what the reader understands, believes, or can do. The central case lead retains approval.

Confirm the handoff

Require the management question/use, approved answer v1 or message spine, hypothesis results, approved content-spine payloads with grain/entitlement/qualifiers, communication job and real ask, Audience/Onboarding Contract locator, and storyline_entry: ready.

Return upstream if a material claim is unresolved, a user-obtainable gap remains unoffered in the decision window, or a narrative step needs new evidence. Preserve an approved bounded answer and continuation gate rather than implying certainty.

Build one belief journey

1. Write the qualified governing thought.
2. Build an answer pyramid or another architecture suited to the answer—not a template.
3. Define the reader's starting belief, the new belief each section earns, the turning point, and the landing: understanding, warning, learning, instruction, escalation, or decision.
4. Make each section's landing the next section's premise.
5. Read titles alone; each must answer the prior implicit question or create the next one, and together they must form one argument.

Use because / therefore / but at section boundaries only as a diagnostic. If no honest bridge exists without inventing a claim, reorder, merge, or return the gap; never add the bridge as a page field. Use story-archetypes.md only when pattern choice is genuinely uncertain.