Concepts

name: action-title description: A slide title that asserts the insight rather than describing the topic. The slide-level Claim.

name: aha-moment description: The earned reveal in a deck or loop — the moment disparate facts resolve into a single understanding.

name: arc description: The full-story-shape level of the storymaking hierarchy. The total narrative form a deck takes from open to close.

name: audience description: The first variable in any storymaking decision — who, what they accept, what they fear, what they can decide, and what state they should be in after.

name: beat description: A major narrative moment within an arc — a stretch of the deck with a single function (setup, complication, evidence, turn, resolution).

name: big-idea description: The single-sentence thesis a deck advances. The Answer in SCQA. Under 20 words, memorable, actionable.

name: block description: A major act of the deck — the structural unit between arc and loop. Each block carries one pillar of the Big Idea.

name: claim description: One of three transversal narrative axes — the thesis being advanced. What the audience should believe or do.

name: closing-ask description: The final beat of a deck — the specific action, decision, or commitment requested. The deck's reason for existing, made explicit.

name: component description: A concrete piece inside a slide — title, chart, table, quote, benchmark, source note. The atomic unit of storymaking.

name: creative-trio description: Architect, Storyteller, and Designer — three perspectives every storymaking decision must pass. Each catches what the others miss.

name: eight-second-test description: A slide passes the eight-second test if the audience can extract its main message in eight seconds of looking.

name: forward-test description: A deck passes the forward test if it survives being forwarded to a sceptic who was not in the room.

name: headline-test description: A deck passes the headline test when reading only the action titles in sequence delivers the full argument.

name: loop description: A mini-argument inside a beat — a sequence of 3–10 slides that defends one defensible point.

name: mece description: Mutually Exclusive, Collectively Exhaustive — the structural test for whether a set of pillars or options covers the space without overlap.

name: narrative-axes description: Sense / Claim / Proof — the three transversal axes that cut across every level of the storymaking hierarchy (arc, beat, loop, slide, component).

name: narrative-temperature description: Five temperatures a deck can run at — Inform, Align, Recommend, Persuade, Inspire — each with different rhythm, evidence, and emotional load.

name: opener description: The first 30 seconds of a deck — where the audience decides whether to engage. Carries SCQA in compressed form.

name: plausibility-loop description: Coherence check that runs at every level — every Claim must resolve into Proof at the next-finer level, every Proof must serve a Claim.

name: proof description: One of three transversal narrative axes — the evidence that makes a Claim survive scrutiny.

name: concepts-index description: Index of the transversal concepts that make up the storymaking vocabulary — the meta-canon that organises arcs, loops, beats, slides, and components.

name: reasoning-approach description: Two ways a loop or deck can reason — deductive (premise → conclusion) or inductive (evidence → pattern).

name: reveal-strategy description: Three options for where a Claim lands within a loop — headline-first, progressive, or dramatic.

name: scqa description: Situation, Complication, Question, Answer — the four-step backbone that frames any persuasive deck.

name: sense description: One of three transversal narrative axes — direction, tension, and cohesion. Why the audience stays with us.

name: slide description: The smallest autonomous unit of communication in a deck — a single frame with one Claim and the Proof for it.

name: so-what description: The question every beat, slide, and component must answer. The shortest test for whether a unit earns its place.

name: tension-and-release description: The pacing engine of any narrative — alternating moments that raise stakes with moments that resolve them.

name: vanity-quote description: An antipattern — a quote that cites the report you are writing as if it were independent authority. Banned.