What’s inside

One SKILL.md (the playbook) + one starter template. A preview:

Storybook Margin Deck

When to use

• You're pitching a picture book to a publisher and the deck itself should feel like the book
• An illustrated story needs a presentation format where art direction notes live beside the art, not in a separate document
• You're presenting a children's story concept to teachers, parents, or a review panel and want them to see story and craft together
• A storyboard or animatic pitch needs room for timing, sound, and camera notes on every spread
• You're workshopping a story and want feedback on both the narrative and the visual decisions, side by side

Workflow

1. Collect the story spine (input: your manuscript or outline → output: spread-by-spread beat sheet)
   Break the story into spreads — one spread per beat, not per page of text. Each beat gets one sentence of story ("Milo loses his kite over the wall") and one sentence of feeling ("lonely, then curious"). If a beat can't be summed up in two sentences, it's two beats. The beat sheet is the deck's skeleton: every later step hangs off it, and cutting a weak beat here is ten times cheaper than cutting a finished slide.
2. Design the margin system (input: beat sheet → output: margin rules)
   Fix the margin before designing any slide: one wide outer margin (about a third of the slide) reserved for annotations, in a paper tone that contrasts with the illustration area. Define three annotation kinds and give each a marker — narration cues (what the reader hears), art direction (palette, composition, character blocking), and production notes (page turn, trim, bleed). One margin, three markers, no exceptions — the moment annotations sprawl into the art area, the storybook illusion breaks.
3. Lay out the spread rhythm (input: margin rules + beat sheet → output: full slide sequence)
   Alternate spread types so the deck breathes: full-bleed illustration spreads for emotional peaks, split spreads (art left, margin wide) for setup and transitions, and quiet text-led spreads for page-turn beats. Never run three full-bleed spreads in a row — the eye stops registering scale. Place the page-turn moments deliberately: the beat before a turn should end on a question the next spread answers.
4. Write the margin annotations (input: slide sequence → output: annotated deck)
   Write annotations as short, specific directions a real illustrator or narrator could act on: "Kite string leads the eye top-left to bottom-right" beats "make it dynamic." Keep each annotation to one or two lines. Cut any annotation that merely restates what the art already shows — the margin earns its space only when it adds information the illustration can't carry alone.

Template preview

Storybook Margin Deck — Template

Fill in the beat sheet first. One spread per beat. Then lay out slides to match.

Book: {title} — {author / illustrator}

Audience age: {e.g. 4–8} | Spread count: {n} | Trim size: {e.g. 10 × 10 in}

Margin system

• Margin tone: {paper tone, e.g. warm cream #f7f1de}
• 📖 Narration cue = {marker, e.g. italic + 📖}
• 🎨 Art direction = {marker, e.g. bold label + 🎨}
• ✂️ Production note = {marker, e.g. small caps + ✂️}

Beat sheet (one row per spread)

Spread layout

Spread {n} — {beat title}

• Illustration: {what the art shows, composition, palette shift}
• 📖 Narration cue: {what the reader hears / pacing note}

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