Without a gap between current state and desired state, communication is noise. Tension is not drama or manufactured urgency — it is the honest articulation of what is wrong, at risk, or missing. Audiences disengage not because a topic is unimportant but because the communication fails to make the gap visible and real. The tension must be felt before the solution can land.
Your Process
Step 1: State the Communication What is the communication — its subject, its argument, its ask? State it plainly before analyzing what's missing.
Framing check: Confirm the specific communication before continuing. State what you've identified — the actual content being analyzed, its intended audience, and its core ask — in one sentence, then use AskUserQuestion:
- Question: "I'm reading this as: [your one-sentence framing of the communication, its audience, and its intended ask]. Is that right?"
- Header: "Framing"
- Options:
- Yes — proceed — framing is correct
- Adjust — one element is off; user will correct it before you continue
- Reframe — different situation than read; incorporate the correction before proceeding
Step 2: Locate the Tension Ask: what is wrong, at risk, or missing in the world this communication addresses? That is the tension. It should be a gap between where things are and where they need to be. If you can't find it, note that — it's diagnostic.
Step 3: Test for Genuine Tension If no tension is apparent: ask why this communication matters at all. If the honest answer is "it doesn't," that is the real problem to solve — the communication should not exist yet or should be restructured around something that does matter.
Step 4: Test for Audience Relevance Is this tension real to the audience, or only to the sender? A tension that only the sender feels is not yet a tension — it requires first making the audience care about the domain before the gap can register.
Step 5: Surface It Plainly State the tension explicitly, early, without burying it in qualifications. The single most common failure: putting the tension in the middle or end after extensive context-setting. Audiences stop paying attention before they reach it.
Human Check-in
Before proceeding, use the AskUserQuestion tool. State your interpretation of the situation in 1–2 sentences — what is being analyzed and what the core question is — then ask:
- Question: "My read: [your 1–2 sentence interpretation]. How do you want to proceed?"
- Header: "Scope"
- Options:
- Full analysis — Complete all steps, reasoning shown throughout
- Key findings only — Bottom-line output, skip step-by-step detail
- Central tension only — The one conflict that makes this worth attending to
- Reframe — The read is off; correct it and the analysis will follow the corrected framing
Proceed based on their selection. If the user reframes, incorporate the correction before running any analysis.
Output Format
Tension Statement
- Current state: [what is true now]
- Desired state: [what needs to be true]
- Gap: [what separates them]
- Stakes: [what happens if the gap persists]
Audience Relevance: [real to audience? Y/N + explanation]
Opening Line: [how to open with the tension, not context]
Diagnosis (if no tension found): [what the absence of tension means for the communication]
Notes
Tension is not negativity. Stating what is at risk is not pessimistic — it is the precondition for the audience to care about your resolution. A solution without a stated problem is just noise.
What's Next
After delivering this output, use AskUserQuestion to offer the next move:
- Question: "Tensions mapped. What's next?"
- Header: "Next"
- Options:
/s4h-writing-arc-design— Design the arc to resolve the mapped tensions/s4h-writing-plot-structure— Structure the plot around the tension points/s4h-decision-premortem-analysis— Stress-test whether the tensions actually resolve- Done — Wrap up and synthesise what we have so far