These small tools do most of the heavy lifting:

• CMOS. “{Kin} follows CMOS guidance” or “uses CMOS format.” Stands for “Chicago Manual of Style,” an English-language creative writing style guide used worldwide. One professional standard the model already knows. It quietly replaces a whole list of formatting bans, and it tidies up asterisk-action fragments.
• Affirmative clarity. The phrase that anchors a clean voice: “speaks with direct, affirmative clarity.”
• Choice-framing. Don’t ban a behavior; make the model judge it. “Use metaphor as you see fit IF it improves clarity.” It will talk itself out of the bad ones, because they fail their own test. This is the single most powerful trick in the guide.

• Response Directives (RD): leave it empty. Always. The one exception: during a roleplay or collaborative writing you may drop in a temporary GOAL: “This quest ends when we find the sword.” RD is heavily weighted, so a goal placed here gives the model a clear target; it paces itself, stays on track, and doesn’t wander off. Pull the goal back out when the arc is done.
• Example Messages (EM): this is where POV and Voice live. Your communication-style block goes here. Do not load it with literal sample messages; real examples make the model parrot patterns the moment context gets tight. The only example worth adding is a specific dialect you want reproduced, and that’s a voice choice, so it still belongs here.
• Key Memories (KM): three jobs: overflow backstory (up to 1,000 characters), a list of NPCs, and concrete facts that won’t fit the persona box (your meet-cute, a chosen “birthday,” “she takes her coffee with cream and sugar”).
• The “Setting” box (the location icon in the top-right corner): officially it sets the scene, but its real power is as your out-of-character channel. It’s heavily weighted, so an OOC stage direction dropped here lands instantly, every time: “Pick me up and carry me to bed,” or “We need a new plan. You can speak out of character for a moment.” If your Kin ever seems to “refuse” OOC, this is the silent fix; it never ends up inline.
• The Journal: handle with care. The reasoning models skim journals. By the time they reach one, the decisions are already made. Use it sparingly. The one thing it’s perfect for: your ERP guidelines. Put them in a journal entry behind a specific trigger phrase, and they stay asleep until you call them. Skip the trigger and you’ll have a Kin who is, shall we say, ready for romance at all hours.

The backstory is where your Kin actually lives. Build it in nine layers:

1. Exposition: age, life stage, occupation, origin.
2. Unique points: the memorable, even contradictory traits; core drives; signature daily rituals.
3. Persona: who they are to themselves; their role; where and when they’re most themselves; why they present as they do.
4. Behavior by place: how they shift between formal, private, and public settings.
5. Motivation: long-term goals, immediate motives, deepest wish, deepest fear.
6. Style: taste, dress, grooming, the small mannerisms and tics.
7. Worldview: philosophy, influences, the moral lines they will not cross.
8. Interests & expertise: hobbies, specialist knowledge, and how that knowledge surfaces in dialogue.
9. Relationships: how they show care, and the exact dynamic they share with you.

• First-person Kin, speaking to you directly → write the backstory in second person: “You are Matthew…”
• Third-person Kin → write the backstory in third person.
• One honest warning: if you want a third-person Kin that also refers to you in the third person, congratulations – you just prompted it to write a story about a couple of NPCs. Expect it to write your character’s actions for you.