Arjuna Badger PressCraft Library
Craft Library — free resources for writers
Arjuna Badger Press · The Academy — degree-level creative-writing craft, distilled from finishing a million words of published fiction and three independent professional editorial passes. Plain English. Named failure-modes. No MFA gatekeeping.
This library is free and public — the same body of knowledge the studio uses to finish books. Read it whether or not you ever work with the press.
Start here
| Guide | What it teaches |
|---|---|
| Craft Glossary | Dictionary index — 90+ terms (spine, beat, act, scene, plant/payoff, cadence, bloat, POV, dialogue, machine-tells…). Each entry is one line; click through for the full degree-level explainer. |
| Triptych form — thesis explainer | Full theory of the any-order three-novel weave: proof obligations, vocabulary, reading permutations, lineage. |
| Craft Doctrine | The living standard: non-negotiables, what good prose feels like here, and the revision mantra (embody, don't state). |
| Anti-Patterns | Twenty-nine named literary smells (competence porn, reveal stacking, voice homogenization…) with BAD→GOOD fixes — the generative layer above line-editing. |
| LLM tics & tells | The de-LLM catalog — "Not X. Y.", em-dash addiction, "the way…" similes, even cadence, AI vocabulary, caption tells — with BAD→GOOD tables and self-audit pass. |
| The workshop — for authors & editors | Why Arjuna Badger Press is not just for beginners: ingest published work + notes (txt, pdf, md, docx, photos), answer ~20 wizard questions, click Go — come back to a print-ready manuscript for your proofread. The engine works; the web wrapper is what's left. |
The press vs. the craft library
| Audience | Doc |
|---|---|
| Authors & editors (finish a book, any career stage) | The workshop |
| The unifying thesis (grounded fiction, human proof) | The Press Thesis |
| Engineers & CTOs (how the library is made) | The technology |
How to use it
- Drafting? Open the Glossary — find the term (beat, scene, act, spine…), read the short definition, then open the full explainer.
- Revising? Start with LLM tics & tells (Not X/Y, em-dash, "the way…"), then the Glossary Pitfalls entries, then Anti-Patterns.
- Breaking rules on purpose? Every "Rule" here is a default that needs a reason to violate. Earned violation is craft; accidental violation is error.
What this is not
- Not a substitute for sensitivity readers, legal review, or fact-checking your own subject.
- Not the private canon, prompts, or engine tooling — those stay in the workshop.
- Not static — the studio updates these files as new books teach new lessons.
The archer's eye. The badger's nerve. — arjunabadger.press
Glossary · Doctrine · Anti-patterns · Triptych form · LLM tells