Playground 1
Story Spine Builder: Climate Tech Pitch
The Pixar Story Spine is a six-beat template that forces a narrative into causal sequence. Each beat earns the next. The key is the repeated "Because of that" at the center: it demands that every step connects to the one before through cause and effect. If your story reads as "and then... and then..." it has no spine.
The Structure in Action
Here is a typical climate tech pitch, and what happens when the Story Spine is applied to it. Read both versions before building your own.
Without the Story Spine
"We built a platform that uses satellite imagery and machine learning to monitor deforestation in real time. It covers 50 million hectares. We have partnerships with three governments. Our accuracy rate is 94%. We’re seeking Series A funding."
A filing cabinet. Facts stacked on facts, with no spine and no transportation.
Your Turn
Below is a real case: satellite-based forest monitoring using GLAD alerts and Landsat imagery, deployed in several African countries. The paragraph contains everything you need for a complete Story Spine. Your job is to find the structure inside the facts.
Raw case material
In several African countries, governments started receiving free satellite-based alerts whenever new forest clearing was detected, instead of waiting for periodic reports or on-the-ground sightings. The system, based on Landsat imagery and GLAD alerts, sends near real-time notifications to enforcement agencies so they can investigate quickly. In its first two years, countries using the alerts saw forest loss fall by about 18 percent compared to similar countries without the system, avoiding hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of carbon emissions. Local teams still struggle with limited staff and budgets, but the alerts give them a chance to act before illegal logging expands.
Choose your audience before you write
Pick one and let it shape your “Until finally” beat. The facts are the same; the ending is different.
- Option A: A minister of environment deciding whether to fund expansion of the alert system to additional countries.
- Option B: A foundation program officer considering a grant to scale the system to 12 more countries where forests are disappearing without monitoring.
Identify the status quo, the inciting incident, and the hero metric (18% reduction). Then build your spine. Your work saves automatically.
| Once upon a time... | |
| Every day... | |
| One day... | |
| Because of that... | |
| Because of that... | |
| Until finally... |
Get AI Feedback
Fill in your beats above, then click to get instant feedback on causal chain, stakes, specificity, and resolution.
›Prefer to use your own Claude or ChatGPT?
You are a communication strategist specializing in climate and clean energy narratives. I have written a Story Spine for a climate communication pitch. Please review it using these four criteria: 1. Causal chain: Does each "Because of that" follow directly from the beat before it? Flag any places where the connection is "and then" rather than "because of that." 2. Stakes: Is it clear what happens if nothing changes? Does the audience have a reason to care about the outcome? 3. Specificity: Are the consequences concrete and named, or vague and general? Vague consequences don't transport. 4. Resolution alignment: Does the "Until finally" beat land on the specific action or feeling you want from this audience? Or does it drift into a general positive statement? For each criterion, give one sentence of assessment and one specific suggestion. Here is my Story Spine: [PASTE YOUR STORY SPINE HERE]
Take It Further
Two files to keep using the Story Spine and causal chain frameworks outside this playground.
Paste into Claude Project Instructions to turn any Claude conversation into a Story Spine coach for climate communication.
story-spine-claude-skill.md
Worked Answer
Once you’ve attempted your own version and got feedback, expand this to compare structure. This is the minister of environment version.