Technical Storytelling Evaluator: A Claude Skill for Technical Writers

Paste your content. Get a full storytelling diagnosis. Know exactly what to fix before you publish.

Most technical writers publish content that is accurate but forgettable. The explanations are clear, the structure makes sense, but something is missing. Readers consume it and move on without anything really changing for them.

The problem is rarely the writing itself. It's the storytelling behind it.

The Technical Storytelling Evaluator is a Claude skill built on the frameworks and principles from over 60 issues of the Tech & Storytelling newsletter. It evaluates your technical content across 10 storytelling dimensions and tells you exactly what is working, what is falling flat, and what to fix before you hit publish.

What You Get

A .skill file you install into Claude (free or paid plan) and a step-by-step instruction guide to get you started immediately.

Once installed, paste any technical article, blog post, tutorial, or section into Claude and ask it to evaluate your content. You will receive a full report that includes a score out of 10 for each dimension, an overall score out of 100, specific feedback on what you did well, a diagnosis of every weak area with exact instructions on how to fix it, and a priority fix list ranked by impact on your reader.

The 10 Dimensions Your Content Is Evaluated Against

• Purpose Clarity: Does your content have one clear reason to exist?
• Audience Specificity: Are you writing for one specific reader or everyone and no one?
• Structure and Flow: Is information organized in the order the reader needs it?
• Action and Transformation: Does the reader end somewhere different from where they started?
• Tension and Stakes: Does your content give the reader a reason to care?
• Tone and Voice: Are you making claims or just stating facts?
• Cognitive Load Management: Is your structure helping or fighting the reader's brain?
• Clarity and BLUF: Are you leading with what matters or burying it three paragraphs down?
• Curse of Knowledge: Are you assuming context your reader does not have?
• Reader Questions: Are you answering what the reader actually came to find out?

Who This Is For

• Technical writers who want to know why their content is not landing before they publish
• Beginner technical writers who want to build strong storytelling habits from the start
• Experienced technical writers who feel stuck producing accurate but forgettable content
• DevRel professionals and developer advocates writing for technical audiences
• Anyone writing AI, machine learning, SaaS, or developer-focused content

What Is Inside the Download

• praise-james-storytelling-evaluator.skill: Install this into Claude to activate the evaluator
• HOW-TO-USE.md: A clear instruction guide covering installation, how to prompt Claude, how to read your report, and tips for getting the best results

How It Works

Install the skill into Claude. Paste your content. Ask Claude to evaluate it. Read your report. Fix what needs fixing. Publish with confidence.

You can run the evaluation as many times as you need on the same piece, across drafts, until your content scores where it needs to.

Built From Real Experience

Every dimension in this evaluator comes from a framework or principle shared in Tech & Storytelling, a weekly newsletter for technical writers who want to become better storytellers. The frameworks include PASA, PTS (Problem Tension Solution), the 5C Framework, BLUF, Cognitive Load Theory, the Hero's Journey applied to technical writing, and more. These are not theoretical concepts pulled from a textbook. They come from my experience writing technical content for AI and developer audiences and refining what actually works.