The published standard · version 2026.07.24

The vocabulary

327 named patterns, each in exactly one class, each with a definition a person can disagree with. Published in full and on purpose: a standard you can read beats a taxonomy you have to trust.

All 327 in the Encyclopedia Written 189 Catalogued 138 Licence terms

Classes

Class	Written / catalogued	Definition
`certification-device`	12 / 18	A mechanism that vouches. Something outside the couple declares the pairing valid, whether fate, a bond, a creature or a system, and the story tests whether the declaration was worth anything.
`character-dyad`	32 / 49	A pairing defined by what two people do to each other. A dyad describes who is in the room rather than what happens there, and travels into almost any shape.
`conceit`	8 / 32	Definition pending — a named gap.
`form`	42 / 75	Not a trope but a shelf. A form is a whole subgenre with its own rules, terms and readership, and the smaller tropes get run inside it.
`pacing-covenant`	10 / 17	A promise about speed. These govern how fast the feeling is allowed to arrive, and therefore what the reader is owed in the pages between.
`plot-shape`	62 / 93	The arc itself: what happens, in what order, and what the ending has to settle. Remove a plot shape and the book has no story left to tell.
`set-piece`	23 / 43	A scene the genre keeps in its cabinet. Portable, repeatable, recognisable on sight, and liftable into almost any book without adjustment.

Controlled values

Structural fields take these values and no others. Every term is defined, because a controlled list without definitions is just a spelling convention.

ending_typehea — the couple ends together and the book says so · hfn — together for now, explicitly provisional · ambiguous — deliberately unresolved · tragic · cliffhanger

doorclosed — sex is off the page · behind — the scene begins and the camera turns away · open — on the page, described

povfirst · third · alternating — second is under review for the next version; the SF shelf needs it

timelinelinear · dual-timeline · flashback · epistolary

pov_countsingle · dual · multi

world_typecontemporary · historical · secondary-world · portal · urban-fantasy · sci-fi

What is deliberately absent

There are no mood tags, vibe tags, or occasion tags in this vocabulary, and there will not be. They are the fields where a crowd beats a desk, they cannot be defined tightly enough to stay consistent across the library, and every one of them is derivable from class plus structural facts. The absence is a design decision, not an omission.