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CookbookHome and familyNo. 45

A story for a road tripa chapter for every leg, read aloud in the car

Recipe No. 45 · Home and family

For: A parent driving two children from Denver to Moab

You get: A four-chapter story, one per leg, read aloud on your iPhone

Time: An evening, then the drive

See it in know.sh

The story as one document: the drive as a table at the top, which Listen announces by its title, then a chapter for each leg.

Road tripsNo. 12

The Map That Folded Itselfa story for the drive to Moab

4 sections, 9,960 words, about 66 minutes to listen, written 3 October.

Tally the raven steals a road map from a rest stop and finds that it folds itself into the shape of wherever the car is going. Each chapter is one leg of the drive; start it as the leg begins and it ends about when the leg does.

Pepper is in every chapter. Nobody is lost for long.

Sections

  1. 1The map that would not stay foldedObservation, 2,390 wordsOver the pass the map folds itself into a mountain, and Tally has to decide whose it is.
  2. 2The river that went through the mountainObservation, 2,550 wordsIn Glenwood Canyon the road and the river share a way through, and Pepper finds the map’s missing corner.
  3. 3The monument at sunsetObservation, 2,280 wordsThe canyon walls go red, and the map shows a place that is not on any other map.
  4. 4The window in the rockObservation, 2,740 wordsAt the arches the map unfolds for good, and Tally gives it back.

Chapter 2, for the canyon. Listen highlights each word as it is read, and it stops at the end, when the canyon opens out.

know., The Map That Folded Itself, 2 · Look up, New, ⋯

Road trips, The Map That Folded Itself

2 of 4

The river that went through the mountain

Observation, 2,550 words, about 17 minutes to listen

Highlight, Note, Edit

The road went down from the pass in long, lazy curves, and the map in Tally’s claws went quiet, the way maps do when they are thinking.

Then the mountains closed in on both sides. The walls were so tall that Tally had to tip her head right back to see the sky, a thin blue ribbon far above. Beside the road ran a river, green and fast and in a great hurry, as if it were late for something.

“Where is it going?” said Pepper, who had never met a river she did not want to chase.

“Through,” said Tally. “The river was here first. It spent a very long time cutting this canyon, and the road just asked if it could come along.”

The map rustled. One of its corners, the corner that had always been missing, was tugging towards the water.

Your own assistant writes the chapters straight into your library, each sized to its leg of the drive.

Claude, connected to know.sh

You

Write an original story for our drive from Denver to Moab on Saturday, for listeners aged eight and eleven and our dog, Pepper. Four chapters, one per leg: Vail Pass, Glenwood Canyon, Grand Junction, then Moab and the arches. About 2,500 words each, real places, nothing frightening. File it in know.sh on my Road trips shelf with a table of the legs in the overview.

document_create Created The Map That Folded Itself on Road trips, No. 12, with a table of the four legs

section_add Added “The map that would not stay folded”, 1 — 2,390 words

section_add Added “The river that went through the mountain”, 2 — 2,550 words

section_add Added “The monument at sunset”, 3 — 2,280 words

section_add Added “The window in the rock”, 4 — 2,740 words

Claude

Four chapters filed, about 66 minutes of listening at 1×. Each ends with the car arriving somewhere, so it is a natural place to stop. The canyon, the monument and the arches are described as they are; Tally and the map are the only made-up things in it.

How it works

Your assistant writes an original story for the drive, one chapter for each leg, with the places you pass in it. On the road, know.sh reads it aloud on your iPhone: a Kokoro voice made on the phone itself, the screen locked, and the next chapter one press of your headphones away.

  1. Give your assistant the route and the listeners

    Tell it the legs, the stops and who is listening: ages eight and eleven, a dog called Pepper, and no scary endings before lunch.

  2. Ask for a chapter per leg

    Ask for an original story as a know.sh document, a section of about 2,500 words for each leg, and a table element in the overview with each leg, its miles and its chapter.

  3. Turn on Listening before you leave

    In Account → Listening on your iPhone, turn it on and let Kokoro download over Wi-Fi. Choose a voice, Fable or Heart, and have it stop after each section.

  4. Press Listen at the start of each leg

    Choose Listen from the next chapter in the document’s menu and lock the phone. Your headphones and the lock screen pause it, and skip ahead when the back seat asks for more.

Try this prompt

Your assistant, connected to know.sh (Claude, ChatGPT or a local model):

Write an original story for our drive from [start] to [end], for listeners aged [ages]. One chapter per leg: [legs]. About 2,500 words a chapter, the real places we pass in each, and an ending that lands as the leg does. File it in know.sh on my *Road trips* shelf, a section per chapter, with a table element in the overview of each leg, its miles and its chapter.

Made with

DocumentSectionYour AI assistantElementsListenThe iOS app

See also