novel-writing

Files (14)

• SKILL.md
• openai.yaml · agents/
• character-introductions.md · references/
• cognition-layers-and-language.md · references/
• dialogue-and-behavior.md · references/
• manuscript-lifecycle-and-feedback.md · references/
• planning.md · references/
• realism-constraints.md · references/
• revision-checklist.md · references/
• scene-and-structure.md · references/
• scene-causality-and-agency.md · references/
• story-outline-and-causal-summary.md · references/
• style-fidelity.md · references/
• check_manuscript_text.py · scripts/

SKILL.md (first lines)

# Novel Writing

## Overview

Use this skill for fiction work that needs narrative craft, not just sentence-level cleanup. It covers planning, drafting or continuing prose, and reviewing finished fiction. When a task crosses chapter versions, it also coordinates the project's manuscript handoff and author-feedback learning.

## When to Use

Use this skill when the user asks to:

- plan a chapter, scene, arc, volume, whole-story outline, story synopsis, canon document, or reveal sequence
- set up a fiction project that will keep formal chapters, working revisions, and author feedback across sessions
- continue or rewrite fiction prose
- check whether a chapter is structurally sound
- review whether characters are introduced clearly
- preserve an author's original voice while revising
- compare an author's hand-edited chapter with an actual delivery and carry supported feedback into later work
- deliver a revision within an existing project's manuscript and archive rules
- test whether a scene obeys real-world limits such as visibility, procedure, age, or capability

Do not use this skill for:

- poetry-only requests
- screenplay formatting work
- pure copyediting where narrative judgment is not needed
- non-fiction writing

## Stage Selection

For project setup or work across manuscript versions, load the lifecycle reference as directed below. For prose tasks, decide which stage the task belongs to.

### 1. Planning

Use when the user is deciding what a scene, chapter, arc, volume, or whole story should do before prose is written.

Read:

- `references/planning.md` for scene- or chapter-level planning
- `references/story-outline-and-causal-summary.md` for an arc, volume, or whole-story outline, a story synopsis, or a standalone canon/theory document
- `references/cognition-layers-and-language.md` when knowledge, motive, or disclosure drives decisions
- `references/scene-causality-and-agency.md` for conflict, responsibility, action order, or chapter interfaces
- `references/dialogue-and-behavior.md` when a planned meeting, interview, consultation, investigation, or technical scene could collapse into turn-taking exposition
- `references/scene-and-structure.md` when chapter flow is the main concern
- `references/realism-constraints.md` when the chapter depends on real-world limits

### 2. Drafting or Continuing

Use when the user wants new fiction prose, a rewrite of prose, or a continuation of an existing chapter.

Read:

- `references/character-introductions.md`
- `references/cognition-layers-and-language.md` when decisions or dialogue depend on unequal knowledge, judgment, or motive
- `references/scene-causality-and-agency.md` for conflict, movement, authority, or continuity
- `references/dialogue-and-behavior.md` for sustained dialogue, meetings, interviews, interrogations, domestic confrontations, or laboratory and research scenes
- `references/scene-and-structure.md`
- `references/style-fidelity.md`
- `references/realism-constraints.md` when the scene depends on real-world constraints

### 3. Reviewing

Use when the user wants critique, diagnosis, or revision advice on existing fiction.

Read:

- `references/revision-checklist.md`
- `references/dialogue-and-behavior.md` when dialogue reads like a transcript, characters take orderly turns, or the scene contains motion but little human response
- then load the specific reference files that match the problems you find

## Long-Fiction Context Strategy

When the fiction project is long enough that loading the entire formal draft would be wasteful, use context LOD instead of full-text-first reading.

### Load order

- `L0 Task`: the immediate writing or review job
- `L1 Hard constraints`: outline, timeline, setting, issue records, local project rules
- `L2 Near-field full text`: current chapter, adjacent chapters, and linked manuscript layers when fidelity matters
- `L3 Far-field structure`: chapter cards, timeline slices, and outline slices
- `L4 Cold zone`: unrelated future chapters and distant full text, excluded by default

- If you are directly revising a chapter, read that chapter's full text.
- If dialogue rhythm, psychological detail, ambiguity, flirtation, or body-detail writing matters, read the relevant full text instead of relying on summary material.
- If structure cards conflict with the project's authoritative prose, flag the discrepancy and use the prose as evidence for this task. Update cards only when the project's rules and current authorization allow it; an unreviewed author edit is not automatically accepted canon.
- If the available structured context is insufficient, expand by targeted full-text reads, not by loading the whole novel.
- Future-chapter prose is excluded by default unless a confirmed continuity dependency requires it.

### Manuscript and author-feedback stewardship

When creating a fiction project or working with chapter versions, a hand-edited or annotated author draft, a delivery, or cross-session recovery, read [Manuscript Lifecycle and Author Feedback](references/manuscript-lifecycle-and-feedback.md). This skill coordinates the setup or handoff among the current manuscript, working revisions, frozen evidence, and reusable author feedback; the project's own rules determine their paths and authority. Do not create a second version system or assume that a writing or review tool owns the project's formal manuscript. For parallel chapter ownership, follow the current project's explicit workflow.

## Hard Rules

### Reader Knowledge Is Not Author Knowledge

Never assume the reader already knows:

- who a character is
- how people are related
- what a place looks like
- why a behavior matters

If the author knows it but the prose has not shown it, treat it as missing.

### Important Characters Cannot Enter Naked

When an important character first enters the story in an effective way, the prose must give the reader enough to anchor them:

- identity or role
- relationship to the current event or viewpoint
- first impression

If the character is a villain, love interest, rival, or core ally, the prose also needs at least one recognisable trait such as:

- appearance
- clothing
- posture
- voice
- habitual gesture

From wgwtest/novel-writing, MIT.