Chapter Writing

Overview

Write story chapters using an outline-first workflow. Gathers context with story context, which keeps later chapters out, builds a beat-by-beat outline for approval, then writes full prose. After writing, records the scene dates, the continuity state, and each setup planted or paid off in the one record that owns it, and rebuilds registries with story reindex.

Prerequisites

A story project must already exist with at least:

• story.md (story bible)
• At least one character in characters/
• A plot structure in plot/_index.md (recommended but not required for first chapters)

Prose Pass and Companion Skill

The in-repo line-editing skill owns the prose-quality pass (line edit, voice differentiation, copyedit, read-aloud, proof). It ships with Story Skills, so it is always available: run it on a drafted chapter before marking it revised.

The external better-writing skill is an optional complement for general prose quality and anti-generic writing checks. Before drafting or revising chapter prose, check whether it is available in the active agent environment. Detect it by looking for its skill directory in the configured skills paths:

ls -d ~/.claude/skills/better-writing .claude/skills/better-writing ~/.agents/skills/better-writing .agents/skills/better-writing skills/better-writing 2>/dev/null

• If a better-writing directory exists (containing SKILL.md), use it for prose quality, voice calibration, anti-generic writing checks, and the final pre-flight pass before saving the chapter.
• If better-writing is not installed, continue with this skill's built-in writing guidelines (references/writing-guidelines.md). Do not ask about it every session: offer it once, when you draft the project's first chapter, by pointing the user at forjd/better-writing and asking whether they want to install it. After that, mention it only if the user asks about prose-quality tools, and never again once they decline. Do not run any installer without explicit approval.

Outline-First Workflow

1. Gather Context

If the chapter you are drafting already has a file with its pov and characters set (for example a planned chapter that story next names), start with its packed context:

story context chapter-{NN} --path .

It prints, within a token budget (--budget, default 6000), the chapter's outline and cast, the story.md essentials (including the book's language, writing mode, chapter numerals, and count unit) and style-sheet.md rules, the POV character's knowledge and state at that point, cards for the characters on the page and the chapter's locations (with their progressions applied at this chapter), open promises, clues, and questions, and summaries of the previous scenes. Knowledge uses the same rule as story knowledge: the character knows a fact when its learned-in chapter is not after the target in story time (by date when both chapters are dated, otherwise by chapter number). A line marked reader-knowledge may be used in the prose. A line marked character-knowledge and do not reveal is known to the POV from a flashback the reader has not reached; write them as knowing it, and do not put the fact on the page. Everything else from a later chapter is left out. Add --json if you would rather read the items as data. For a new chapter, run it after step 2 instead.

Draft from that output, and do not open project files for background. If it ends with "Left out to fit the budget", do not open the files that list names, even though the line under it says to read them: they are whole files, and context filtered their items to the target. continuity/state.md holds knowledge learned later, character and location files hold later progressions, and promise and clue files hold their payoffs. Instead rerun with a larger --budget, or run with --json and use the text of each item in sections whose included is false, which is already filtered. Context already left out anything past the target: continuity/state.md is the full current snapshot, and a character's state from it is included only when current-chapter is before the target. plot/timeline.md, continuity/questions/_index.md, continuity/promises/_index.md, plot/_index.md, active arc files in plot/arcs/, and the other _index.md registries hold later beats or whole-book state, and the previous chapter is already covered by the recent scene summaries. Do not open them while drafting; the one exception is the arc ## Foreshadowing rows for this chapter, which the outline step reads.

The packed context's Story essentials give the book's language (a BCP 47 tag; en when unset), writing mode, chapter numerals, and count unit, so you do not need to open story.md. Draft in that language, with its dialogue punctuation as the style sheet records it. If the style sheet records none and the book is not in English, settle it with the user first (see ../line-editing/references/language-conventions.md). If the packed context has no style-sheet section and no left-out item names style-sheet.md, the file is missing: draft normally and suggest the voice-style skill once a chapter exists.

2. Determine Chapter Scope

Ask the user:

• What should this chapter cover?
• Whose POV?
• Which location(s)?

For a planned chapter, suggest the next beats from its packed context: its outline, the arcs it advances, and the open promises, clues, and questions. For a new chapter there is no packed context yet, so take the scope from the user and the story next suggestion. Do not open arc files or plot/_index.md to find beats.

Once the scope is agreed, give the chapter its POV and cast so the packed context can include them: create a new chapter with story add chapter 'Title' --pov <character-id> --character <character-id> --location <location-id>, or set pov, characters, and locations in an existing chapter's frontmatter. Then run story context chapter-{NN} --path . (or pass a scene id, chapter-{NN}-scene-{NN}, to draft one scene) and build the outline and prose from it.

3. Build the Outline

Create a beat-by-beat outline listing:

• Each scene/beat and what it accomplishes
• POV character and location for each beat
• Which arc plot points are advanced, and how the chapter delivers its structural beat when the packed context lists one (Beat: Midpoint)
• Any setup to plant or pay off (see Setups to plant or pay off below)
• Any machine-readable state changes the scene should record
• Each scene's intended outcome (yes, no, yes-but, no-and) and how the chapter ends (hook)

Setups to plant or pay off come from these three places, plus any the user names:

• The packed context's open promises, clues, and questions: those planted or raised by this chapter, including the ones scheduled for it (plant in this chapter, pay off in this chapter).
• Records with no chapter yet, which the packed context leaves out: list them with story list promises --where status=planned --where '!planted', the same for clues, and story list questions --where '!introduced'. The list shows titles only. Plant one here only if the user agrees, and set its chapter in step 6.
• Small arc hints: for each arc in the packed context's Arcs advanced, read only the ## Foreshadowing table of plot/arcs/{arc-id}.md, and use only the rows whose Chapter Planted or Chapter Payoff is this chapter. The rest of the arc file holds later beats, so do not read it.

Use the POV character card and the location cards from the packed context for voice and setting. If a card was left out to fit the budget, get it from a larger --budget or its --json item text, not from the character or location file.

Present the outline to the user for approval. Revise until approved.

4. Write the Chapter

With the approved outline, write the full prose:

• Write in the book's language and follow the POV and tense from the packed context (they come from story.md). The craft advice in references/writing-guidelines.md and scene-craft is written for English; in another language keep its aims and use that language's own conventions
• Use the POV character's voice and speech patterns from their packed card
• Ground scenes in the location details from the packed context
• Consult references/writing-guidelines.md for quick prose craft guidance. For the deep reference — the Scene/Sequel unit, dialogue subtext and voice-differentiation, deep POV and psychic distance — use the scene-craft skill.
• Give each speaker their recorded voice, using voice-words and avoiding voice-avoid from their packed character card
• When available, apply the better-writing skill before finalizing prose; the line-editing skill handles the fuller prose pass afterwards
• To check a drafted scene before saving it, pipe it to story prose - (style sheet, filter words, echoes) and story voices - (voice-avoid words) from the project folder. If either reports a check skipped for the book's language, reread the scene for that check instead
• Use the chapter template from references/chapter-template.md
• Include the approved outline in the file above ## Chapter Text (for reference). CLI word counts start at that heading, so an outline kept above it never inflates word-count: run story wordcount . --write after writing to record counts.

Save to chapters/chapter-{NN}.md with appropriate frontmatter.

Create or update a matching scene file in scenes/chapter-{NN}-scene-{NN}.md for each scene. Scene frontmatter should include title, chapter, scene, pov, location, characters, mentions, arcs-advanced, status, date, time, and state-changes so continuity survives beyond prose. Set date (YYYY-MM-DD, or a date in the book's calendar when story.md has one, such as 3 Thaw 412 AF) and time ("HH:MM" or dawn, morning, midday, afternoon, evening, night) on every scene as its moment settles, and travel-hours (a number) when the POV character had to travel since the previous scene: undated scenes switch off the clock and route checks in story continuity without a warning, except an undated scene with travel-hours above 0, which warns; story timeline lists undated scenes. Set outcome on each goal-driven scene record to what actually happened on the page (yes, no, yes-but, no-and), and set the chapter's hook to how it actually ends (cliffhanger, question, revelation, reversal, decision, emotional, resolution).

Write chapter prose directly into the chapter markdown file. Do not stage prose in project-local build scripts, generator scripts, or bulk writer scripts (for example build-*.js) to emit chapters. If a temporary helper is truly unavoidable for mechanical file operations, keep it outside the story project and remove it before finishing.

5. Post-Write Updates

After the chapter is written:

1. Leave the registries alone. Every _index.md registry, including chapters/_index.md and the question, promise, and clue indexes, is generated. story reindex rebuilds those tables from the entity files, and story wordcount . --write refreshes the chapter word counts and then reindexes. Do not add or edit registry rows by hand.

2. Mark the plan in plot/timeline.md - the date and time on the scene records say when this chapter happens, and story timeline orders them, so do not add a row for each scene. Set the Chapter cell to Ch {N} on each planned event this chapter put on the page, and add a row, in chronological order, only for backstory the chapter reveals or a plot event the plan lacks

3. Update arc files - mark advanced plot points with chapter reference

4. Update scene records - make sure every scene has a corresponding scenes/ file

5. Update continuity - after the prose is saved, carry forward character state, object ownership, and knowledge. This is the one time to open continuity/state.md: recording the new state, not reading it for drafting context. The CLI reads its frontmatter, not its body tables (those are optional notes), so record state there:

   current-chapter: 3
   character-state:
     - character: mara-quill
       location: port-kestrel
       physical: bruised ribs
       emotional: wary
   object-state:
     - artifact: brass-key
       owner: mara-quill
       status: active
       since: chapter-03
   knowledge-state:
     - character: mara-quill
       knows: The ledger was forged
       learned-in: chapter-03
   

   story continuity checks these entries and story knowledge <id> --at <chapter> reads knowledge-state. When story.md links other books through follows or precedes, give reveals the series depends on a stable fact id in knowledge-state (see series-continuity)

6. Update the setup records - each setup has one record (see Setups, payoffs, and story time in the shared conventions), and only that record changes:

   • A promise (continuity/promises/) or clue (continuity/clues/) this chapter planted: set status: planted and planted: chapter-{NN}. One it paid off: set status: paid-off and payoff: chapter-{NN}
   • A question (continuity/questions/) this chapter raised: set introduced: chapter-{NN}. One it answered: set status: answered and resolved: chapter-{NN}
   • A new setup or question the chapter put on the page: create its record with story add promise '{Title}' --planted chapter-{NN}, story add clue '{Title}' --planted chapter-{NN}, or story add question '{Title}' --introduced chapter-{NN}
   • A small hint with no record: mark its row in the arc's ## Foreshadowing table planted or paid-off with the chapter. Never add a row there for a promise, clue, or question

7. Note character changes - if a character's status changed (injury, revelation, relationship shift), flag for the user to update the character file

8. Run CLI maintenance when available:

story reindex .
story wordcount . --write
story check .
story next .
story pacing .
story progress .

story check . runs validate, links, and continuity (the continuity check) over one scan, as every skill's maintenance block does. It prints each finding and exits non-zero when there are errors; warnings print but do not fail it. Repair those errors before treating the chapter as done. story next . can name the same errors as a P0 line and still exit 0, without printing the findings, so its exit code is not a continuity result.

story pacing . shows the new chapter's words, scene outcomes, and hook alongside the rest of the book, and warns about runs of yes outcomes, missing sequels, length outliers, or a missing hook.

story progress . reports words against target-words, the deadline, and chapter target-words. Only when the project already has a progress.md (the user keeps a session log) or the user asks to log the session, run story progress . --log instead: it records today's total there, so the report also gives today's words against daily-target-words, the writing streak (which skips days not in writing-days), and the last four weeks; report the streak from it rather than counting by hand.

Present a summary of all updates made.

Scene Breaks

Within a chapter, separate scenes with --- on a line of its own, with a blank line above and below it: right under a line of text, markdown reads --- as a heading underline. Each scene should have a clear POV character (even if the same as the previous scene) and location.

Branching Books

When any chapter has choices in its frontmatter, the book branches: a chapter may be reached by more than one path, and its prose must hold on each. Draft it with the interactive-fiction skill, which follows this workflow and adds the rules for branches, rejoins, endings, and path continuity.

Revision Handoff

When asked to revise or continuity-check an existing chapter, use the revision-continuity skill; for line edits, copyedits, and proofing, use the line-editing skill. This skill owns new drafting and chapter creation; revision-continuity owns targeted edits, continuity audits, and post-draft cleanup.

CLI Maintenance

Use the Story CLI when it is available. If story is not installed, use the bundled fallback node ../story-maintenance/scripts/story.js with the same arguments. Use node <checkout>/bin/story.js instead only when the user names a Story Skills repository checkout or you are working in one. Write the script as an absolute path (resolve the fallback relative to this skill folder) and run it from the folder you would run story from, so . and other relative paths keep their meaning. Use Node, not Bun or a package script: Bun would load that folder's bunfig.toml (which can run code) and .env, and a package script runs from the checkout's root. Registry updates go through story reindex only. If no CLI is available, perform the registry, backlink, word-count, and continuity checks manually, and still do not hand-edit generated _index.md tables.

Reference Files

• references/chapter-template.md - Frontmatter and structure template for chapter files
• references/scene-template.md - Machine-readable continuity template for scenes
• references/writing-guidelines.md - Quick-reference prose craft: show-don't-tell, POV, dialogue, pacing, scene structure, continuity. For the deep reference — the Scene/Sequel unit, dialogue subtext and voice-differentiation, deep POV and psychic distance — use the scene-craft skill.

Shared Conventions

Every story skill follows the shared conventions in ../story-maintenance/references/conventions.md, resolved relative to this skill folder. Read it before creating, renaming, or linking story files. If that file is missing because this skill was installed without story-maintenance, the essentials are: kebab-case ids and filenames, YAML frontmatter on every story-project file, _index.md registry tables that story reindex rebuilds (never edit them by hand), bidirectional links between entities, characters for who is on the page and mentions for who is only referred to, status: deceased plus died-in: chapter-{NN} for deaths, and no project-local generator or build scripts (run only the installed or bundled Story CLI).