novel-writing v1.0.0

name: novel-writing description: Write and repair long-form fiction at novel scale: lock a viewpoint contract and enforce it scene by scene, build scenes with goal/conflict/disaster and sequels with reaction/dilemma/decision, map the four-act spine with subplots, write dialogue with subtext and distinct character voices, and run novel-scale revision passes. Triggers when someone is drafting a novel, stuck in the middle, debugging flat dialogue, losing POV control, or planning a revision across a whole manuscript.

Novel Writing

Purpose

Short fiction lives or dies one scene at a time. Novels die by accumulation: POV drift across 300 pages, a middle that sags because nothing reverses, a cast that all sounds like the author, subplots that vanish at page 200. This skill is the novelist's toolkit for those problems: viewpoint control, scene architecture, novel-scale structure, human-sounding dialogue, and revision passes sized for a manuscript. It pairs with creative-writing-craft for line-level draft repair (scene/summary triage, dialogue rewrite at the sentence level). Use this one when the job spans the whole book.

Workflow

1. Lock the viewpoint contract first

Before writing or repairing anything, name the POV mode and the rule it imposes. POV is a contract about whose perception, knowledge, and voice the prose may use. See references/pov-reference.md for the full mode map.

• Limited (first or close third): one head per scene, no exceptions. Chapter breaks and section breaks are the legal places to switch heads.
• When a draft feels slippery, run the slip test: for each paragraph, ask whose senses and knowledge the sentence could only belong to. Any sentence with no owner is a drift; rewrite it into the scene's head or cut it.
• Omniscient is not a free pass: it needs a consistent narrating voice that owns every transition. If the narrator is invisible, you do not have omniscient, you have drift.
• First person buys intimacy and costs range: the narrator cannot know what they did not witness, and must be unreliable on purpose, not by accident.

2. Build scenes with Swain's machinery

Every scene is a unit of conflict: Goal -> Conflict -> Disaster. Every scene is followed (often by a shorter beat, not a full chapter) by a Sequel: Reaction -> Dilemma -> Decision that processes the disaster and launches the next goal. Details in references/scene-structure.md.

• The scene goal must be concrete and immediately attainable, producing a yes/no scene question ("Will she get the loan?"). Vague goals produce fog.
• End the scene on the disaster (a "No", a "Yes, but", or a "No, and furthermore"), not the reaction. Chapter breaks go between disaster and sequel or inside the sequel, never after everything resolves.
• Inside the scene, alternate MRUs: one external motivation the POV character senses, then the character's internal reaction (feeling, thought, action, speech). Motivation is objective; reaction is subjective.
• Sequel discipline keeps the middle alive: emotional reaction first (instinct, not analysis), then review of what changed, then anticipation of options, then a choice that forms the next scene's goal. Never skip the dilemma; a character who acts without it feels like a plot puppet.

3. Map the four-act spine, then weave subplots

Use structural landmarks as a diagnostic spine, not a fill-in form. See references/novel-structure.md.

• Landmarks: opening image, inciting event, act one crisis (~25%), midpoint reversal (~50%, the story's thematic centerpiece, false victory or false defeat), act three disaster / all is lost (~75%), climax, final image that mirrors the opening and proves change.
• Every subplot gets one line on the map: whose want, which chapters it occupies, and where it resolves. A subplot introduced after the midpoint must pay off before the climax or be cut; a subplot that vanishes for 100 pages was never woven in.
• Plant and payoff ledger: for every surprise in the back half, there must be a plant in the front half the reader could have noticed. Surprises without plants are tricks; plants without payoffs are litter.

4. Write dialogue with subtext and distinct voices

Dialogue fails in novels when five characters share one voice. Build a voice profile for each speaking character before drafting key scenes: syntax habit (short bursts vs winding sentences), diction range, one signature phrase or avoidance, and how stress changes their speech. Details and worked examples in references/dialogue-voices.md.

• Write the subtext first: what each character wants from this exchange and will not say directly. If both characters say exactly what they mean, the scene has no dialogue problem, it has no conflict.
• Prefer action beats and plain "said" over said-bookisms and adverbs.
• Trim like real speech minus the boredom: cut greetings, filler, and lines that tell the other speaker what they already know. Keep interruptions, oblique answers, subject changes.
• Read every exchange aloud. Cut any line the character would not actually say to this person in this situation.

5. Revise at novel scale, big to small

Never polish sentences that might be cut. Run one pass at a time, in order:

1. Spine pass. One sentence per chapter: what it does. Check the landmarks hold (inciting, midpoint reversal, all is lost, climax), the protagonist visibly changes, and scenes connect with "therefore" or "but", not "and then". Cut or merge chapters that do nothing.
2. POV pass. The slip test across the whole manuscript. Fix drifts, name the head of every scene in your notes, verify no scene narrates what its viewpoint character could not know.
3. Pacing pass. Mark each chapter scene vs sequel. A run of three sequels in a row sags; a run of five disaster scenes in a row exhausts. Alternate tension and release deliberately.
4. Subplot pass. Check the subplot map: every thread resolves or gets cut, every back-half surprise has a front-half plant.
5. Dialogue pass. Voice profiles on, read aloud, trim filler.
6. Line pass. Only now. Concrete verbs, specific nouns, varied rhythm.

Output Contract

Match the deliverable to the ask:

• Scene build: scene goal, scene question, goal/conflict/disaster beats, sequel (reaction/dilemma/decision), and the opening lines. Every beat named before any prose.
• POV diagnosis: the mode the draft claims, every paragraph that drifts, the head each belongs to, and the rewritten fix.
• Structure map: chapter-by-chapter one-liners, the landmark positions, the subplot table, the plant/payoff ledger, and what is missing.
• Dialogue pass: voice profiles, the subtext statement per exchange, before/after on the worst passages with one line per change naming the principle.
• Revision plan: which passes are needed and what each targets in this manuscript. No generic praise filler; if a section works, say so in one line and move on.

Operating Rules

1. One head per scene. Never head-hop inside a scene; scene and section breaks are where viewpoint changes.
2. A scene must end worse than it began for the POV character. "Yes, and everything is fine" is not an ending, it is a stop.
3. Never summarize a turning point. Inciting event, midpoint reversal, climax: dramatized or they do not count.
4. Dialogue must do at least one of: reveal character, advance plot, shift a relationship, deliver necessary information. Otherwise cut it.
5. Every back-half surprise needs a front-half plant. No surprise without a setup, no setup without a payoff.
6. Story pass before line pass, always. Never polish prose that might die.
7. Factual claims about published craft (book titles, author advice, quoted rules) come from the sources file. Do not invent quotes. All worked examples in references/worked-scenes.md are original to this skill.
8. Keep this file tight. The mode map, scene machinery, structure map, and voice technique live in references/; worked examples are in references/worked-scenes.md.