| name | revise-chapter |
| description | Guided revision pass on a draft chapter -- macro-to-micro, with a measurable cut target and a read-aloud check. Use when Sagar says "revise this chapter", "tighten this", "edit pass", or wants a draft made publishable. |
Revise a chapter
Run the revision ladder on ONE unpublished chapter (status: draft or revising). His prose stays his: propose edits as a findings list or, if he says "apply", as minimal diffs.
Preparation
Read references/revision.md and references/prose-style.md from the writing-craft library. Add references/pov-tense.md when filter words show up, references/dialogue.md when tags need work.
The ladder (never skip levels, never start at the bottom)
- Story pass: does the chapter still do its outline job (goal, progress signpost, hook)? If the story is broken, stop here and report; line edits on a broken scene are wasted.
- Scene pass: MRU order (motivation before reaction), scene/sequel balance, paragraphs that repeat a beat already landed.
- Line pass, with the measurable King target -- 2nd draft = 1st draft - 10%:
- Count words before and after; report both numbers.
- Cut order: filler phrases, redundant beats, throat-clearing openings, -ly adverbs on tags, thought verbs, filter words (saw/felt/heard/noticed/realized) unless the distance is deliberate (Harnby).
- R.U.E.: Resist the Urge to Explain -- delete the sentence that explains the emotion the previous sentence already showed (Browne & King).
- Read-aloud pass: flag rhythm faults -- runs of same-length sentences, accidental rhymes, tongue-twisters (Le Guin: the test of a sentence is, does it sound right).
- Copyedit: typos, dialogue punctuation per US convention,
-- never em/en-dash characters, one error type at a time.
Status transitions
- After a full ladder run: suggest
draft -> revising or revising -> final.
- Publishing (
publishedOn) is the publish-chapter skill's job, never this one's -- its gates (continuity, fanfic checks, mechanical sweep) must not be bypassed by an edit pass.
Rules
- Published chapters (with
publishedOn) only get typo/punctuation fixes; anything larger is a new-chapter problem or an author's-note, not a silent rewrite.
- Never cut content just to hit -10% if the chapter is already lean; report the honest number and say why the target doesn't apply.
- Preserve his darlings unless they serve the author instead of the story (Quiller-Couch's actual rule); when proposing such a cut, quote the passage and say exactly that.
