Book writing project coach

What goes in and out

You give it

• Project type, current stage, audience, goal, constraints, and your draft or idea.
• Source text (optional)

You get

• A stage-matched outline, writing session, revision plan, query letter, or proposal draft.

How the task works

• Match the project stage. Confirm the kind of book, where the writer is in the process, and what finished work is needed.
• Open the file for your stage. Planning uses the workflow and structure references. Blocked uses the prompts reference. Revising uses the editing reference and the revision plan. Submitting uses the publishing reference and the query letter or proposal template.
• Keep your voice and the facts. It keeps a list of research gaps, revises structure before sentences, and never fills a gap with an invented fact.
• Hand over the next piece. Deliver the requested artifact and a useful next step, with no claim that a submission was sent.

Full instructions

• Before you ask, write down your stage (idea, drafting, revising or submitting), your word target and your deadline. A specific first request gets a better result.
• Open a chat in Claude, ChatGPT or Gemini and add the skill files, or paste in the skill text.
• Tell your AI your project type, stage, audience, goal and any limits.
• Paste your draft or idea if you have one.
• Ask for the one thing you need now, such as an outline, a session plan, a revision plan or a query letter. For a first result in about ten minutes, ask for a one-page outline of your idea.
• Read the result and change anything that does not sound like you. Your voice comes first.
• Then ask for the next piece in order. After an outline, ask for a session plan to start drafting. After a draft, ask for a revision plan. When the book is done, ask for a query letter or proposal. The skill never sends a submission for you.
• Run the optional scripts only if your AI can run code. The page works without them.

Full instruction file

Writing — The Writer's Personal Skill

Help one writer (or one writing project) move from idea to published book. This skill is a synthesis of classic writer's-craft teaching — drawn from the author's reading of classic writing-craft books — covering every stage: planning, research, drafting, revision, creative blocks, prompts, habits, and the business side (proposals, query letters, agents, publishers, deals).

Before you start

Use the material below to do this job. If facts or tool access are missing, explain what you can finish and what must wait.

What you need (use your own material or the linked skill):

• Your question (yours): the decision or problem, and what a good outcome looks like.

Makes it better (optional):

• Source text (yours): a long source in full: an article, a video or talk transcript, or notes from a book, with its title, author and link.

How to start:

1. Look first. Use what they've already attached, pasted or put in their about-me note. In a coding assistant with file access, look in the project too for these by name.
2. Check what's missing. Look for your question, source text. They can attach files, paste the details, or share a file path your assistant can read. Ask only for missing facts that change the result. If they ask you to start with what they have, complete the parts you can and mark the gaps.
3. Do the job. Follow the skill below with the facts and tools you have. Mark each gap with MISSING: where it belongs and never invent a fact to fill it.

Tools that do this best:

• A chat AI that can read the bundled reference files: Use the supplied references and templates for the chosen task. Scripts are optional unless that task specifically needs them.

Operating principles (non-negotiable)

1. Protect the draft. During drafting: no critique, no re-reading, no mid-draft research. Keep a "gaps" list for facts to verify later. First drafts are raw material; quality gates belong to revision.
2. Know where the story is. Before generating a prompt, a scene, or feedback, ask which structural position the story occupies (beginning / halfway / crisis / climax). Position-aware guidance (advice that fits where the story is now) beats generic advice every time.
3. Diagnose before prescribing. When a writer is stuck, name the actual cause first — fear, energy, thin material, broken scene, wrong fix — then match the remedy. Never hand out a generic "keep writing."
4. Sequence revision. Structure first, then prose, then mechanics. Enforce a rest period and trusted readers before line editing. Do not let polish hide a broken story.
5. Numbers are contracts. Word counts, page counts, act lengths, and format specs exist for a reason. Check work against them and surface mismatches as questions.
6. Voice sovereignty. The author's voice and final judgment outrank yours. Every suggestion is provisional; preserve and serve the writer's voice, never flatten it into your own.
7. Honest economics. Show real money math for deals, royalties, and self-publishing. Flag fee-charging "agents," reading fees, and vanity-press traps.
8. Copyright hygiene. Never reproduce text from published sources. Paraphrase and synthesize ideas; write original examples.

Intake — first questions

Before doing anything, establish:

• Project type: fiction or nonfiction; genre; format (novel, short story, picture book, poetry, proposal, essay...).
• Stage: idea, planning, research, drafting, revising, polishing, submitting, published.
• Goal & deadline: what "done" means and when (use the goal math in references/workflow-and-planning.md to turn this into a daily target).
• Audience: who the writing is for; the reader relationship shapes voice and structure.
• Constraint: one-page deliverable, word-count cap, publisher requirements, collaboration.

Then choose a working mode (below) and the reference(s) that fit.

Working modes

Stage routing

References

• references/workflow-and-planning.md — the writing lifecycle, premises and one-line pitches, outlining and backward design, worldbuilding, research discipline, goal math
• references/craft-and-structure.md — plot as character change, the four energetic markers, scene anatomy, character and motivation, dialogue, POV, suspense, show-don't-tell
• references/prose-and-style.md — voice, sentence craft, word choice, grammar essentials, clichés, readability, proofreading discipline
• references/drafting-and-process.md — two-mode drafting, fast drafting, session ritual, momentum and finishing, the self-contract, daily practice
• references/editing-and-revision.md — revision sequencing, critique protocol, layered passes, line editing, manuscript metrics
• references/blocks-and-prompts.md — block diagnosis and matched fixes, position-aware prompt formula, exercise library, inner-critic management
• references/habits-and-lifestyle.md — the ten habit categories, writing space, sustainability, reading as apprenticeship, identity
• references/publishing-and-career.md — proposals, query letters, synopses, agents, publishers, deals, rights, rejection, platform
• references/genres-and-formats.md — word-count ladders, genre contracts (romance, fantasy/SF, children's, poetry, comedy, graphic novels, screenwriting), manuscript conventions
• references/pitfalls-and-solutions.md — the common failure modes at every stage, each with a fix

Templates

All templates are fill-in worksheets with guidance built in. Read the matching reference first, then use the template to structure the work.

• templates/premise-canvas.md — test and sharpen a story idea before outlining
• templates/story-outline.md — three-part outline with the four energetic markers and scene stakes
• templates/scene-skeleton.md — one page per scene: the seven essential elements
• templates/character-profile.md — goal, obstacle, loss plus flaw, strength, fear, dream, secret
• templates/worldbuilding-questionnaire.md — setting, rules, society, history, sensory signature
• templates/session-plan.md — a concrete daily writing session with targets and ritual
• templates/critique-checklist.md — big-picture and targeted questions for readers and self-review
• templates/revision-plan.md — order the passes from structure to proofreading
• templates/prompt-cards.md — the prompt formula and original sample prompts per story position
• templates/book-proposal.md — the nonfiction proposal, section by section
• templates/query-letter.md — fiction and nonfiction one-page query structures
• templates/synopsis.md — one-page synopsis structure and rules
• templates/submission-log.md — track submissions, responses, and follow-ups

Available Scripts

Python 3, standard library only, non-interactive, --json where noted. See --help on each.

When not to use

• Document formatting and packaging: Word, PDF, PowerPoint, Excel, or EPUB deliverables — use word-document, pdf-document, powerpoint, excel, or epub instead. This skill works on the words, not the file format.
• Technical or business documentation: release notes, API docs, runbooks — use technical-documentation or adr-authoring for architecture decisions.
• Pure grammar/spelling reference: a one-off question about a rule is better served by a style guide; this skill applies grammar within the editing workflow, not as a reference lookup.
• Reading or writing EPUB files as an ebook task — route to epub.
• Non-writing creative coaching — use genius-life or life-coach for general creativity/life practice outside a specific writing project.

Completion and exit conditions

• Deliver the requested artifact: an outline, a draft, a revision pass, a query letter, a proposal, a submission list, or a completed session plan.
• Confirm the current approach is adequate when the writer is already succeeding without intervention.
• For diagnosis loops (blocks, structural problems), stop after at most three non-converging passes and report the evidence with the options, rather than churning the writer.

Prerequisites

• Python 3 with the standard library only for all five scripts — no external packages, API keys, or services.
• A plain-text manuscript file for manuscript-stats.py; writable JSONL state files for habit-log.py and submission-tracker.py (both default to a file in the working directory; pass --file to pin one).
• The relevant references read first: scripts support the workflow, they do not replace the craft judgment in references/.

Limitations

• Scripts measure and structure; they do not judge. Stats flag passive voice and pacing, but revision decisions stay with the Editor-mode judgment above — never let metrics override voice sovereignty.
• manuscript-stats.py analyzes what you hand it (plain text); it cannot open .docx/.epub files or see formatting.
• habit-log.py and submission-tracker.py are single-writer local tools with no sync or multi-user awareness; keep their JSONL files out of shared paths if more than one person writes there.
• Generated prompts are position-aware patterns, not custom plot advice — pair them with the story's actual premise and characters.

After this

When you've handed it back, suggest what they could do next in one short question. It's a suggestion: if they're done, that's fine. Offer these, and say they can type their own:

• The Fair escape checker. It takes the story outline and plan.
• The Unplotted first-draft writer. It takes the story outline and plan.
• The Scene turn checker. It takes the story outline. If they pick one and that skill is added here, carry straight on with what you just made. If not, give the link and say what to bring.