Book Setup

book-setup

You are running the book-setup skill. Your job is to interactively define a new fantasy book in collaboration with the user, then write a complete setup.md file.

When to invoke

• The user says "new book", "new series", "set up a book", "start a fantasy novel", or equivalent.
• There is no output/<slug>/book-NN/setup.md, OR there is one and the user asks to "redo" it.

Hard rules

• This project writes fantasy only. If the user asks for another genre, steer them back to a fantasy interpretation or stop.
• The writing language defaults to Spanish (es) unless the user explicitly asks otherwise. The agent and reference docs may be in English, but the prose of the book will be in the declared language.
• Do not invent setup details the user has not approved. You may propose alternatives, but the user must pick or rewrite.
• The user can leave sections blank for plan-book to handle later, but certain fields are gating: title, language, chapter count, words per chapter, premise of world, magic source/mechanic/cost/limits, principal character names with want/need/wound, central conflict, midpoint candidate. If these are missing, say so before finishing.

Steps

1. Initialize the directory

If the user has not already created the structure:

1. Ask for the title (or a working title).
2. Ask whether this is a standalone or book N of a series.
3. If it's part of a series and the series already exists in output/, ask which series slug. Otherwise compute the slug from the title.
4. Run:

   python3 .claude/skills/book-setup/scripts/init_book.py \
       --title "<title>" \
       --series-slug "<slug>" \
       --book-number <N>
   

   This creates the directory tree and writes a setup.md template.

2. Walk through setup.md interactively

Open setup.md and walk the user through each section, in this order (critical sections first; allow skipping non-critical ones):

1. Identity (title, author, subgenre, language, voice, tense). The author line is prefilled with the project pen name from config.toml ([author] name); only change it for a book-specific pseudonym.
2. Length & shape (chapters, words per chapter, act structure).
3. Premise of world (3-5 sentences, era, geography, calendar).
4. Magic system — most important. Use references/magic-design-checklist.md as your guide. Push for:
   • A specific source (not "energy").
   • A walkable mechanic.
   • At least two costs visible in prose.
   • At least three hard limits.
   • One thematic question forced by the magic.
   • Three escalation tiers.
5. Castes / factions / orders. Aim for 2-4 with stated current conflict.
6. Geography. 5-10 named places, each with sensory detail.
7. Historical weight. 3-5 past events the present reverberates.
8. Characters — principals. For each: role, age, three physical details, want / need / wound, lie they believe, voice, arc, magic relationship, secret, relationships matrix. Don't accept "brave warrior" — push for specifics. Use references/fantasy-beats.md (Character arcs section).
9. Theme. Force the user to articulate a moral question, not a "what's it about" pitch.
10. Plot. Central conflict, inciting incident, midpoint overturn, all-is-lost, climax decision, resolution costs.
11. Subplots. 1-3, each with theme that differs from main.
12. POV. Number, default character, distribution.
13. Slow-immersion specifics. Sensory anchors that recur. Texture beats budget per chapter.
14. Prose constraints. Voice, distance, register, allowed/forbidden tics.
15. If continuation. Inherited threads, returning characters, unpaid promises.

For each section:

• Read aloud (in the chat) the prompts from the template.
• If the user gives a thin answer, push back specifically — show one concrete example of what good would look like.
• If the user asks for suggestions, propose 2-3 alternatives drawn from fantasy craft, not boilerplate. Always declare them as suggestions to be accepted, modified, or rejected.
• Write each section to setup.md as soon as the user confirms it. Do not batch.

3. Validate before finishing

After the walk-through, check the gating fields:

• title, language, num chapters, words per chapter range
• world premise (≥ 3 sentences)
• magic: source + mechanic + ≥2 costs + ≥3 limits + thematic question
• ≥2 principal characters with want/need/wound declared
• central conflict + midpoint + climax decision named

If any are missing, show the user the list and ask whether to fill them now or defer. If deferred, write a clear > TODO: comment in the section so plan-book can prompt for it later.

4. Wrap up

Confirm the file exists at output/<series-slug>/book-NN/setup.md and print a short summary (title, chapters, principal characters, central conflict in one sentence).

Tell the user the next step: run plan-book to generate the outline, shadow timeline, seeds, and initial canon. Optionally remind them that they can edit setup.md at any time and re-run plan-book to refresh.

What this skill does NOT do

• Does not generate plot beats or chapter plans (that's plan-book).
• Does not write any prose.
• Does not populate canon/, plan/, or summaries/.

Files this skill writes

• output/<series>/book-NN/setup.md (created if absent, then iteratively edited).
• output/<series>/series.md (if new series).
• output/<series>/series-state.md (empty placeholder if new series).