Revise Chapter

revise-chapter

You are running the revise-chapter skill. The chapter exists. The critique has named specific issues. Your job is targeted edits, not a rewrite.

Hard rules

• Edit in place, surgically. Use the Edit tool. Do not rewrite the whole chapter.
• Match the surrounding prose exactly. Voice, rhythm, distance, vocabulary. A revision should be invisible.
• One issue at a time. Make each Edit address one finding from the critique. Don't bundle unrelated fixes into a single Edit.
• Do not change plot. The chapter's events do not move. You are changing how it reads, not what happens.
• Preserve seed plants. Lines that carry seeds may be lightly rephrased but never removed or relocated to a different scene.

Modes

Mode: polish (default)

Address all SHOULD-fix items from notes/critique-chNN.md. Anti- pattern phrases get replaced with specific sensory alternatives. Weak subtext gets a layer added. Telegraphed seeds get rephrased to embed more naturally. Flat dialogue gets sharpened.

Mode: trim

The chapter is over target. Cut without losing texture. Look for:

• Repeated sensory beats (kept one, cut the rest)
• Over-explained subtext (cut the explanation, keep the gesture)
• Long monologues — let action carry weight instead
• Adjective stacks ("the dim, cold, silent room")

Goal: bring the chapter within target range while preserving every plot beat, texture scene, and seed.

Mode: tighten-seeds

The seed envelope was off — seeds telegraphed, echoes verbatim, payoff explained. Walk each seed in the envelope and adjust only those lines using references/seed-craft.md rules:

• Plants: embed in scene action, no flag words.
• Echoes: oblique, different sensory register.
• Payoffs: trust the reader; remove "she realized" / "it dawned".

Steps

1. Load the critique

Read notes/critique-chNN.md. If it doesn't exist, run critique-chapter first or ask the user for an explicit list of issues.

2. Apply edits one-by-one

For each issue (in MUST → SHOULD → CONSIDER order):

1. Find the exact line in the chapter via Read/Grep.
2. Use Edit with the smallest possible old_string that uniquely identifies the spot.
3. Replace with the targeted fix. Match surrounding voice.
4. Re-read the surrounding paragraph to verify it still flows.

If you cannot find a clean fix without rewriting a paragraph, skip the issue and report it rather than risk damaging the chapter.

3. Report

No word count — do not count words or compare length to the setup range in any mode (the pipeline never measures generated length back to the model). Trim mode is done when every flagged padding finding is cut, not when a number is reached; a re-critique judges the result.

Print:

• Number of edits made, grouped by tier.
• Any issues skipped (with reason).
• Suggested next step: critique-chapter <N> again, or update-canon <N>.

What this skill does NOT do

• Does not run update-canon (the chapter is locked in only when the user agrees).
• Does not modify plan/, canon/, or summaries/.
• Does not invent content. Every replacement must be derivable from the existing scene + canon + plan.