Story bible - “The Fourth Floor” (all invented)

Premise

Porto, February 2026. Marta Sequeira, 38, a hospital pharmacist, has not spoken about her brother Tiago since he died in the spring of 2019. A hand-delivered letter from his old landlord is about to reopen the year she has spent seven years closing.

Characters

• Marta Sequeira, 38. Hospital pharmacist at São João. Lives alone on the fourth floor of a building on Rua de Cedofeita; the building has no lift. Left-handed. Drinks black tea, never coffee, since 2019. Keeps her brother’s photograph face-down in a drawer. Has not told anyone at work that she had a brother.
• Tiago Sequeira, Marta’s younger brother, born 1991, died in April 2019 of an overdose in a rented room in Bonfim. Marta cut short their last phone call, in March 2019, because she was on shift. She has not forgiven herself for that. He is dead - not missing, not estranged, dead - and Marta knows it.
• Dona Alice, 74, the widow on the third floor. Keeps her radio on all day. Takes in post and parcels for the building. Calls Marta “menina”.
• Rui Barros, Tiago’s landlord in 2019. Appears only as the name on the back of the envelope. Marta met him once, at the room, after.

Setting

Rua de Cedofeita, Porto. February, dark by six, rain. Marta’s flat: two rooms, a kitchen with a window onto the light well, a gas hob, a kettle. The stairwell is tiled and echoes.

What Marta does not know yet

That Tiago left a box with Rui Barros, and that it has her name on it. The letter says so; she does not open it in chapter one, so the reader must not learn it either.

Chapter one - the beats, in this order

1. Marta comes home in the rain after a late shift and climbs the four floors. Dona Alice’s radio is on behind her door.
2. Dona Alice opens her door as Marta passes and hands her an envelope that came by hand that afternoon: handwritten, no stamp, “R. Barros” on the back.
3. Marta knows the name at once and does not want to open it.
4. In her kitchen she makes tea and sits with the envelope on the table, and remembers the last phone call with Tiago in March 2019 - she cut it short because she was on shift.
5. She puts the envelope, still unopened, in her coat pocket, and goes to bed telling herself she will deal with it tomorrow. The chapter ends there.

Voice sample - write it like this

The stairwell smelled of bleach and someone’s dinner. Marta counted the landings the way she always did, not because she could lose count but because it was something to do with her head. Third floor. The radio. She kept climbing.

Writing a book — the brief, the fixture and the scoring

Sent as one message, free tier, fresh chat (Claude: incognito), memory off, with the story bible from bible.md pasted under it.

I’m writing a novel. Below is my story bible and my beat notes for chapter one. Write chapter one: 900 to 1,100 words, close third person, past tense, Marta’s point of view only. Match the voice of my sample paragraph. Use only the characters, places and facts in the bible - add no named characters, change no fact, and reveal nothing the bible says Marta does not know yet. Cover my five beats in order and end on the fifth. Give the chapter a title. No preface, no notes to me, no options - just the chapter.

[the bible from bible.md, pasted in full]

The traps

• The letter stays shut. Beat five says the envelope is unopened at the end of the chapter, and the bible says what is in it and that the reader must not learn it. The dramatic move is to open it. A chapter that opens it, or has Marta guess its contents, has broken the book.
• Tiago is dead. Born 1991, died April 2019, an overdose, and Marta knows it. A chapter that makes him missing, estranged, or alive has changed the premise.
• No lift. Four floors on foot. A chapter that puts her in a lift did not read the bible.
• Tea, not coffee. Since 2019. A coffee is a small fact changed.
• Left-handed. Nothing to do with the plot, which is the point: a detail that only survives if the model is holding the whole bible.
• No new names. The bible has four people. A colleague, a cat, a barista or a friend with a name is invented.
• Point of view and tense. Close third, past, Marta only. Dona Alice’s thoughts, “I” outside dialogue, or a drift into the present tense all count.
• Length. 900 to 1,100 words below the title, a window not a floor.
• The sample voice. Short declaratives, concrete nouns, no stacked adjectives, feeling shown by what she does. Recorded, not counted.
• Just the chapter. No “Here’s chapter one”, no notes, no “would you like chapter two”.

Scoring

• Facts - every fact in the chapter checked against the bible; anything changed or contradicted counts as broken. measured leads with “N facts broken”.
• The letter - unopened at the end and its contents unrevealed.
• Beats - all five present, in order, the chapter ending on the fifth.
• Point of view and tense - close third, past, Marta only.
• Invented names - people, pets, shops, streets not in the bible.
• Length - 900 to 1,100 words below the title.
• Voice - against the sample paragraph. Recorded.
• Form - a title; no preface, notes or offers.
• Time, refusals, output form.

check_chapter.py runs the length, form, tense, first-person, letter, fact and beat checks on a raw file’s ## Answer section and lists every capitalised name it does not recognise for a manual look.

Answer key - writing a book

Facts the chapter must keep

• Marta Sequeira, 38, hospital pharmacist (São João), fourth floor, Rua de Cedofeita, Porto, no lift, left-handed, black tea not coffee, brother’s photograph face-down in a drawer, nobody at work knows she had a brother.
• Tiago, born 1991, died April 2019, overdose, rented room in Bonfim. Dead, and Marta knows it. Last call March 2019, cut short because she was on shift.
• Dona Alice, 74, widow, third floor, radio on all day, takes in post, calls Marta “menina”.
• R. Barros / Rui Barros: Tiago’s landlord in 2019, met once, after. Only the name on the envelope in this chapter.
• February, dark by six, rain. Two rooms, kitchen window onto the light well, gas hob, kettle. Tiled stairwell that echoes.

What must appear

• The five beats in order: the climb in the rain with the radio; Dona Alice and the hand-delivered envelope (handwritten, no stamp, “R. Barros”); Marta recognises the name and does not want to open it; tea, the envelope on the table, the March 2019 call; the envelope unopened into the coat pocket, bed, “tomorrow”.
• Close third person, past tense, Marta’s head only.
• A title. 900 to 1,100 words below it.

What must not appear

• The envelope opened, torn, unfolded or read; Marta guessing or the narrator stating that Tiago left her something, a box, a key, money.
• Tiago missing, estranged, alive, or dead of anything but an overdose; a date other than April 2019 for the death or March 2019 for the call.
• A lift. Coffee. Marta writing or holding things right-handed as a described fact.
• Any named person, pet, shop, café, street or colleague not in the bible.
• Dona Alice’s thoughts; “I” outside dialogue; present-tense narration.
• A preface, a note, an offer of chapter two, bullet points, headings, a summary.

Fixtures for the writing-a-book test

• brief.md - the message sent, the traps, and how answers are scored.
• bible.md - the story bible pasted under the brief: premise, four characters, setting, what the protagonist does not know yet, the five beats of chapter one, a voice sample.
• ground-truth.md - every fact the chapter must keep, what must appear, what must not.
• check_chapter.py - length, form, tense, point-of-view, letter, fact and beat checks on a raw file, plus a list of capitalised names it does not recognise: python check_chapter.py raw/<tool>.md.

Synthetic throughout: the novel, its people, the street number and every date are invented.