# 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.