Draft

Structure is settled; build the prose that serves it. Grow one unit at a time, keeping the reader's footing at every step — the two failure modes of drafting are writing ahead of the user and writing ahead of the reader.

The loop

1. Read the inputs in full: the outline contract (spine or story engine), the bible where one exists, the fragment pile. State the spine — the claim the piece argues, or the story engine (want, obstacle, dramatic question) — so every block has something to serve.
2. Set the reader's starting point. List the concepts or facts the reader is assumed to hold (prerequisites). Everything else must be grounded inside the piece before a later block leans on it. This one lever decides who the piece is for: demand too much up front and you shut readers out; ground too much inside and the opening drowns in setup.
3. Grow one unit at a time. Before each unit, answer: what does the reader need next that the spine demands? That answer chooses the unit. Write only the unit in hand — the user may redirect at any seam, and nothing written ahead of a decision survives the redirect.
4. Choose the form deliberately and say why: scene vs summary, prose vs list, paragraph vs table (fiction moves in references/fiction-scenes.md; nonfiction forms in references/block-forms.md).
5. Write to the file immediately when the unit is agreed. Re-read the file from disk before every write — the user may have edited between turns. Change only the block in hand; never overwrite user text.
6. Stop when the spine is made and carried — the claim proven, or the dramatic question answered and the exit state reached. Sentence polish is writing-edit's; diagnosis is writing-critique's.

At real forks — the opening, a scene's approach, a pivot the outline left open — write 2–3 candidate versions and let the user pick. Candidates at junctures are how the draft stays the user's; outside junctures, just write.

Mining the source

Treat outlines, fragment piles, and transcripts as a quarry, not a script: split, merge, rework, and rephrase fragments into one voice. The pile is there to be mined.

Name gaps; don't paper over them. When the piece needs something the material does not contain — an example, a scene, a number, a reaction — stop and say so: "this scene needs her refusal and we don't have one; give me one now or we cut it." Never invent a fact, a quote, or a story event to bridge a gap; inventing is how drafts quietly go wrong and why bibles exist.

Fiction branch

Scenes, not explanation. Read references/fiction-scenes.md before the first fictional scene: scene/sequel rhythm, interiority and narrative distance, dialogue as action with subtext, and the exposition moves that keep the reader oriented without an info-dump. The non-negotiables:

• Every scene has a turn — the exit state differs from the entry state.
• Connect with therefore / but; two and then scenes in a row means one is dead.
• Grounding discipline: no concept, term, place, or fact of the world may be used before the prose has established it — and every newly established fact goes back to the bible in the same session.
• Interiority is the point: what it's like to be this person now. Summary reports events; scenes put the reader behind the eyes.

Nonfiction branch

One claim per block; the block states it, supports it, and stops. Evidence before adjectives. Transitions by logic — therefore, but — rather than by sequence — also, next — so the piece reads as an argument, not a list of adjacent facts.

Out of scope

Fixing sentences that already work, reordering settled structure without flagging it, editing the bible, or publishing-format concerns the user didn't raise.