novel-writer · AI Novel & Web-Serial Writing
Long-form novel and web-serial writing: from a one-line premise to worldbuilding, character profiles, voice settings, a three-level outline, then chapter-by-chapter drafting.
Its core mechanism is file-based state management: foreshadowing, recaps, and character states live on disk; each chapter loads only the relevant slices, while deterministic scripts handle scaffolding, word counts, and de-AI-slop checks — so canon never breaks across chapters.
Example invocation: "Start a new urban-fantasy web novel and write the golden first three chapters."
Full brief
Positioning
novel-writer is a long-form novel and web-serial writing system: from premise through settings, outline, chapter drafting, and state maintenance — a complete workflow for sustained serialization. Its central problem is long-form consistency, solved with "files as truth + load-on-demand" so that foreshadowing, character profiles, and timelines never break across chapters.
Core capabilities
- Worldbuilding / characters / voice: power systems, hard rules, character dossiers, prose voice and banned-word lists — written once as executable hard facts every later chapter must obey.
- Three-level outline: overview (one-line hook, core conflict, ending direction) → volumes (per-volume arcs) → chapters (table of contents with one-line hooks and foreshadowing points), all registered in a canon file.
- Golden first chapters: the opening three chapters get dedicated polish on hooks, payoffs, reader immersion, and chapter-end cliffhangers.
- Serialization loop: load only relevant slices (bible + this chapter's outline row + recap + involved characters) → optional scene cards → draft → word-count gate (platform target ±15%) → de-AI-slop pass (mechanical slopcheck + text-polisher).
- Sync maintenance: after each finalized chapter, roll-compress the recap, update character states / plot threads / foreshadowing status (planted → paid off), and run a consistency self-check.
- Optional extensions: plot-branch brainstorming (2–3 directions to choose from); converting a chapter into a Xiaohongshu card serial (handed to card-xiaohongshu / xhs-note-creator).
Workflow
- Setup: scaffold the file skeleton (bible/outline/state/chapters templates; never overwrites existing files), define world, characters, voice
- Write the three-level outline with the foreshadowing table
- Polish the golden first chapters
- Serialization loop: load slices → draft chapter → word-count gate → de-AI-slop
- Sync: update state and canon, run the consistency self-check
Inputs & outputs
| Input | Notes |
|---|---|
| Premise / genre | Required — one-line idea or existing settings (asked if missing) |
| Platform | Optional — Zhihu Yanxuan / Fanqie / Qidian / Xiaohongshu cards (Profile default or asked) |
| Book title | Optional — derived from the premise if missing; names the output folder |
| Action | Optional — setup / outline / draft chapter N / continue / adapt to cards (inferred from the conversation) |
Output: a structured outputs/<book>/ tree — bible/ (hard facts), outline/ (three-level outline), state/ (serialization state), chapters/ (drafts).
Boundaries with adjacent skills
- style-transfer: single-passage style rewrites only; no long-form structure.
- text-polisher: single-piece polish and de-AI-slop; no outline or state management.
- social-content: general article writing; no web-novel outline or serialization state.
- skill-zhihu-publisher: publishing step; not the writing.
Fit
- Web-serial writing for platforms like Zhihu Yanxuan, Fanqie, or Qidian
- Long-form projects needing foreshadowing planted and paid off across chapters
- Continuing an existing outline or manuscript from the next chapter
- Adapting finished chapters into Xiaohongshu card serials for redistribution
Before you start
- No API key needed: plain-text writing plus local deterministic scripts (scaffolding, word count, slop checks).
- A one-line premise is enough to begin; platform, title, and action are asked or inferred when unspecified.
- Without a Profile, defaults to third person, ~3,000 words per chapter, and a strong chapter-end hook in the general web-novel style.
novel-writer is part of the Aiglade Skill library. Invoke it from the Aiglade chat box in plain language.