Line Editing

Overview

Own the prose-quality passes that come after structure is settled: the line edit (sentence clarity, rhythm, precision, voice), character-voice differentiation, the copyedit against style-sheet.md, a read-aloud pass, and a proof pass on a built copy. Every change is proposed with a before/after and a one-line rationale so the author can accept or reject it. The author's voice is the standard, not the agent's taste. The better-writing skill, when installed, is an optional complement for anti-generic checks; this skill does not depend on it.

Prerequisites

A story project with story.md and drafted chapters (status draft or later). Read style-sheet.md if present; if it is missing or thin, build it first with the voice-style skill, because the copyedit checks against it.

When to Use

• A chapter's structure is settled and the prose needs polish
• Dialogue sounds the same from every speaker
• Preparing a manuscript for beta readers, an editor, or submission
• The line, copyedit, or proof revision pass is next in story passes
• NOT for structural, plot, or continuity revision (use revision-continuity; line-edit only after those passes, or the polish is wasted)
• NOT for setting house style or the voice description (use voice-style; this skill applies it)
• NOT for scene-level craft such as deep POV, subtext, or exposition strategy (use scene-craft)
• NOT for acting on external reader notes (use feedback-triage)

Workflow

1. Scope and permission

1. Ask which chapters and which pass: line edit, voice differentiation, copyedit, read-aloud, or proof. Default order is the one below.
2. Ask how heavy the edit should be: light (errors and clear improvements only), medium (tighten and clarify), or heavy (restructure sentences and paragraphs). Default to light.
3. Never rewrite a passage wholesale without explicit permission. Propose edits; apply only what the author accepts, or apply all on explicit instruction.
4. Snapshot before a multi-chapter pass (see Draft Snapshots in the revision-continuity skill), and mark the pass in progress. If story.md has no revision-passes yet, story passes . --init writes the default ladder first; story passes . shows where the book is.

story passes . --start line

2. Line edit

1. Read story.md (POV, tense, Tone & Style), the style sheet's Voice section, and the chapter. Run story prose . for the chapter's counts.
2. Work paragraph by paragraph with references/line-edit-checklist.md: clarity, precision, economy, rhythm, POV distance, and voice.
3. Present edits in the format in references/edit-note-format.md: location, before, after, and one line of rationale. Group by paragraph; lead with the highest-impact changes; cap a batch at about 20 so the author can review them.
4. Leave passages that are unusual but deliberate. When unsure whether a quirk is voice or error, ask.

3. Differentiate character voices

story voices .

The report fingerprints each character's attributed dialogue (sentence length, contractions, questions, exclamations, signature words) and warns when two voices are near-identical, when a character says a voice-avoid word, and when a voice-words entry never appears.

1. For near-identical pairs, read both characters' Voice & Speech Patterns sections and propose line-level changes that follow them: vocabulary, sentence length, what each avoids saying, how each deflects. See the voice section of references/line-edit-checklist.md.
2. If a character file has no voice notes, propose voice-words and voice-avoid lists drawn from their best existing lines, and ask before adding them to the character file.
3. A line is attributed only when the narration names the speaker next to a speech verb or, failing that, names exactly one character in the paragraph. Pronoun tags (she said) and untagged lines are invisible to the report, so the POV character in close third is often under-counted; read those lines by hand, or name the tags in a sample chapter and rerun. The near-identical warning reads "X and Y may sound alike" and needs five or more lines from each character.

4. Copyedit

1. Mark the pass: story passes . --start copyedit.
2. Run story prose . and fix every avoided spelling. Then work through references/copyedit-checklist.md against style-sheet.md: grammar, punctuation, dialogue punctuation, capitalisation, hyphenation, numbers, and consistency of names and terms (check the glossary).
3. Record every new decision in style-sheet.md in the same change, so the next chapter follows it.
4. Tell the user plainly: this is a consistency and correctness pass, not a substitute for a professional copyeditor on a book going to print.

5. Read-aloud pass

Follow references/read-aloud-guide.md. Build the narration script:

story build . --format narration

Offer to play chapters with the system's text-to-speech if one is installed (say on macOS; espeak-ng or spd-say on Linux). Check with command -v; ask before installing anything. Listen for stumbles, unintended rhymes, tongue-twisters, and runs of same-length sentences; record them as edit notes.

6. Proof pass

1. Mark the pass: story passes . --start proof.
2. Build the copy the reader will see:

story build . --format html
story build . --format print --trim 6x9

3. Proof against references/copyedit-checklist.md's proof section: typos introduced by editing, doubled or missing words, broken scene breaks, chapter headings, matter pages, widows and orphans in the print copy. Cite locations by the HTML copy's paragraph anchors (ch03-p12).
4. Rendering the print HTML to PDF needs a paged-media engine the user installs (Paged.js CLI, WeasyPrint, or Prince); ask before installing.

7. Close the pass

1. Summarise what changed, what was kept on purpose, and any style-sheet or character-file updates.
2. Update chapter status only when the author agrees (draft to revised).
3. Mark the pass done, for example story passes . --done line, and run CLI Maintenance.

Conventions

• The author's voice wins. Edit toward what the prose is already trying to do, not toward a generic "good prose" standard.
• One rationale line per change, naming the effect (clearer subject, cuts a filter word, restores past tense), never "sounds better".
• Edits are made directly in the chapter markdown, below ## Chapter Text; never through a script that rewrites prose in bulk.
• Style decisions go in style-sheet.md; voice decisions about a character go in the character file (voice-words, voice-avoid, Voice & Speech Patterns), which stays canon.
• A line edit does not change events, facts, or who knows what. If an edit would, stop and hand it to revision-continuity.

CLI Maintenance

Use the Story CLI when it is available. If story is not installed, use bun run story -- from the Story Skills repository checkout or the bundled fallback node ../story-maintenance/scripts/story.js with the same arguments, resolving the path relative to this skill folder. If no CLI is available, apply the checklists by reading and keep word counts current by hand.

After editing chapters, character voice fields, or the style sheet:

story wordcount . --write
story prose .
story voices .
story links .
story validate .

Reference Files

• references/line-edit-checklist.md - Paragraph-level line edit checks (clarity, precision, economy, rhythm, POV distance, voice) and character-voice differentiation levers
• references/copyedit-checklist.md - Copyedit and proof checks against the style sheet: grammar, punctuation, dialogue punctuation, consistency, and the proof pass on built copies
• references/read-aloud-guide.md - Running a read-aloud pass with the narration build and OS text-to-speech, and what to listen for
• references/edit-note-format.md - How to present edits to the author: before/after with rationale, batching, and recording accepted and rejected changes