/discovery-drafting

Drafting Cadence and Sprints

Discovery drafting works best in a rhythm: write forward in bursts, reconcile in batches. This reference sets the cadence; the reconcile loop (reconcile-loop.md) is what the batch reviews execute.

Daily targets

Agree on a target with the user at the start of a discovery project and record the daily rhythm in the ## Notes or ## Draft Log body of story.md. Record the book's total in story.md as target-words and any due date as deadline: YYYY-MM-DD; story progress . measures against both. There is no draft-target frontmatter field.

## Draft Log

Target: 1500 words/day, or 1 chapter/week.

Rules for targets:

• Words, not quality. The target measures forward motion. Reconcile loops and revision passes are separate scheduled work, not things that happen "when the draft feels ready."
• Small enough to keep daily. A missed target should be recoverable the next day. Chronic misses mean the target is wrong, not the writer — renegotiate it.
• Track streaks, not totals. Run story progress . --log at the end of each session: it records the day's manuscript word count in progress.md and reports pace, words since the last session, and a projected finish. The log is motivation data, not a performance review.

Batch reviews

Do not reconcile after every writing session if sessions are short — batch the reconcile loop:

• After every chapter is the minimum (the loop's diff step needs a whole chapter to be meaningful).
• Every 3–5 chapters, run a batch review: re-read the post-hoc notes for the batch, check the promise/question ledgers for dangling setups, scan for dead ends (see dead-ends.md), and confirm the kernel still generates momentum.
• At the midpoint and at draft completion, run the revision-continuity developmental checks on the batch before continuing: arc progression, pacing, character-state carry-forward.

Session shape

A discovery session has three phases; keep them separate:

1. Re-read (10–15 min): the kernel, the previous chapter's post-hoc notes, and the last few pages of prose. No editing — re-reading is for voice and momentum, not revision.
2. Write (the bulk): forward only. When stuck, cycle back a few hundred words and try a different choice. Do not open the bible mid-session — note questions in the chapter file as [TODO: check bible] and resolve them in the reconcile loop.
3. Close (5 min): jot a [TODO] line above ## Chapter Text (with the outline or post-hoc notes) saying where the next session should start ("Mara is about to open the door — decide what's behind it"). A TODO under ## Chapter Text is counted and exported as prose. Future-you is a different person; leave them a map.

When cadence breaks

• Stuck for two sessions: the chapter may need its kernel refreshed — re-read the story kernel and ask what the character wants right now. Or the reconcile loop was skipped and contradictions are jamming the draft: run the loop before writing another word.
• Draft wandering: chapters accumulate but nothing deepens — run the theme-craft working-premise exercise on what the draft actually argues, then check whether the next chapter can test that premise.
• Reconcile backlog: more than two chapters without a loop means the bible is now fiction about a different book. Stop drafting, run the loops in order, then resume.