/submission

Submission

Overview

Get a finished manuscript out the door. This skill checks submission readiness, drafts the submission package (query letter, pitch, synopsis, blurb, comp titles), builds the manuscript in submission format, and keeps a tracker of where the book has gone. Package files live under submission/ in the story project. The author sends every submission themselves; this skill prepares materials and records outcomes.

Prerequisites

A story project with a complete or near-complete draft. Verify story.md exists in the project root and read its status, genre, sub-genre, premise, author (or authors for a co-written book), and contact fields. If status is not complete or revising, tell the user the package can be drafted now but the readiness check will fail until the draft is finished.

When to Use

• Checking whether a manuscript is ready to submit
• Drafting or revising a query letter, pitch, synopsis, blurb, or comp list
• Building a Shunn-format manuscript for agents or magazines
• Writing a retailer or back-cover description for self-publishing
• Recording queries sent and responses received
• NOT for self-publishing production (ISBNs, retailer metadata, print interiors, launch, rights): use the publishing skill. This skill still drafts the blurb and retailer description it uses
• NOT for revising the manuscript itself (use revision-continuity)
• NOT for reader feedback rounds (use feedback-triage)

Hard Rules

• Never invent the author's bio, credentials, awards, publication history, platform, or contact details. Ask the user, or leave a clearly marked [TODO: author to supply] placeholder.
• Never invent agent or publisher names, submission guidelines, dates, or responses. Tracker entries come from the user.
• Never send, email, or upload anything. The user submits.
• Never claim sales figures, bestseller status, awards, or endorsements for comp titles or the author that the user has not confirmed.
• Package copy describes the book as written. Read the manuscript and the bible; do not promise events, tone, or an ending the draft does not deliver.

Workflow

1. Readiness check

Run the deterministic checks and report every finding before drafting:

story validate .
story links .
story continuity .
story prose .
story wordcount . --write
story report .

Then check what the CLI cannot:

1. Validate, links, and continuity have no errors. List warnings for the user to accept or fix.

2. story prose . shows no avoided spellings, and the user has reviewed the other findings. If style-sheet.md is missing or still the scaffold, suggest the voice-style skill first.

3. Every chapter has status: revised, final, or complete. List any still at outline or draft.

4. The total word count sits inside the range for the category in references/word-count-norms.md. Those ranges are rough conventions: state the number and the range, and ask the user to confirm current norms for their market. Never pad or cut to hit a number without the user's direction.

5. No [TODO markers remain in chapter prose. story validate warns about each chapter that still has one.

6. Open questions and planted promises are resolved, or deliberately left for a sequel (check story.md precedes). Once story.md is status: complete, every open question and planned or planted promise or clue is a story continuity error, which fails the story-checks CI. No status means "pays off in the next book", so for each thread the user confirms is left for a sequel, add an entry to continuity/exemptions.md rather than changing its status:

   ---
   type: exemption-log
   exemptions:
     - code: complete-with-open-promise
       pattern: "continuity/promises/the-sealed-letter.md is still planted"
       reason: "Pays off in book two."
   ---

   Rerun story continuity . and confirm the finding shows as dismissed.

Give a verdict: ready, ready-with-caveats (list them), or not-ready (list the blockers and hand them to revision-continuity).

2. Pitch and logline

1. Read story.md (premise, synopsis), the main arc files, and the protagonist's character file.
2. Draft a one-sentence pitch: protagonist + goal + obstacle + stakes, in under 35 words. ../story-init/references/title-logline.md has the logline recipe.
3. Offer two or three variants; the user picks. Save the chosen pitch at the top of submission/query.md.

3. Comp titles

Follow references/comp-titles.md. Propose candidates with a one-line reason each, mark every one unverified until the user confirms year, category, and fit, and save the agreed list to submission/comps.md.

4. Query letter

Follow references/query-letter.md. Draft submission/query.md with the hook, one or two book paragraphs, the metadata line (title, genre, word count rounded to the nearest thousand, comps), and a bio placeholder the author fills in. Keep the letter between 250 and 350 words. If the user names a specific agent, add a personalization line only from facts the user provides.

5. Synopsis

1. Generate the mechanical draft:

   story synopsis . --pages 1 --out submission/synopsis-1-page.md
   story synopsis . --pages 3 --out submission/synopsis-3-page.md

2. The CLI output is a scaffold stitched from the story.md synopsis and each arc's Setup, Rising Action, Climax, and Resolution sections. Rewrite it into polished prose: present tense, third person, main characters' names in capitals on first use, every major turn, and the ending revealed. Agents expect the ending; never withhold it.

3. Keep the 1-page version near 500 words and the 3-page version near 1,500. Overwrite the generated files with the rewritten versions and add the frontmatter from Conventions below.

4. If the output is thin, the arc files are thin: fill the missing arc sections with the plot-structure skill, rerun, then rewrite. --out never replaces an existing file in submission/, so to rerun, write to dist/ and merge, or delete the generated file first after checking with the user that it holds no rewriting they want to keep.

6. Blurb and retailer description

Follow references/blurb.md. Draft submission/blurb.md with a tagline, the back-cover copy (150-200 words), and, for self-publishing, a retailer description with the same copy plus a comp line if the user wants one. The blurb never reveals the ending.

7. Build the manuscript

For agents and short-fiction markets, build Shunn manuscript format:

story build . --format docx --shunn
story build . --format shunn

Confirm story.md has author (or authors) and contact first; the title page uses them, joining co-authors with "and". Shunn builds leave out matter/ pages, as submissions expect. With form: short-story or form: flash in story.md they use Shunn's short-story layout: the text runs on from the title block, chapters become sections separated by a centred #, and there are no chapter headings or page breaks. Any other form starts each chapter on a new page. For self-publishing, hand off to the publishing skill, which covers EPUB and print builds (story build . --format epub, --format print --trim 6x9), retailer metadata, and launch.

For a one-page metadata sheet to check the pitch facts against (title, series, author, word count, description length against retailer limits, keywords, BISAC subjects, and missing fields), run:

story build . --format metadata

Keep the retailer description in submission/blurb.md and the description field in story.md in step when the user self-publishes. If story.md has an ai-disclosure, check each agent's or market's policy on AI-assisted work and disclose as they require; see the editorial-review skill. Tell the user which file in dist/ to send, and remind them to check each agent's or market's guidelines for format and attachment rules.

8. Track submissions

Create submission/tracker.md from references/tracker-template.md the first time the user reports sending a submission. Add or update a row each time the user reports a submission or a response, using only what they tell you. On request, summarize: queries out, partial and full requests, offers, declines, and entries with no response after the window the user sets.

Conventions

• Package files: submission/query.md, submission/comps.md, submission/synopsis-1-page.md, submission/synopsis-3-page.md, submission/blurb.md, submission/tracker.md.
• Each file has YAML frontmatter with a type (query, comps, synopsis, blurb, submission-tracker) and updated: YYYY-MM-DD.
• submission/ is outside the story model: the CLI does not validate it and builds never include it.
• Word counts in submission copy come from story wordcount ., rounded to the nearest thousand (87,000 words).
• Tracker statuses: queried, requested-partial, requested-full, offer, declined, no-response, withdrawn.
• When the manuscript changes after the package is drafted, reread the package and update anything the revision made untrue.

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, perform the readiness checks manually and write the synopsis from the arc files.

After the readiness check, or any manuscript change made for submission:

story wordcount . --write
story validate .
story continuity .
story prose .

Reference Files

• references/query-letter.md - Query structure (hook, book paragraphs, metadata line, bio), length, personalization, and common mistakes
• references/blurb.md - Back-cover and retailer description formulas for genre fiction, length, and taglines
• references/comp-titles.md - How to choose comparable titles, how to phrase them, and the verification rule
• references/word-count-norms.md - Rough word-count ranges by category, to confirm with the user
• references/tracker-template.md - submission/tracker.md template and status definitions