Writing your first chapter

Once the direction is set, now you lay out the outline and write the first chapter. book-studio doesn’t write all chapters at once. Tier 2 lays out the whole skeleton, Tier 3 writes one chapter at a time, and a verification gate is cleared per chapter.

1) Tier 2 — laying out the outline

Once the direction brief is finalized, the orchestrator moves to Tier 2 Planning. Call it in natural language, “go ahead” or “lay out the outline.”

What Tier 2 produces:

• 02_world_building.md — the background. The world for fiction, domain background for non-fiction. Made for every type.
• 03_character_design.md — the figures. Characters for fiction, a reader persona for non-fiction. Made for every type.
• 04_plot_architecture.md — the structure and chapter outline.
• 04_chapter_outline.json — the chapter list and what each chapter covers (machine-readable).

Normal screen: the outline file paths show, and the chapter list is set. There’s a user-approval gate at the end of Tier 2. If the outline differs from your conception, fix it here. Writing chapters with the outline off costs a lot to undo.

2) Tier 3 — writing the first chapter

Once you approve the outline, it moves to Tier 3 Writing. Call “write chapter 1” or “go ahead with the first chapter.” Chapters pile up one file at a time at chapters/ch{NN}_draft.md, and metadata like word count and the key message is kept separately in chapters/ch{NN}_meta.json.

writing-agent reads the background in 02_world_building.md, the figures in 03_character_design.md, and the accumulated setup in consistency_index.json, then writes. So the setup defined in Chapter 1 doesn’t drift in the next chapter.

3) The gate runs at the end of each chapter

When you finish a chapter, the AI-smell gate runs automatically. It scores spots like template phrases, list patterns, opening rhythm, and the experience signature on a 0–100 scale. A score of 61 or higher blocks the chapter, and writing-agent rewrites.

Normal screen: a line like “chapter N AI-check pass” shows, and the chapter is marked finished. A chapter has to clear the gate to count as complete.

Stuck screen: if the gate fails twice, the orchestrator stops and hands off to the user. It’s faster to read the chapter yourself and point at where the AI flavor is. The detailed spot is in when-ai-gets-stuck.

4) One chapter, one commit

When a chapter completes, leave it as one commit. A version is kept per chapter, so if the next chapter goes wrong while you write it, you can roll back to the previous chapter’s state.

5) On to the next chapter

Once the first chapter is marked finished, call the next chapter with “write chapter 2.” The same flow repeats. You fill in one chapter at a time following the outline’s chapter list. Even if a session breaks, progress.md holds how far you got, so you come back with “continue from yesterday.”

Next

Once chapters start piling up, see how the setup is kept in continuity. To write several books at once, go to multiple-books.