2026-08-25
User:
You are applying an approved list of dialogue edits to five chapters of a novel in redacted. Do NOT commit; do not touch any other files; do not run any git commands except
git diffto check your work.Read first: redacted/notes/voices.md section "Dialogue rules (round four)", and the "How they talk" sections of redacted/notes/canon/characters/{edwin,peri,redacted,mattie-ordish,minor}.md.
The list is redacted: private 39 entries, each with file, speaker, the exact quoted line, the problem, a finder rewrite, and (often) a skeptic's better_rewrite with finder_rewrite_ok. Rules for choosing: use skeptic_rewrite when present and finder_rewrite_ok is false; when both exist and finder_rewrite_ok is true, use whichever better matches the speaker's "How they talk" entry (prefer the skeptic's when in doubt). Some rewrites describe a structural change (cut a line, merge two speeches, drop an echo and fold into the next speech) rather than a one-for-one replacement; do those as described. Specific decisions already made: in ch. 018 change "Ask your man about that" to "Ask Moss about that"; ch. redacted sentence: unpublished prose 019 apply the merged redacted redacted sentence: unpublished prose redacted." echo and the "It wasn't true…" mirror, keeping the "put redacted on her back" content; ch. 019 cut redacted redacted sentence: unpublished prose redacted redacted sentence: unpublished prose redacted sentence: unpublished prose redacted before if it no longer makes sense. Ch. redacted sentence: unpublished prose
Method: write a Python script (run with
uv run --no-project python) that does exact-string replacements withassert text.count(old) == 1for every edit, so nothing is applied twice or to the wrong place. Read the surrounding paragraph for every edit and make sure the result reads as continuous prose: pronoun references still resolve, no word is now repeated from the adjacent sentence, and no line introduces a fact not already in the chapter (check names against the chapter before using them). If a rewrite would need a fact you cannot verify in the chapter, use a version that does not need it. Do not introduce em dashes, "not X but Y" constructions, or triads with a swerve. Keep the author's note blocks after the final---untouched.Return: a list of every edit applied as (file, old → new, one-line reason), any entries you skipped and why, and anything you noticed that looked wrong but was outside the list.
I'll start by reading the required context and the apply list.
🔧 Bash: sed -n '1,50p' redacted: private | head -5; echo ---; wc -c redacted: private
✅ 7 lines, 243 chars
🔧 Bash: awk '/Dialogue rules \(round four\)/,/^## /' notes/voices.md | head -120
✅ 1 lines, 31 chars
🔧 Bash: grep -n "round four" notes/voices.md
✅ 1 lines, 56 chars
🔧 Bash: cat redacted: private
✅ 22 lines, 1839 chars
🔧 Bash: sed -n '176,260p' redacted/notes/voices.md
✅ 84 lines, 5110 chars
🔧 Bash: cd redacted/notes/canon/characters && for f in edwin peri redacted mattie-ordish mino…
✅ 113 lines, 6768 chars
🔧 Bash: cd redacted/notes/canon/characters && for f in edwin peri redacted mattie-ordish; do…
✅ 121 lines, 7042 chars
Now the full apply list.
🔧 Bash: cd redacted: private && sed -n '1,200p' bn4gkqgwi.txt
✅ 200 lines, 20508 chars
🔧 Bash: cd redacted: private && sed -n '200,600p' bn4gkqgwi.txt
✅ 193 lines, 23414 chars
🔧 Bash: uv run --no-project python -c " import json;d=json.load(open('redacted: private'));prin…
✅ 2 lines, 156 chars
🔧 Bash: uv run --no-project python -c " import json;d=json.load(open('redacted: private')) for…
✅ 39 lines, 3543 chars
🔧 Bash: cd redacted/chapters && ls | head -40 && wc -l 012*.md 016*.md 017*.md 018*.md 019*.md
✅ 37 lines, 890 chars
🔧 Bash: cd redacted/chapters && cat -n 012-the-charter-board.md
✅ 193 lines, 17957 chars
🔧 Bash: cd redacted/chapters && cat -n 016-the-fen-margin.md
✅ 223 lines, 25705 chars
🔧 Bash: cd redacted/chapters && cat -n 017-clearing-work.md
✅ 205 lines, 23256 chars
🔧 Bash: cd redacted redacted sentence: unpublished prose
✅ 6 lines, 1162 chars
🔧 Bash: cd redacted/chapters && sed -n '1,15p;55,70p;110,125p;185,200p;215,235p' 018-holm-deep.…
✅ 84 lines, 6004 chars
🔧 Bash: cd redacted/chapters && grep -n "two of them\|put it through\|killed\|Peri" 018-holm-de…
✅ 19 lines, 3445 chars
🔧 Bash: cd redacted/chapters && sed -n '55,120p' 019-a-question-of-rosters.md
✅ 65 lines, 7476 chars
🔧 Bash: cd redacted/chapters && grep -n "owes you anything\|By people who\|gate while I was dri…
✅ 57 lines, 7689 chars
🔧 Bash: cd redacted/chapters && grep -n "dead names\|struck\|four names" 019-a-question-of-rost…
✅ 5 lines, 1524 chars
Now I'll write the edit script.
🔧 Bash: cat > redacted: private <<'PYEOF' import pathlib D = pathlib.Path("redacted/…
✅ 5 lines, 138 chars
🔧 Bash: git diff -U3 -- chapters/
✅ 311 lines, 27603 chars
🔧 Bash: uv run --no-project python -c " import pathlib p=pathlib.Path('chapters/012-the-charter-b…
✅ 1 lines, 2 chars
All 39 entries handled (35 string replacements; four entries merged into neighbours as their rewrites required). No entries skipped. Nothing outside chapters/012, 016, 017, 018, 019 was touched; author's-note blocks untouched; no em dashes, "not X but Y", or swerve triads introduced.
012-the-charter-board.md
"It's the same notice." → "It is. How long has it been up?" (skeptic) — Peri's next speech now answers a question asked.016-the-fen-margin.md
10. "That's a thing to know… Is it a thing to do?" → "All right," said redacted. "What do I do with that?" (skeptic).
11. redacted sentence: unpublished prose
12. redacted sentence: unpublished prose redacted sentence: unpublished prose
13. Echo "It'll flood redacted's bottom eight acres. They're in stubble…"→"It will. They're in stubble…" (skeptic).
14. redacted redacted sentence: unpublished prose
15. redacted sentence: unpublished prose
16. Echo "It is the whole trade." → "It is."
17. "That is not modesty. It is what happened." → "I'm not being modest." (skeptic).
017-clearing-work.md
18. redacted sentence: unpublished prose redacted sentence: unpublished prose
19. redacted sentence: unpublished prose They've got eleven. redacted sentence: unpublished prose
20. redacted sentence: unpublished prose redacted sentence: unpublished prose "Say that." (skeptic) — kills the third line generated from one phrase.
21. redacted redacted sentence: unpublished prose redacted redacted sentence: unpublished prose redacted. (skeptic), stage direction kept in place.
22. redacted redacted sentence: unpublished prose redacted sentence: unpublished prose
23. "That's not a courtesy. " cut (skeptic preferred cut over replacement).
24. redacted sentence: unpublished prose Aloud, in front of everybody…
25. redacted sentence: unpublished prose
018-holm-deep.md
26. redacted's triad + "The letter's paper. redacted sentence: unpublished prose redacted redacted sentence: unpublished prose redacted, enter it." (the scene "when it was put to her" does not establish redacted present, and his entry is already narrated).
27. redacted sentence: unpublished prose They came anyway. They had breakfast first, standing up."— I dropped the skeptic's closing"I've already got that written down."because it contradicts Edwin's very next line,"That's the entry. redacted sentence: unpublished prose
28. redacted sentence: unpublished prose redacted sentence: unpublished prose
29. redacted "That's the sentence." → "I'll say that once.", and you'll say so → you say so (skeptic).
30. redacted redacted sentence: unpublished prose redacted sentence: unpublished prose redacted did not stop walking. "It'll start on you now. Mine did. redacted sentence: unpublished prose redacted sentence: unpublished prose "Two of them today" is verified: she kills two at line 175.
019-a-question-of-rosters.md
31. Merged redacted redacted sentence: unpublished prose redacted."and the"It wasn't true…"mirror both dropped, ending"Then a thing came up redacted behind my line and put redacted redacted sentence: unpublished prose It never touched a road." — I used the skeptic's behaviour claim rather than "wasn't a redacted", since the Charter's own finding in this chapter calls it "an unidentified creature".
32. redacted redacted sentence: unpublished prose redacted redacted sentence: unpublished prose redacted deleted. redacted redacted sentence: unpublished prose redacted. redacted sentence: unpublished prose redacted.**Note**: the brief's quoted"You weren't." only works if redacted's line is kept, which contradicts the instruction to cut it; I followed the cuts, so her opener stays hers and the affirmation is unnecessary. Flag if you wanted the other reading.
33. redacted sentence: unpublished prose redacted sentence: unpublished prose
34. redacted redacted sentence: unpublished prose
35. redacted redacted sentence: unpublished prose
Noticed, outside the list (not changed):
(~lines 33–34) andsummaries/book-01-arc-02.md (~line 79) cite ch. redacted sentence: unpublished prose redacted-morning line, which ch. 012 does not contain — and that line is now deleted from ch. 019 too, so both citations are stale.Nothing committed; no git commands run beyond git diff.