You are running the pre-David pass on three newly drafted scenes of a…

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2026-08-30

User:

You are running the pre-David pass on three newly drafted scenes of a novel. Working directory: redacted.

Read, in this order, in full:

  1. .claude/skills/pre-david-pass/SKILL.md (the checklist you apply)
  2. draft/book-01/VOICE.md
  3. The scenes before: draft/book-01/scenes/33-a-man-in-a-robe.md, 34-off-the-post.md, 35-boredom-is-the-method.md, 36-write-both.md; also 13-when-did-you-last-leave.md (Peri's "needed isn't the same as important") and 21-the-handover.md (the two-weeks promise, the coast rider).
  4. The three scenes under review: draft/book-01/scenes/37-what-would-have-to-be-true.md, 38-twelve-stakes.md, 39-read-it-as-six.md
  5. Canon, in full: notes/canon/characters/minor.md (Fenholt sections: Sennet, Tess, Burl, the alehouse keeper, redacted redacted sentence: unpublished prose redacted; letters), notes/canon/world/silent-soil.md (the stake protocol as practised), notes/canon/world/institutions.md (the post east of the bridge; Wystow letters), notes/canon/system.md ([Agent of Fate], the Weave format and the "unused days do not bank" ruling), notes/canon/world/magic.md (Working bullets: the Weave's images and misreadings), notes/llm-tells.md.
  6. draft/book-01/REMAINDER.md §3 (esp. rulings 3, 6, 12 — the Weave's two images with Peri wrong and unmocked; the improbability engine's one small move this act on Edwin's own chore only, deniable; the Weave never touching evidence) and the act-two binding list at the foot of draft/book-01/SCENES.md.

Apply the pre-David pass exactly as the skill says: Part 1 sentence by sentence (restate flat; check every count, fact, inference, viewpoint knowledge; e.g. redacted sentence: unpublished prose Pay particular attention to Part 4 (Peri likeable; her Sennet reading is her own mode and must land as hers; Edwin's reaction to it — "had never once thought to ask that" — is it earned or a narrator's compliment) and Part 5 (devices: the closing narrator line of 37; the form; the two letters). Report findings only — quote, Part/bullet, one sentence why, replacement or "cut". No praise. Do not edit files. End with two lines on any device a second round of comments would be about.

I'll start by reading the skill and the voice memo.

16 tool calls

🔧 Read .claude/skills/pre-david-pass/SKILL.md

✅ 395 lines, 25262 chars

🔧 Read draft/book-01/VOICE.md

✅ 151 lines, 8887 chars

🔧 Bash: for f in 33-a-man-in-a-robe.md 34-off-the-post.md 35-boredom-is-the-method.md 36-write-bo…

✅ 39 lines, 2246 chars

🔧 Bash: cat redacted: private

✅ 39 lines, 2246 chars

🔧 Read draft/book-01/scenes/33-a-man-in-a-robe.md

✅ 56 lines, 4571 chars

🔧 Read draft/book-01/scenes/34-off-the-post.md

✅ 70 lines, 6616 chars

🔧 Read draft/book-01/scenes/35-boredom-is-the-method.md

🔧 Read draft/book-01/scenes/36-write-both.md

✅ 72 lines, 9422 chars

✅ 68 lines, 7576 chars

Now the three under review.

6 tool calls

🔧 Read draft/book-01/scenes/37-what-would-have-to-be-true.md

🔧 Read draft/book-01/scenes/38-twelve-stakes.md

✅ 38 lines, 2490 chars

✅ 42 lines, 4403 chars

🔧 Read draft/book-01/scenes/39-read-it-as-six.md

✅ 54 lines, 4775 chars

Now the canon.

30 tool calls

🔧 Bash: cd redacted redacted sentence: unpublished prose

✅ 12 lines, 427 chars — 627 notes/canon/characters/minor.md / 1330 notes/canon/characters/peri.md / 971 notes/canon/characters/edwin.md

🔧 Read draft/book-01/REMAINDER.md

✅ 197 lines, 12413 chars

🔧 Read draft/book-01/SCENES.md

✅ 216 lines, 18902 chars

🔧 Read notes/canon/characters/minor.md

✅ 628 lines, 40046 chars

🔧 Read notes/canon/characters/peri.md

✅ 975 lines, 64406 chars

🔧 Read notes/canon/characters/peri.md

✅ 356 lines, 22294 chars

🔧 Read notes/canon/characters/edwin.md

✅ 972 lines, 64776 chars

🔧 Read notes/canon/world/silent-soil.md

✅ 670 lines, 42638 chars

🔧 Read draft/book-01/scenes/21-the-handover.md

✅ 60 lines, 7388 chars

🔧 Read draft/book-01/scenes/13-when-did-you-last-leave.md

✅ 66 lines, 5748 chars

🔧 Bash: cd redacted && sed -n '/Agent of Fate/,/^## /p' notes/canon/system.md | head -120; echo…

✅ 124 lines, 7820 chars

🔧 Bash: cd redacted && sed -n '600,800p' notes/canon/system.md

✅ 201 lines, 13392 chars

🔧 Bash: cd redacted && grep -n -A14 "man in a robe" notes/canon/world/magic.md | head -60; echo…

✅ 17 lines, 1062 chars

🔧 Bash: cd redacted && sed -n '670,695p' notes/canon/world/magic.md; echo "-----INST"; grep -n…

✅ 64 lines, 4251 chars

🔧 Bash: cd redacted && sed -n '34,45p;340,375p' notes/canon/world/institutions.md

✅ 48 lines, 2997 chars

Findings

Scene 37 — What would have to be true

Part 1 (fact overstated into falsehood; and Part 5, asserted-not-shown) — "Edwin, who had been getting leave from farmers to dig their ground for three hundred years and had never once thought to ask that". redacted sentence: unpublished prose Replace with the narrower true claim: "…and had asked a hundred of them what they wanted done and never once what would have to be true, walked the rest of the way…" — or cut the appositive entirely and end on the walk.

Part 7 (endings are cuts) / Part 2 — the same sentence is the scene's closing cadence and carries a narrator's compliment to Peri. Even repaired, the paragraph ends on the narrator admiring her. redacted sentence: unpublished prose

Part 6 (italics in narration) — "needed isn't the same as important". redacted sentence: unpublished prose

redacted sentence: unpublished prose redacted sentence: unpublished prose As written the evidence and the loss are in different trades. redacted sentence: unpublished prose

redacted sentence: unpublished prose redacted sentence: unpublished prose

Part 4 (Peri rule 6a) — no dash false start anywhere in the scene, in a scene where she is pressing a reading against him. peri.md 6a is countable: at least twice under pressure. redacted sentence: unpublished prose

Scene 38 — Twelve stakes

Part 1 (count fails) — "Six lines. The date. The stake letter. redacted sentence: unpublished prose redacted sentence: unpublished prose And at the foot, fixed… nothing to write." Not reached is not a line, it is what you write in the paces line; and "in whose paces" and "the name of who walked it" are the same fact twice (Part 5, redundancy). As listed it is four fields plus a footer. Make it "Five lines" and cut "in whose paces".

redacted sentence: unpublished prose redacted sentence: unpublished prose redacted, and past the redacted was Sennet's.*" Flat restatement one: there was no arc there to stake. Restatement two: the arc there is on another man's land. redacted sentence: unpublished prose Past the redacted redacted sentence: unpublished prose

redacted sentence: unpublished prose Scene 39 then says she "spent the afternoon of the stakes on her own errand", walking five fields with Tess — while Tess is at the forge burning twelve letters. Peri and Tess are each in two places. Fix in 39 (below), or move her five-field walk to the morning of the following day and change 39's "the afternoon of the stakes".

redacted sentence: unpublished prose redacted sentence: unpublished prose Burl then cuts and points them to four foot six, which is what he is doing in the next paragraph anyway.

redacted sentence: unpublished prose The clause exists to nudge the reader toward the engine, which this act may not do (Edwin names it once, at 53). Cut "and did not note anything else about it."

redacted sentence: unpublished prose redacted sentence: unpublished prose

redacted sentence: unpublished prose redacted sentence: unpublished prose

Part 6 — "to watch them be made": "to watch them made."

redacted sentence: unpublished prose redacted sentence: unpublished prose

redacted sentence: unpublished prose Either Edwin said it in Mattie's kitchen (put it there in 31/32) or the line should carry the source: "You told Mattie a fortnight. redacted sentence: unpublished prose

Scene 39 — Read it as six

redacted sentence: unpublished prose

Part 1 (the post arithmetic does not derive) — "*Four days on greased wheels. Six, more like. redacted sentence: unpublished prose Nothing in the exchange yields eleven. Either have her say "the twelfth day" and him say "Thirteenth", or give her a stated five ("Five, if he's got the bag on the day"). redacted sentence: unpublished prose redacted sentence: unpublished prose

Part 1 (a count that does not land on anything) — "*He read that over twice. redacted sentence: unpublished prose Cut the ordinal: "He read it over twice. redacted sentence: unpublished prose

redacted sentence: unpublished prose A fortnight is not his sum. redacted sentence: unpublished prose

Part 1 (definite article with no referent) — "send the rider". In 21 the arrangement is hire a rider, no economising; there is no standing rider. "send for me by rider, and no economising".

Part 1 (pronoun, and an off-page promise) — "because you said you'd say when you and it disagreed". "It" = the wording? the question? And Edwin has made no such undertaking on the page in 33–36. Give her the plain version and put the undertaking in his mouth earlier, or drop the citation: "…because I'd rather you said it before than after."

Part 4 (Peri rule 7b — the self-justifying clause is Edwin's) — the same speech: "*I'm not asking for help. redacted sentence: unpublished prose Her grammar: "I'm not asking for help. redacted sentence: unpublished prose redacted sentence: unpublished prose I'd rather have it before."

redacted sentence: unpublished prose redacted sentence: unpublished prose It needs one clause deciding which man, and Edwin's reply then lands. If it is Ferrin, the honest wording is about Ferrin and the Weave's answer will be an image she must still identify — which is the joke.

Part 1 (unverifiable comparison) — "It's better than the last one." The reader has not seen the last one, and the two she threw away are the only ones mentioned. Either name what the discarded wording asked, or cut the sentence and keep "It's a fair question. Ask it."

Part 5 / llm-tells (repeated house phrase) — the last clause, "set them where the morning could not miss them", is verbatim from scene 21 ("set them under the candlestick where the morning could not miss them"). A distinctive figure reused as the closer of another letter-writing scene reads as a tic, not a callback. "…and set the two letters against the candlestick for the morning."

Part 2 / Part 6 (negation pair doing nothing) and Part 7 (endings are cuts) — "She turned the notebook back and did not look pleased, or displeased, and went back to her columns." The pair cancels to no information, and the sentence carries redacted. redacted sentence: unpublished prose

redacted sentence: unpublished prose redacted sentence: unpublished prose Its force there is spent by using it as shorthand here. redacted sentence: unpublished prose

Part 1 (word doing a job it cannot) — "He'd hardly leave it on all six." Leave what on? redacted sentence: unpublished prose redacted sentence: unpublished prose

redacted sentence: unpublished prose redacted sentence: unpublished prose

Scheduling note against SCENES.md — the act-two binding list places the robed-man Weave answer at scene 47 unpublished (Day 16); this scene has her ask it tomorrow at noon (Day 12). One of the two has to move, or the answer lands off-page four days before the scene that is supposed to carry it.

The two device lines

The device a second round of comments would be about is Peri's day: scenes 37–39 spend it three times over (the coppice, the stake line all afternoon with the book, five fields with Tess), and no amount of rephrasing fixes it — it wants the five-field errand moved to the next morning and 39's "the afternoon of the stakes" changed with it, which costs nothing because the letters are written that night either way.

The second is the closing narrator line of 37: the scene's whole point is that Peri's reading of Sennet is hers, and the narration steps in to certify it. Either remove the certification and let his silence do it, or make the certification a fact he can actually own (that he has asked farmers what they want, never what would have to be true) — repairing the sentence's wording without deciding which will draw the comment again.