Set the Scope: Facts in Written Prose
This method checks written prose. Define chapters and supporting setting or tracking materials, then produce a report with locations, evidence on both sides, impact and decisions required. Check six relationships:
- People and objects: identity, family, location, possession and knowledge.
- Rules: ability limits, authority, exceptions and terminology.
- Time: dates, durations and event order.
- Causality: conditions, action, result and consequences.
- Cost: established prices of abilities, transactions or treatment.
- Explicit facts: incompatible states of the same subject.
Maintaining state and knowledge during drafting helps prevent forgetting. This page checks existing prose without judging how exciting the story is or rewriting it. After choosing facts and repairs, use review-to-revision. Unprovided or unread chapters have not been checked.
Search explicit claims, then test rule, causal, and cost chains
A straight read encourages the author to fill gaps with intentions that never reached the page. Search first, then reason, so a vague concern becomes reproducible evidence.
- Define the range. Name the chapters under review and the setting, outline, or tracking records that may supply evidence.
- Build search terms. Collect names, aliases, places, key objects, rule terms, dates, quantities, costs, and limit words.
- Save every hit. Record the chapter, paragraph or line, the shortest necessary quotation, and its source type.
- Compare explicit claims. Check attributes, locations, knowledge, object states, terminology, and event order.
- Add a reasoning pass. For each load-bearing event, map cause → condition → action → result → consequence. Separately test each rule's conditions, exceptions, boundary, and cost.
- Search for explanations. Look for evidence of authorization, disguise, lies, unreliable narration, rule changes, one-use devices, or a cost already paid.
Give every candidate four fields first: premise/rule, trigger, apparent contradiction, and question for the author. If two passages appear to conflict but the rule's scope is missing, use the status insufficient evidence. If both cited claims are mutually exclusive and no written exception appears in the audited range, use evidence-supported candidate. Severity still sets review priority; the author decides whether the candidate becomes an error to revise.
A Two-Column Finding Record
This is a manual author worksheet, not the skill’s internal finding schema. Give each finding its own record rather than squeezing all fields into one row.
| Item | Record |
|---|---|
| Location and status | Chapter/paragraph; pending, evidence-supported candidate, cleared or author-decided |
| Premise | Rule or earlier fact, location and short quotation |
| Trigger | Later event, location and short quotation |
| Conflict and effect | What cannot coexist and what readers may misunderstand |
| Explanation and gaps | Exceptions searched and materials still missing |
| Author decision | One clear question and the chosen fact or explanation |
| Recheck | Affected later passages and revised evidence |
Organize work into necessary fixes, suggestions and optional changes without putting internal severity codes into the author’s report. Impact and evidence are separate: a serious suspicion can still lack support. Do not revise on a finding missing either quotation. Check supported conflicts for intentional lies, mistakes or rule changes.
“A foolish character” or “a better twist” is creative evaluation, not a factual continuity error.
Original example: one person opens a two-key archive
These excerpts and findings are original. Suppose the author supplies Chapters 3–19 and the fictional example establishes no rule change, single-user mode or applicable exception within them. This is not a search result from an actual novel.
Chapter 3, paragraph 12: “The sealed archive opens only when two different keepers turn the east and west keys simultaneously. Each key has its own keeper. One person cannot activate the lock.”
Chapter 19, paragraph 4: “Qiao Qinghe approached alone and turned the east key. The west key still hung on the duty-room wall. The bolt withdrew, and the door slid inward.”
| Item | Example record |
|---|---|
| Status | Evidence-supported candidate; check early because it affects the archive rule |
| Premise | Chapter 3 ¶12: two keepers turn their keys together; one person cannot activate it |
| Trigger | Chapter 19 ¶4: Qiao uses the east key alone; the west remains on the wall, yet the door opens |
| Conflict | The opening lacks the stated two-person, two-key conditions |
| Decision | Is this an error or an intended applicable exception? Where is its support? |
| Later checks | Access, key possession, knowledge and results of the opening |
In a real review, search related terms such as keys, keepers, backup, authorization, emergency and remote access, retaining supporting evidence. Finding no exception in the read scope does not prove none exists elsewhere.
For an intended exception, check applicable conditions and comprehensible textual support. An explanation existing only in the author’s intent still requires a decision about reader evidence. For an error, choose the retained rule or changed event before editing. Recheck later consequences under established conditions and costs without imposing a new price on the exception.
A copyable read-only audit prompt and follow-through check
This manual prompt requests evidence and a report without creating a new skill mode.
Perform a read-only continuity check on [supplied chapters and materials]. Search names and aliases, places, objects, rules, time, quantities, limits and costs; compare conditions, actions and results. For each candidate, give premise and trigger locations with short quotations, apparent conflict, reader effect, possible exceptions, missing materials and an author decision. Mark insufficient evidence if either quotation is missing. Clear a candidate only with textual evidence that an exception applies. Explain priority as necessary, suggested or optional without substituting priority for evidence. Do not evaluate excitement, invent setting, edit files or run side-effecting commands.
After an author decision and authorized revision, recheck:
- The chosen fact, rule or exception is clear in prose
- Conditions, authority and established costs fit the trigger
- Later knowledge, possession, relationships and consequences remain supported
- Deleted or moved scenes leave no references to missing clues or causes
- Closed findings cite revised prose, rather than only the author’s explanation
Follow actual dependencies beyond the edited passage without automatically rewriting the full book.
FAQ
What if the AI claims a continuity error without chapter evidence?
Return it to Insufficient evidence and leave the manuscript unchanged. Ask for the chapter, paragraph or line and the shortest necessary quotation on both sides, then search for scope and exceptions. A claim cannot become an evidence-supported candidate when only one side exists, the quotation does not support the conclusion, or the result cannot be reproduced in the text.
Can a hidden truth, unreliable account, or rule exception be falsely flagged?
Yes, which is why every result starts as a candidate. If the prose already supports a lie, disguise, viewpoint limit, or exception, cite that support and mark the item Cleared or Author ruled: intentional. If the explanation exists only in the author's intent, the author still decides whether the manuscript needs evidence. Then check later knowledge, scope, and consequences against that ruling.
Do it with the skill
/story-review lean, or $story-review lean in Codex, attempts structure and consistency review, falling back to solo basic review when required agents or runtime capability are unavailable. It is broader than this page’s fact check: extract cited factual findings and separate structural notes. For strict read-only work, use the prompt above and prohibit file edits and side-effecting commands; the native workflow may maintain review state or tracking records.
Read the method: Factual evidence and author-facing reports · Revision priorities in author reports