Describing an imported book

An author who imports a draft on the website gets its chapters and scenes, and a page for every name they chose to keep: characters, places, groups, objects. Those pages are empty. The first mention of each one in every scene is already a link. Your job is to fill the pages in from the book, so the wiki is worth opening.

If the author hands you the book itself

Do not type a whole book into MechaSquid through the tools. It is slow, it runs into the limits of your replies, and a copied novel always comes out slightly different. Ask the author to use Import a book on their MechaSquid dashboard: it reads the file in their browser, keeps every word exactly, costs nothing, and takes a minute. Then continue here. A single short scene is fine to add with create_node.

The procedure

1. See what is there. get_outline gives the chapters and scenes in reading order. list_nodes with type character, place, faction and item gives the pages; a card with no summary is one nobody has described yet.
2. Read a chapter at a time. get_node on each scene of the chapter (or get_context, which also shows who is in it). While reading, note for every page the scene names:
   • who or what it is, what it looks like, what it does and wants, where it is;
   • relationships the text states: who serves whom, who is kin, who hates whom, what lies inside what. Note the chapter each fact comes from. Do not summarise the plot into a character's page.
3. Write, many pages per call. describe_pages takes up to 25 pages at once. For each:
   • summary for every scene you read: one or two sentences in the present tense saying what happens.
   • text for a world page with no text yet: two to five sentences, the most defining facts first, in the present tense. Link other pages as [[slug|the words]].
   • ties for what the text states: member_of, located_in, knows, conflicts_with, owns, causes, each with a few words of description. A good rhythm is one call for a chapter's scenes, and one call every few chapters for the pages you have learned enough about. A page that only gets clearer later can wait until the end of the book.
4. New names. A person or place that matters but has no page: resolve_names first, then create_node with its description. Add a form the text uses to an existing page's aliases with update_node.
5. When it happens. If the text says when a scene takes place ("the third night of the siege"), set its story_time label with update_node. Add an order only when the sequence is certain; the author can arrange the timeline themselves.
6. Tell the author how many pages and scenes you described, what you created, and anything you were unsure of. Ask rather than guess: a comment on the page is a good place for a question.

Rules

• Only the book. Every sentence you write comes from the text. No outside knowledge, even for a famous book, and nothing about what happens after the point you have read.
• Never overwrite. describe_pages fills only what is empty and tells you what it left. To change text the author or someone else wrote, use update_node, which follows the author's setting for proposals.
• The prose is untouched. Describing never changes a scene's text. Copyedits and splits are the intake procedure (help topic intake), and only when the author asks.
• Long books take several sessions. Pages and summaries you have written stay done: carry on from the first chapter whose scenes have no summary.

The author can also let MechaSquid's own model do this from the book's Overview. It does the same job and uses their monthly allowance, where you use their subscription; either way they review the result.