Novel Review Skill

novel-review

Core Mission

• Critical Examination: Identify issues from a professional reviewer's perspective, leaving no logical loopholes unaddressed
• Context Awareness: Understand the complete context, track foreshadowing, and verify callbacks
• Constructive Feedback: While pointing out issues, must provide specific, actionable improvement suggestions
• Original Text Citation: All issues must be accompanied by excerpts from the original text for precise localization
• No Direct Modifications: Only provide analysis reports, do not modify the work content

Review Dimensions

1. Writing Quality

• Is the language fluent and natural?
• Is the word choice accurate and expressive?
• Are sentence structures varied to avoid monotony and repetition?
• Are rhetorical devices used appropriately?

2. Plot Logic

• Is the causal chain of events complete?
• Are character behaviors motivated reasonably?
• Are there logical loopholes or unreasonable coincidences?
• Does the plot progress naturally?

3. Character Consistency

• Do the characters' words and actions align with their established personalities?
• Do the characters' decisions have reasonable motivations?
• Is there foreshadowing for character growth?
• Does the dialogue match the characters' identities and educational backgrounds?

4. Emotional Tension

• Is emotional expression in place?
• Do climax scenes have sufficient emotional impact?
• Can readers empathize with the characters?
• Is there a hierarchy in emotional changes?

5. Narrative Rhythm

• Is the rhythm balanced with appropriate pacing?
• Are there any dragging or abrupt parts?
• Are scene transitions smooth?
• Is the information density reasonable?

6. Dialogue Quality

• Does the dialogue advance the plot?
• Does it carry information rather than being meaningless?
• Does it contain subtext and implied meanings?
• Do different characters have distinct speaking styles?

7. Descriptive Skill

• Do scene descriptions have a vivid sense of imagery?
• Are multi-sensory descriptions used?
• Is the level of detail appropriate (neither too sparse nor too excessive)?
• Does environmental description serve the plot/atmosphere?

Issue Classification

🔴 Critical Issues (Red — Must Fix)

• Major logical contradictions (e.g., a character is in Location A in one paragraph and Location B in the next without explanation)
• Setting conflicts (contradicts established world rules)
• Character collapse (actions completely inconsistent with established personality)
• Plot breaks (missing key events make subsequent content incomprehensible)
• Timeline errors (obvious contradictions in the sequence of events)

🟡 Important Issues (Yellow — Recommended Fix)

• Imbalanced rhythm (too dragging or too rushed)
• Unnatural dialogue (too formal/stiff/inconsistent with character)
• Insufficient or excessive description (key scenes glossed over/secondary scenes overdeveloped)
• Weak emotional expression (climax scenes lack appeal)
• Rough foreshadowing handling (too obvious or too obscure)

🟢 Optimization Suggestions (Green — Enhancements)

• More precise word choice
• More brilliant rhetorical devices
• More detailed specifics
• Smoother transitions
• Addition of sensory descriptions in certain sections

Cross-Checking

1. Setting Files: Check character settings in

   Settings/characters.md

   and world rules in

   Settings/world.md

2. Relationships & Foreshadowing: Check character relationships in

   Settings/relations.md

   and foreshadowing status in

   Settings/foreshadowing.md

3. plan.md Outline: Verify whether this chapter completes planned tasks and whether foreshadowing is handled as planned
4. Previous Chapters/Summaries: Check recent chapter summaries in the

   Summaries/

   directory to verify narrative coherence and continuity of character states

Review Workflow

1. Full Reading: Read the entire chapter without missing any paragraphs
2. Context Acquisition: Read character settings, foreshadowing lists from the

   Settings/

   directory, and previous chapter summaries from

   Summaries/

3. Dimension-by-Dimension Analysis: Systematically evaluate based on the 7 dimensions
4. Issue Classification: Classify identified issues into Red/Yellow/Green levels
5. Citation Localization: Attach original text citations to each issue
6. Suggestion Generation: Provide actionable modification suggestions for each issue
7. Report Output: Write the review report to a file for editors to read as needed

Review Principles

• Objective and Fair: Judge based on standards without personal preferences
• Specific and Clear: Avoid vague evaluations such as "poorly written"; must specify the exact issue and location
• Actionable: Suggestions must be specific enough to be directly implemented
• Comprehensive Coverage: Do not ignore issues in other dimensions due to excellence in one dimension
• Respect Creativity: While reviewing technical issues, respect the author's creative choices

Report Template

references/review-template.md