Series

This page is for writers working on more than one book in the same world: sequels, prequels, and trilogies. It covers how books link to each other, how story init creates a linked book, what story series checks, and how to carry characters and facts from one book to the next. It also shows how to lay out a short-story collection or anthology, which gathers several story projects into one book.

On this page

• How a series is modelled
• The example series
• Starting a linked book
• The story series command
• Checking series links
• Carrying canon between books
• Writing against canon
• The series-continuity skill
• Maintenance checklist
• Short-story collections and anthologies

How a series is modelled

Each book is still an ordinary Story Skills project, with its own story.md, characters, worldbuilding, chapters, and continuity files. There is no series-level folder or shared database. Books are linked through these optional fields in story.md:

Field	Type	Meaning
series	kebab-case id	The series this book belongs to, such as the-ember-cycle. Every book in the series uses the same id.
series-title	string	The retail series name, such as The Ember Cycle, printed by the metadata sheet and the story series header in place of the id.
book-number	number ≥ 0	Publication order: 1, 2, 3. 0 suits a prequel published later (often a reader magnet), and a decimal such as 1.5 a between-books novella. Must be unique within the series.
follows	list of paths	Books set earlier in the story's chronology.
precedes	list of paths	Books set later in the story's chronology.

follows: [X] reads as "this book follows X in story time"; precedes: [X] reads as "this book comes before X in story time".

Chronology and publication order are separate on purpose. follows and precedes describe when the story happens; book-number describes the order readers get the books. A prequel written after the first book has book-number: 2 and precedes: [../book-one].

Link paths are relative to the book's root folder. story init writes them with forward slashes, so story.md stays portable across operating systems. Keep the books side by side in one parent folder. story series only follows links between sibling book folders, and story init refuses a link to a book in another folder or a new book inside an existing one:

the-ember-cycle/
├── the-fall-of-the-citadel/   # book 2, set first
│   └── story.md               # precedes: [../the-last-ember]
└── the-last-ember/            # book 1, set second
    └── story.md               # follows: [../the-fall-of-the-citadel]

Every linked book must be on disk at that path whenever you run story links or story series, including in CI, where only the repository being built is checked out. The simplest layout is one repository for the whole series, with a folder per book. If each book has its own repository, the CI workflow must check out every linked book into its sibling folder; see Project location.

Every link needs a backlink. If book two follows: [../book-one], book one must list precedes: [../book-two]. story links reports a missing backlink as an error (see Checking series links).

story validate checks the field shapes: series must be a single kebab-case id, book-number must be a number 0 or more, and follows and precedes must be lists of non-empty strings. A single string such as follows: ../book-one fails validation with story.md frontmatter field follows must be a list. The full field reference is in Project format reference.

The example series

The repository ships a two-book series, the Ember Cycle, in examples/:

Book	book-number	Chronology	Status
The Fall of the Citadel	2	First: the coup, twelve years earlier	planning
The Last Ember	1	Second: Sera returns to the citadel	in-progress

The Last Ember was published first, and The Fall of the Citadel is a prequel. Their frontmatter:

# examples/the-fall-of-the-citadel/story.md
series: the-ember-cycle
book-number: 2
precedes:
  - ../the-last-ember

# examples/the-last-ember/story.md
series: the-ember-cycle
book-number: 1
follows:
  - ../the-fall-of-the-citadel

The prequel also shows the conventions described in Carrying canon between books: a ## Series Notes section in its story.md, a ## Series Canon section in its character and location files, General Maren as an alias for the character the later book calls Lord Maren, and a shared whisper-gate-route fact id in both books' continuity/state.md.

Starting a linked book

Run story init from the folder that contains the existing book, and pass the link option that matches the new book's place in the chronology:

# Sequel to The Last Ember, the latest book in story time
story init "Embers of the Vale" --follows the-last-ember --synopsis "Two years after the citadel falls a second time."

# Prequel to The Fall of the Citadel, the earliest book in story time
story init "The Ember Wars" --precedes the-fall-of-the-citadel

Each command links to the book at one end of the chronology. The sequel goes after The Last Ember; the prequel goes before The Fall of the Citadel, which makes it the new earliest book in the series.

A companion book is set alongside another with no chronological relationship. Create it with --series and the same id, and no --follows or --precedes. Without a link, init has no book to inherit from, so pass --book-number if you want the companion numbered, plus any craft settings you want to match. story series discovers books only by following links, so it does not see an unlinked companion.

Series options for init

Option	Effect
--series <id>	Sets series. Must be kebab-case. Overrides the id inherited from a linked book.
--book-number <n>	Sets book-number. Must be 0 or a positive number: 0 for a prequel published later, a decimal such as 1.5 for a between-books novella. Overrides the computed number.
--follows <path>	Links a book set earlier in the chronology. Repeatable.
--precedes <path>	Links a book set later in the chronology. Repeatable.

--follows and --precedes paths resolve against the directory you run story init from, not against the new book. init rewrites them relative to the new book's root.

What init does with a link

For each --follows or --precedes path, init:

1. Checks that the path contains a readable story.md in the same parent folder as the new book, that no book is named by both --follows and --precedes, and that the linked books and --series agree on one series id. If any check fails, init stops before creating any files or touching the linked books. A book named twice in one field (--follows b1 --follows ./b1) is linked once. Before creating anything, init also confirms each linked story.md it must update is writable.
2. Writes the link into the new book's story.md, relative to the new book's root.
3. Adds the backlink to the linked book's story.md (precedes for a --follows link, follows for a --precedes link) and prints Updated series links in <path>/story.md. If the linked book already lists the new book and has the series id, nothing is written and no line is printed. Only frontmatter changes; the linked book's comments and body text are left as they were. A link written as a single string by hand is kept and converted to a list. When the new book has a series id and the linked book has none, init writes that id into the linked book's story.md as well, even if the backlink was already there.
4. Inherits series from the first linked book that has one, unless you pass --series.
5. Inherits genre, sub-genre, pov, and tense from the first linked book, unless you pass --genre, --sub-genre, --pov, or --tense, and copies its series-title, author or authors, and language when set. setting-era, themes, form, and the publishing fields that belong to one edition (isbn, publication-date, description, keywords, cover, and the rest) are not inherited; pass --form if the new book has one.
6. Sets book-number to one more than the highest whole book-number anywhere in the linked series (after a 2.5 novella, the next book is 3), not just the directly linked books, so publication numbers never collide. If part of the series cannot be read (a story.md that fails to parse, a broken link), init refuses rather than guess; fix the book or pass --book-number. An explicit --book-number already used in the series is refused.

If no book in the series has a book-number, the new book is left unnumbered. A book created by a plain story init has no book-number, so when you link your first sequel to it, pass --book-number 2 and add book-number: 1 to the first book by hand. If the first book has no series yet, pass --series <id>: init adds the same series to the first book.

init refuses to create a project inside another story project (a folder above the new one with a story.md), including story init --follows . run from inside a book: run it from the folder that contains the book instead. rename, remove, and move never rewrite files in a subfolder that has its own story.md.

init --force on an existing folder keeps the existing story.md. It adds a backlink only when the new book's story.md has the matching forward link, so a rerun never adds a backlink the new book does not mirror, and a rerun after a failed backlink write finishes the job.

Example: a sequel to The Last Ember

Running the sequel command from Starting a linked book in a copy of the example series prints:

Created story project: /path/to/series/embers-of-the-vale
Updated series links in /path/to/series/the-last-ember/story.md

The new book inherits the series id and craft settings, and numbers itself after The Fall of the Citadel (book 2), even though it links only to The Last Ember (book 1):

---
title: Embers of the Vale
schema-version: 2
series: the-ember-cycle
book-number: 3
genre: fantasy
sub-genre: epic
setting-era: unspecified
status: planning
themes:
  - change
pov: third-person-limited
tense: past
follows:
  - ../the-last-ember
---

The Last Ember's story.md gains the backlink:

precedes:
  - ../embers-of-the-vale

init errors

Message	Cause
--follows <path> points at the new story itself	The link resolves to the folder init is about to create.
--precedes <path> is not a story project: missing story.md	The linked folder has no story.md.
--follows <path>: <path>/story.md: <parse error>	The linked book's story.md cannot be parsed.
--follows <path> is not in the same parent folder as the new book; ...	The linked book is not a sibling of the new book.
--follows <a> and --precedes <b> name the same book; ...	One book is linked as both earlier and later.
--series <id> conflicts with --follows <path>, which belongs to series <id>	--series differs from a linked book's series.
Linked books belong to different series: <ids>	The linked books set different series ids.
Book number <n> is already used by <path>; ...	--book-number collides with a book in the series.
Cannot compute the next book-number: part of the series linked from ... could not be read (...)	A book in the series cannot be read; fix it or pass --book-number.
Cannot create a story project inside another story project (<path>); ...	A folder above the new book has a story.md.
Series id must be kebab-case: <id>	The --series value, or the inherited one, is not a kebab-case id.
Book number must be 0 or a positive number, ...	--book-number is negative or not a number.

The story series command

story series [path]

story series starts at the book at path (default: the current directory), follows every follows and precedes link to discover the rest of the series, orders the books by chronology, lists the canon they share, and checks it for contradictions. It exits 0 when there are no errors and 1 otherwise. Warnings do not change the exit code. You can also give the path with --path <path>.

Running it on The Last Ember:

story series examples/the-last-ember

# Series: the-ember-cycle

Chronological order:
1. The Fall of the Citadel (book 2, planning) - ../the-fall-of-the-citadel
2. The Last Ember (book 1, in-progress) - .

Shared canon:
- Characters: kael-voss, lord-maren, sera-voss
- Locations: ashen-citadel
- Systems: ember-magic
- Facts: whisper-gate-route

Series is consistent: 0 errors, 0 warnings, 0 dismissed

The header shows the series-title when a book sets one, otherwise the series id. Each book line shows its title, its book-number (or unnumbered), its status (or no status), and its path relative to the book you ran the command on. . is that book. Running it on The Fall of the Citadel lists the same books in the same order; only the paths change, since they are relative to the book you start from. The report goes to standard output, and the summary line plus any error: and warning: lines go to standard error.

story series works on a standalone book too. It reports a one-book Unnamed series with - None under Shared canon: and exits 0. A path with no story.md fails with <absolute path> is not a story project: missing story.md and exit code 3.

Ordering

follows and precedes form a directed graph, and the books are listed in an order that respects every edge. At each step, among the books whose earlier books are already listed, the one with the lowest book-number goes next; unnumbered books come after numbered ones, and remaining ties are broken by title, then by folder path. A book whose earlier books are not yet listed waits, so a low-numbered book set after a high-numbered one can appear after unrelated books with numbers in between. The order is deterministic and the same whichever book you start from.

If the links contain a cycle, for example two books that each precede the other, the command reports an error, prints Books (unordered): instead of Chronological order:, and skips the canon checks.

Discovery follows links in both directions from every book it reaches, so a book is found even when its backlink is missing. Missing backlinks are reported by story links, not by story series.

Shared canon

The Shared canon section lists every id that appears in more than one book, grouped by kind. Entities are matched by id, which is their filename without .md:

Label	Compared records
Characters	characters/*.md
Locations	worldbuilding/locations/*.md
Systems	worldbuilding/systems/*.md
Factions	worldbuilding/factions/*.md
Artifacts	worldbuilding/artifacts/*.md
Glossary terms	glossary/terms/*.md
Facts	fact ids in continuity/state.md knowledge-state

What it checks

Each book is compared with every book set earlier in the chronology: every book that comes before this one through any chain of follows or precedes links, as read from either book. A link counts even when the other book is missing its backlink.

Level	Finding	Fix
error	A linked path is not a story project (missing story.md), or a linked book fails to parse.	Correct the path, or fix the linked book's frontmatter.
error	Linked books declare different series ids.	Use one id in every book.
error	Two books share a book-number.	Give each book a unique publication number.
error	A book's book-number is not a number 0 or more (the book is listed as unnumbered).	Use a number such as 2, 0, or 1.5.
warning	Linked books set different series-title values.	Keep the retail series name identical in every book.
warning	Some linked books set no series id while the others share one: Linked books <titles> set no series id; add series: <id>.	Add the named series to each listed book's story.md.
error	The chronology has a cycle.	Check follows and precedes in the named books.
error	A character is dead at the end of an earlier book but has another status (or none) in a later one.	Set status: deceased in the later book's character file.
error	A later book's chapter or scene lists a character who died in an earlier book as pov or under characters, before any revival in the later book.	Move flashbacks, memories, and ghosts to mentions. A ghost narrator may stay the pov when also listed in mentions.
error	A later book's knowledge-state has a character who died in an earlier book learn something (an entry with learned-in) before any revival in the later book.	Drop learned-in, or give the discovery to a living character.
error	A later book's scene has a state-changes entry that targets an artifact destroyed in an earlier book.	Account for the artifact's return (and change its status), or remove the state change. mentions stay allowed.
error	A later book's knowledge-state has a character learn a fact (an entry with learned-in) that the same character already knows in an earlier book.	Drop learned-in in the later book, or move the discovery. In a prequel, usually remove the knowledge from the prequel.
warning	A shared entity's name (or a glossary term's term) differs from the most recent earlier book that defines it.	Keep name identical and put the variant in aliases.
warning	A shared entity's pronunciation differs from the most recent earlier book that defines it, when both set one.	Use one respelling, so the narrator says the name the same way in every book.
warning	An artifact is destroyed in an earlier book but has another status in a later one.	Set status: destroyed, or account for the artifact's return in the text.

The name check compares each book with the most recent earlier book that defines the entity, so a rename carried consistently through a trilogy is reported once, not once per book.

The death checks read each earlier book as story continuity does: a character is dead at the end of that book by died-in (until revived-in), by a status progression to deceased (until a later status progression changes it), or by status: deceased with no died-in, all in the book's story order, planned outline chapters included. Earlier books are read in chronological order, and the finding names the book the character last died in. A later book brings a character back only by recording the revival itself: status: deceased in its character file, and a status progression to alive from the chapter they return. Casts and learning from that chapter on are then allowed, including when the book kills them again with died-in, whose own checks then take over. A later book that simply lists the character as alive is the status error above, and does not clear the death for the books after it. A book with no chapters, or a died-in naming a chapter the book does not have, is read by its status alone.

story series applies the exemptions in this book's continuity/exemptions.md that name a warning's code, as it applies severity from this book's story.md; its errors cannot be exempted. Other exemptions apply only to story continuity. A finding about a linked book names its file from this book's folder (../book-two/characters/ann.md), which a file key cannot name, so narrow such an entry with code and a pattern instead, and run story series from the book that holds the log.

Example failure

In a copy of the example series, Lord Maren is marked deceased at the end of The Last Ember, and a careless sequel carries him as alive, gives him the point of view in chapter 1, renames Sera, and has Kael discover a route he already knew in the prequel. Running story series . in the sequel exits 1:

# Series: the-ember-cycle

Chronological order:
1. The Fall of the Citadel (book 2, planning) - ../the-fall-of-the-citadel
2. The Last Ember (book 1, in-progress) - ../the-last-ember
3. Embers of the Vale (book 3, planning) - .

Shared canon:
- Characters: kael-voss, lord-maren, sera-voss
- Locations: ashen-citadel
- Systems: ember-magic
- Facts: whisper-gate-route

Series check failed: 3 errors, 1 warnings, 0 dismissed
error: characters/lord-maren.md has status alive, but lord-maren is deceased in earlier book The Last Ember; set status: deceased
error: chapters/chapter-01.md lists lord-maren, who died in earlier book The Last Ember; move appearances to mentions
error: continuity/state.md knowledge-state[0] has kael-voss learn whisper-gate-route in chapter-01, but they already know it in earlier book The Fall of the Citadel (../the-fall-of-the-citadel/continuity/state.md knowledge-state[1])
warning: characters/sera-voss.md name "Queen Sera" differs from "Sera Voss" in ../the-last-ember/characters/sera-voss.md [canon-name-mismatch]

The knowledge error reaches back two books: Kael knows whisper-gate-route in the prequel, so no later book can have him learn it on the page.

Traversal limits

story series only follows links to sibling folders of the book you run it on, so it finds the same books from whichever book it starts at. A link that leaves the parent folder, directly or through a symlink, is reported as an error (points outside the series directory) and not followed; a link to a book nested deeper inside it is reported as is not a sibling folder in the series directory. story links reports either kind of link as is not in the same parent folder as this book. A linked book whose story.md fails to parse is reported once and left out of the chronology; its links are not followed. A book reached through a symlink and through its real path counts as one book. The book you pass is resolved to its real folder first, so story series links/second, where links/second links to second-book, checks second-book against its real siblings. A linked book whose story.md is itself a symlink is not read; the check reports <path>: Refusing to read through symlink against it.

The traversal also stops at 100 books, reporting an error when the limit is hit. There is no link-depth limit, so a long linear series is checked from either end.

What it cannot check

The checker compares ids, statuses, names, pronunciations, and fact ids. It cannot judge knowledge that has no fact id, ages, dates, travel time, or tone. Check those by reading both books' plot/timeline.md files and their Series Notes and Series Canon sections.

Checking series links

story links checks the current book's own series links, alongside its other cross-references. For each path in follows and precedes it reports:

Error	Meaning
story.md follows <path> is not a story project: missing story.md	The linked folder has no story.md.
story.md follows <path>: <parse error>	The linked book's story.md cannot be parsed.
story.md follows <path> points at this book	The link resolves to the book itself.
story.md follows <path> is missing backlink: add <path> to its precedes	The linked book does not link back.
story.md follows <path> belongs to series <id>, not <id>	Both books set series and the ids differ. A blank series: "" counts as no id.
story.md follows <path> is not in the same parent folder as this book; ...	The linked book is not a sibling folder, so story series will not follow the link.
story.md follows <path> uses a backslash; write <path> so the link works on every system	The path uses a Windows \ separator, which resolves on Windows only. Reported on every platform; story validate warns about it too.

The same messages appear with precedes for links in that field. With the backlink removed from The Last Ember, story links in the sequel reports:

error: story.md follows ../the-last-ember is missing backlink: add ../embers-of-the-vale to its precedes

story report and story doctor include the link check only as a count (Links: failed (N errors, 0 warnings) in the report, a Fix broken references action in the doctor output), so run story links to see the messages.

story report also shows the series id and publication number when they are set:

# The Fall of the Citadel

Story ID: the-fall-of-the-citadel
Schema version: 2
Series: the-ember-cycle (book 2)
Status: planning

See the CLI reference for every command.

Carrying canon between books

init links the books but copies nothing else. You carry characters and places across yourself, or with the series-continuity skill. Carry only the entities the new book uses. For each one, copy the file from the other book, then adjust it:

• Keep the filename id identical. story series matches entities by id. A renamed file is a new entity to the checker. story rename warns when the old id is also defined in a linked book; rename it there too, or keep the old id.
• Keep name identical. Put new titles and epithets in aliases. In the example, the prequel's lord-maren.md keeps name: "Lord Maren" and lists General Maren as an alias.
• Keep the voice and sound fields. voice-words, voice-avoid, and pronunciation travel with the file, so story voices checks the character against the same voice in every book, and an audiobook narrator says the name the same way.
• Set state for this book's starting point. For a sequel, start from the earlier book's final status, relationships, ownership, and knowledge. For a prequel, start from the earlier situation and record the later book's facts as fixed endpoints in a ## Series Canon section of the entity file.
• Remove book-local references. died-in, the from of each progressions entry, and every other chapter id point at chapters in the source book. Set the frontmatter to the state the character starts this book in, and drop the source book's progressions. For a character who died before this book begins, by died-in or by a status progression, keep status: deceased, remove died-in, and list them only in mentions: story continuity warns when one appears in a chapter or scene cast. If they come back in this book, add a status progression to alive from that chapter; story series then allows them on the page from there.
• Carry or prune every link. Relationships, locations, notable-characters, location routes, faction members, and artifact owner and location must point at entities that exist in this book, with backlinks where the field needs one. Carry the linked entity too, or remove the reference. story links reports what you missed, for example characters/lord-maren.md references missing location ashen-citadel.
• Do not copy chapters, scenes, arcs, questions, promises, clues, or continuity/state.md. Rebuild them:
  • Open questions or promises the new book continues become new files in its continuity/ folders.
  • Events from the other book become rows in the ## Backstory Events table of plot/timeline.md (sequel), or ## Series Canon notes (prequel). The Last Ember's timeline records the coup from the prequel this way. To cite the other book's chapter, link to its file relative to timeline.md, such as [the coup](../../the-fall-of-the-citadel/chapters/chapter-01.md): story links accepts an existing file in a book this one follows or precedes. Do not write another book's bare chapter id (chapter-09) in the table, since story links reads bare ids as this book's chapters. story move never rewrites ids inside link paths or URLs.
  • continuity/state.md starts at current-chapter: 0 with the carried character and object state. An artifact destroyed or lost in an earlier book keeps status: destroyed (or lost) with no since, which marks it gone before this story: story continuity errors on any scene whose state-changes use it, and still allows mentions.

Record the book's place in the series in a ## Series Notes section of its story.md body: where it sits in the chronology, the time gap to the linked books, and the canon it must not contradict. The prequel example's notes:

## Series Notes

- Book 2 in publication order, but set first in the chronology of the Ember Cycle.
- Canon fixed by The Last Ember: King Aldric and Queen Elara die in the coup; Sera (16) and Kael (12) escape through the tunnels into the Whispering Vale; Maren seals the ember well and burns out his own affinity.
- Sera, Kael, and Maren must end this book alive and in the states The Last Ember opens with.

Fact ids

Knowledge only carries across books when it has a stable fact id in continuity/state.md. Use the same id in every book:

knowledge-state:
  - character: kael-voss
    knows: The tunnel behind the musicians' gallery reaches the Whisper Gate
    fact: whisper-gate-route

• story series matches the character id plus the fact id, never the knows text, so the wording can differ between books. The two example books describe the Whisper Gate route differently and still match.
• Add learned-in only in the book where the character discovers the fact on the page. In every later book, carry the entry without learned-in, because the character already knew it when the book began.
• Fact ids are kebab-case, and a character lists a given fact once per book. story continuity checks both rules; see Continuity and analysis.
• Do not explain the rule in an inline comment after learned-in. A command that rewrites the entry, such as story rename, drops the comment.
• Give ids to the reveals, secrets, and discoveries that another book depends on. Everyday knowledge does not need one.

Writing against canon

• Sequels. Before drafting, reread the earlier book's final chapters, continuity/state.md, and every open question and promise. Decide which threads the new book picks up.
• Prequels. The later book is canon. Every fixed endpoint must still be reachable by the end of the prequel. Do not mark a character deceased who is alive in a later book, and do not give a character knowledge that a later book shows them learning for the first time. Before drafting, list the later book's fact ids that have learned-in, and keep those facts out of the prequel.
• Revising an earlier book after later books exist: run story series . before and after the revision. When canon changes, update the later books' Series Notes and carried entity files.
• New names. story names checks candidates against the current book only. Before settling a name in a later book, run it against each earlier book too (story names "Ilse" --path ../the-last-ember), so a new minor character does not echo a major one from book one.

A translated or adapted edition is not a new book in the series. It is a copy of the same book, so the adaptation skill removes series, book-number, follows, and precedes from the edition's story.md; copied values would point at the source series and break story links and story series. A translated series links its own translated books to each other in the same way the source series does.

Serial and episodic installments inside a single book are a different layer; see the genre-craft skill's serial and episodic reference.

The series-continuity skill

The series-continuity skill runs this workflow for an agent. It triggers on requests such as "write a sequel", "start book two", "write a prequel", "companion novel", or "series bible". It:

1. Reads the existing book: story.md, the character and world registries, plot/timeline.md, continuity/state.md, open questions and promises, and the final chapters.
2. Asks you for the title, synopsis, relationship (sequel, prequel, or companion), time gap, and returning characters and places.
3. Creates the book with story init --follows or --precedes, then adds Series Notes.
4. Carries the entities you choose, following the rules above, and assigns fact ids.
5. Runs the maintenance checks.

Its series-bible.md reference maps each part of a series bible to the files above, and covers planning a multi-book series and pitching it.

Other skills defer to it: story-init sends sequel and prequel requests there, chapter-writing gives series-relevant reveals a fact id when story.md has follows or precedes, and revision-continuity and story-maintenance add story series . to their checks for linked books. See the Skills catalogue.

Maintenance checklist

After changing series links or carried entities, run these in each affected book:

story reindex .
story wordcount . --write
story check .
story series .

reindex rebuilds the registries after you copy entity files in, wordcount --write keeps the chapter counts current, check runs links (series links and carried references), validate (the series fields), and continuity (fact ids within the book), and series checks canon across books. To run them in CI, see Automation and CI.

Short-story collections and anthologies

There is no collection or anthology form. A collection works today as two layers: each story is its own project, and the collection is one more project with each story as a chapter.

salt-and-lantern/
├── low-tide/          # one story: form: short-story
├── salt/              # one story: form: flash
└── collection/        # the book: one chapter per story, no form
    ├── story.md
    ├── chapters/
    │   ├── chapter-01.md   # title: Low Tide
    │   └── chapter-02.md   # title: Salt
    └── matter/
        └── acknowledgements.md

Write and submit each story in its own project. Create it with story init "Low Tide" --form short-story (or flash, novelette, novella). The form gives the story its own word-count range, and story build . --format shunn (or --format docx --shunn) then uses Shunn's short-story layout, which is what magazines and contests want. Its characters, continuity, and submission history stay with the story.

Assemble the book in a collection project. When the stories are finished, gather them into a project of their own:

1. Copy each story's chapter file into one folder, named so the files sort in reading order (01-low-tide.md, 02-salt.md), and import the folder:

   story import stories/ --title "Salt and Lantern" --dir collection

   A chapter file in Story Skills' own layout imports as one chapter, titled by its title frontmatter and keeping its author (see Importing a folder of chapter files). This works best when each story is a single chapter, with section breaks as scene breaks (* * *). A story split into several chapters imports as several chapters, so join its prose into one file first. You can also create the chapters with story add chapter "Low Tide" and paste each story's prose under ## Chapter Text.

   For an anthology whose stories arrive as plain markdown or text files, add --bylines to credit each story's writer in its chapter's author (see Anthologies below):

   story import stories/ --title "Salt and Lantern" --dir collection --bylines

   A story's by-line, a line such as By Ben Other alone in its paragraph at the top of the story, becomes its author and is taken out of the prose; By Ada Writer and Ben Other gives a list. A story without one takes its file's frontmatter author. A line that is not clearly a by-line, such as By Christmas he was at sea., stays in the prose; set those authors by hand. Without --bylines, the by-line stays in the prose, so a story that opens with "By the time..." is never mistaken for one. See import for the full rules.

2. Leave form out of the collection's story.md. story import, and story init without --form, leave it unset. Every form describes a single work: short-story or flash would run the whole book together in the Shunn builds, and novel would apply a novel's word-count range.

3. Head each story with its title alone, not Chapter 1: Low Tide, by adding a chapter-heading label to story.md (see Build labels):

   author: Ada Writer
   labels:
     - chapter-heading: "{title}"

   Every build then heads each story with its title, and the EPUB, HTML, and print contents list the story titles. Setting numbered: false on every chapter gives the same headings. The chapter number still sets the order; reorder stories with story move chapter --number.

4. Add the book's pages as matter: a dedication, an introduction, and the previously-published acknowledgements as a back-matter page.

   story add matter "Acknowledgements" --placement back

   Write one credit line per story, such as "Low Tide" first appeared in Harbour Review, 2024. The submission skill drafts these from your tracker's publication history.

5. Run the maintenance checks, then build:

   story reindex .
   story wordcount . --write
   story check .
   story build . --format epub
   story build . --format shunn

The EPUB, DOCX, HTML, print, and markdown builds give each story its own heading and table of contents entry, with the matter pages around them. The Shunn builds put the collection's title and byline on the title page, start each story on a new page under its title (and its writer's byline, when the chapter sets author), and leave out the matter pages, as a manuscript submission expects. story wordcount lists each story's length.

Anthologies. For a book of several writers' stories, credit the editor with editor in story.md, and each story's writer with author in its chapter's frontmatter:

# story.md
editor: Cara Editor
labels:
  - chapter-heading: "{title}"

# chapters/chapter-02.md
title: Salt
author: Ben Other

Leave author out of story.md when the editor is the book's only credit. The title pages then read Edited by Cara Editor, and the EPUB names the editor with the edt role and each story's writer as a contributor. A chapter's author can be a list for a story written together. Every build prints it under the story's heading, as by Ben Other, and it is not part of the prose, so it never counts toward the word count. The audiobook narration script speaks it after the story's heading, as Written by Ben Other., and its opening credits name the editor, as Edited by Cara Editor., and then every story's writer the book's authors and editors leave out, as With contributions by Ben Other and Dee Writer. A collection whose stories all name its own author, and no one else, gets no story credits in the script, since its opening credit already names the author. editor is its own field, rather than a role on author, so a collection can name both its writer and an editor, and author means a writer wherever it appears. The byline, edited-by, narration-byline, narration-edited-by, and narration-contributors labels change the wording (see Build labels), and Story authors in collections and anthologies shows each build's output. The salt-and-lantern example is an anthology set up this way.

Linked collections. Stories that share characters or a world can link their story projects as a series with follows and precedes (see How a series is modelled), so story series checks their shared canon. Keep the collection project to prose and matter pages. Its stories would share one set of character and location ids, so unrelated stories with a character of the same name would collide, and story continuity would read the stories as one timeline.

What does not work yet:

• No command assembles story projects into a collection. The collection's chapters are copies, so an edit to a story after assembly must be made in both projects, or the chapter imported again.
• A build covers the whole project, so a single story's submission manuscript comes from its own project, not from the collection.
• Poetry and nonfiction collections are outside the story project model: the EPUB, HTML, and Shunn builds join the lines of a paragraph, so a poem loses its line breaks.

See also

• Project format reference: the series, book-number, follows, and precedes fields
• CLI reference: story series options and output
• Continuity and analysis: knowledge-state and fact ids within one book
• Skills catalogue: the series-continuity skill
• Documentation index: every page, by audience and task