Book Editor

Book Editor — a writing coach toolkit

Two paired skills that work as a book editor and writing coach for memoir, narrative non-fiction, and literary fiction. Draft freely and ignore grammar; the editor shapes the raw material, removes AI tells, and teaches you why as it goes.

The two skills

book-editor/

A full editor that works the way a professional does: it assesses the manuscript first, then edits in staged passes from big to small — developmental (structure, pacing, arc), line editing (flow, rhythm, redundancy, reader engagement), a voice pass, copyediting, and proofreading. It auto-fixes obvious mechanical errors and proposes everything substantive for approval, and it works alongside you as a coach, explaining the principle behind each change.

Grounded in the craft canon: Browne & King (Self-Editing for Fiction Writers), Joseph Williams (Style), Le Guin (Steering the Craft), Stephen King (On Writing), Strunk & White, McPhee (Draft No. 4), and Saunders.

Includes:

• scripts/prose_stats.py — objective rhythm/redundancy/readability stats.
• scripts/check_tells.py — bundled mechanical AI-tell sweep.
• reference/ — developmental, line-editing, copyedit/proof, and craft-canon guides.

humanizer/

The voice specialist. Works voice-first: establish the author's voice, then strip AI tells (em dashes, reflective-summary endings, telling-not-showing, stock fiction clichés, course-outcome boilerplate) while protecting the voice. Includes an enforced checker that hard-blocks delivery while em dashes or curly quotes remain, plus a voice-discovery mode for new authors.

Includes:

• scripts/check_tells.py — the enforced sweep (hard-fails on dashes/curly quotes).
• reference/patterns.md — the full AI-tell catalogue.
• reference/voice-discovery.md — the new-author voice interview.

The book-editor runs the humanizer as its voice pass, so they're designed to work together.

How they work in a session

1. Assess — the editor reads the whole piece and tells you where it is and what it needs (a rough draft needs developmental work, not proofreading).
2. Stage the passes — biggest structural questions first, smallest commas last.
3. Propose, don't impose — substantive changes come with before/after; only clear mechanical errors are auto-fixed.
4. Coach — every change comes with the why, so you become a stronger self-editor over time.

Installing

Claude Code — plugin marketplace (recommended)

This repo is a Claude Code plugin marketplace. Add it once, then install either plugin:

/plugin marketplace add nuwrldnf8r/book_editor_skill
/plugin install book-editor@book-editor-skill

book-editor lists humanizer as a dependency, so installing it pulls the humanizer in automatically. To install the voice pass on its own:

/plugin install humanizer@book-editor-skill

Update later with /plugin marketplace update book-editor-skill, and manage what's installed from the /plugin menu. You can also add the marketplace from a full URL (/plugin marketplace add https://github.com/nuwrldnf8r/book_editor_skill) or a local clone (/plugin marketplace add ./book_editor_skill).

Claude Desktop / Cowork — manual

• Settings → Capabilities → add a skill, and point it at each skill folder (book-editor/ and humanizer/) or its packaged .skill file.

Either way, the skills are self-contained Markdown + small Python scripts; no dependencies beyond Python 3.

Using the scripts directly

python3 humanizer/scripts/check_tells.py path/to/draft.md      # enforced AI-tell sweep
python3 book-editor/scripts/prose_stats.py path/to/draft.md    # rhythm & redundancy stats

License

MIT — see LICENSE.