Set up a chapter-by-chapter drafting workflow

A writer used Claude Code to plan and draft a novel in stages, generating 10 chapters and about 32,000 words in 17 minutes.

Done with Claude Code· Advanced· Oct 2026

What they did
They turned to Claude Code and asked it to organize a custom novel-writing setup. The agent made roughly 10 slash commands, among them /brainstorm, /outline, and /write-chapter, and the writer added their own SOPs before saving everything under .claude/commands for later use. Once they picked one of five story ideas, /outline produced a 10-chapter plan, and /write-chapter handled each chapter by checking the earlier manuscript and the next beat in the outline before writing and storing the new text as a .txt file.
How it went
The process yielded 10 chapters and around 32,000 words in about 17 minutes. In a later manual review, the writer saw that a foreshadowed detail from chapter 2 landed as intended in chapter 9. They still considered the output a first draft.
Tips
A setup like this depends on clear writing rules and an outline that stays stable from chapter to chapter. It also helps to pause and review each chapter for continuity before continuing.

Try it yourself with Claude Code

I’m drafting a [genre] book titled [title]. Build a reusable Claude Code subagent for chapter drafting that can consult [outline file path] and the chapters already written in [folder]. Have it create or update commands for brainstorming, outlining, and drafting, then use them to write the next chapter in my established style at roughly [word count] words and save it using [filename pattern]. Draft only chapter [number] first, then stop and wait for my approval before moving on to any later chapter or making any irreversible change.

Fill in the [brackets]. Agents can make mistakes, so review anything before it is sent, paid or deleted.

Read the original on news.qq.com ↗

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