Review Dialogue Action Beats Guide

review_dialogue_action_beats is a proposal-only editorial tool for final paragraph files in chapters/.

It reviews dialogue-adjacent action beats one by one instead of rewriting the entire scene in one pass.

What it is for

Use it when you want to know whether an action beat:

• clarifies the speaker well
• adds tension, blocking, psychology, or subtext
• fits the character's canon profile
• should be tightened, replaced, removed, or turned into a simple said fallback

It can also suggest missing beats and low-confidence recurring tics worth observing for a character.

Workflow

Typical flow:

1. read paragraph_writing_context
2. run review_dialogue_action_beats
3. inspect each beat proposal and decide which choices you want
4. apply only the confirmed selections with apply_dialogue_action_beats
5. if the beat changes affect continuity-sensitive material, review state_changes

The paragraph context should always include guidelines/writing-style.md, and that file should contain explicit rules for dialogue action beats, said-tag fallbacks, use of space, and psychologically meaningful gestures.

What it returns

• reviewId
• paragraphHash
• previewBody
• beat-level proposals with explicit choiceId values
• optional tic suggestions
• source files used for the pass

What it does not do

• it does not write files
• it does not rewrite the whole paragraph blindly
• it does not auto-update character canon with tic suggestions

Apply step

apply_dialogue_action_beats applies only the selected beat changes after confirmation.

It validates:

• reviewId
• expectedParagraphHash

If the paragraph changed after review, apply should be treated as stale and the review should be rerun.