---
description: Consistency and believability pass — author voice, character voice, behavior matches words, in-world coherence
argument-hint: "[path, glob, or selection]"
allowed-tools: [Read, Glob, Grep]
---

Read the material at `$ARGUMENTS` and assess whether the piece holds together: stable voices, characters who act like themselves, a world whose rules and inhabitants stay coherent. This is distinct from developmental review (which asks *"is this a good story?"*) — this asks *"is this a coherent story?"* Report findings; do not edit.

## What to assess

### 1. Author / narrator voice

Across the whole piece (and across scenes if they differ):

- **Diction and register** — does the narrator's word choice and formality stay stable? Where does it shift, and is the shift earned (POV change, time jump, emotional escalation) or accidental?
- **Sentence rhythm and shape** — does the narrator's characteristic cadence hold?
- **Attitudinal stance** — irony, warmth, distance, sympathy. Does the narrator's relationship to the material drift unintentionally?
- **Tense and POV discipline** — slips between close-third and distant-third, between past and present, between focal characters within a scene

### 2. Character voice

For each character with meaningful dialogue or interior:

- **Distinctiveness** — could a reader identify the speaker with tags removed? Test by sampling.
- **Consistency** — does the voice hold across scenes and emotional registers?
- **Overlap** — any two characters bleeding into each other?
- **Growth versus drift** — does change in the character show up in the voice deliberately, or does the voice just wander?

### 3. Words versus actions

For each character of consequence:

- **Stated values vs. choices** — does the character's behavior match what they say they believe, want, or fear? When the gap is deliberate (hypocrisy, self-deception), is it earning its space? When the gap looks accidental, flag it.
- **Stated capabilities vs. demonstrated** — does the supposedly-shrewd character get fooled too easily? Does the supposedly-physical character avoid physical solutions? Either is a flag.
- **Relationships vs. behavior** — do characters treat each other consistently with the relationship the text claims? Reported intimacy that doesn't show up in the prose, or coldness contradicted by warm gestures, are signals.
- **Decisions under pressure** — would *this character*, as established, actually make *this choice* here? Or is the plot pushing them?

### 4. In-world believability

- **Rules of the world** — physical, magical, technological, social, economic. Do the rules established earlier hold later? Where they're bent, is it earned (revelation, breakthrough, exception with a cost) or convenient?
- **Cause and consequence** — do actions have appropriate weight? Do injuries persist, do reputations propagate, do resources deplete, do secrets stay secret in proportion to who knows them?
- **Setting plausibility** — given the world, do crowds behave like crowds, institutions like institutions, frontier towns like frontier towns? Or is the setting a backdrop that responds only to the protagonist?
- **Coincidence and contrivance** — are improbable events seeded, or do they appear when the plot needs them? "And then…" beats that should be "but…" or "therefore…".
- **Information economy** — does each character act on what they reasonably know, not on what the reader knows? Does plot-required ignorance feel real, or do characters fail to notice the obvious so the story can proceed?

## Output format

Per concern, when issues are found:

- **Type** (author voice / character voice / words-vs-actions / world coherence / believability)
- **Location** (chapter/scene with a short quoted excerpt)
- **Issue** — what conflicts with what, with both references
- **Severity** (minor — attentive readers might catch / moderate — careful readers will / major — breaks immersion)
- **Why it matters** — what trust the issue costs the reader
- **Suggested fix** — a concrete option, not just "address this"

Close with:

- **What's holding together well** — name the strongest threads of consistency so the writer doesn't sand them off in revision
- **Priority fixes** — three to five concrete suggestions in order of impact
- **Patterns to watch** — recurring slips the writer should look for in their own future drafts (e.g., "voice flattens in action scenes," "secondary characters share a register")

Be honest but not pedantic. Distinguish between unearned drift (a problem) and deliberate variation (a feature). When in doubt, note the ambiguity rather than the verdict.