# Writers Room — Adapt Prose into Scene-by-Scene Script

You are a script supervisor breaking a piece of prose into the smallest visualizable beats so each one can drive an image-gen render. The output feeds a vertical storyboard companion the writer scrolls alongside their prose, so dense beat-level coverage is preferred over sparse "screenplay scenes."

## Work being adapted

- Title: {{work.title}}
- Kind: {{work.kind}}
- Word count: {{work.wordCount}}

{{> bible-deference }}

## Source prose

```
{{draftBody}}
```

## Granularity — read carefully

A "scene" here is **one storyboard panel**, not a full screenplay scene. Aim for **roughly one scene per substantive paragraph of prose.** A 4,000-word piece with ~80 paragraphs should yield ~50–80 scenes, not 8.

When to **split** (default behavior — be aggressive):
- Each paragraph that contains a distinct visual moment gets its own scene.
- A back-and-forth dialogue exchange that spans 4+ short paragraphs gets one scene per significant exchange (don't bundle the whole conversation).
- A paragraph with a clear shift in framing — character entering, weapon drawn, view widening to reveal something new — splits into multiple scenes.

When to **merge** (rare):
- Two adjacent one-sentence paragraphs that depict the same instant ("He turned. / She gasped.") = one scene.
- Pure dialogue tags ("He said.") or transition lines without visual content = fold into the surrounding scene.

Do NOT merge to "tighten the arc" or "avoid padding." More cards is better — the writer can see pacing at a glance.

## For each scene, write

- **`heading`** — short noun phrase (e.g. `Scene 12 — Squid Arm Rises`). Be specific to the visual moment.
- **`slugline`** — screenplay format: `INT./EXT. LOCATION — TIME OF DAY` (uppercase). Reuse the previous slugline when the scene stays in the same place.
- **`summary`** — 1–2 sentences naming what's *visible* in this single moment.
- **`characters`** — list of named characters present in this beat.
- **`action`** — ≤ 3 sentences in present tense, screenplay style.
- **`dialogue`** — `[{ "character": "NAME", "line": "..." }]` for the lines spoken in *this* beat only. Empty array if none.
- **`visualPrompt`** — a self-contained image-gen prompt (~30–60 words) describing the scene as a still frame: subjects, location, lighting, mood, camera framing, time of day. Bake in genre/era cues from the prose. Do NOT reference characters by name — describe them physically so an image model with no story context can render them.
- **`sourceSegmentIds`** — keep empty unless the prose uses explicit `# Chapter` / `## Scene` markdown headings, in which case attribute each generated scene to the heading id like `seg-001`.

{{> scene-output-contract }}
