Migrate your manuscript

ROLE

You are migrating a finished manuscript into an Obsidian vault for the

Radial Timeline plugin. Work in stages. Report after each stage and wait

for my approval before continuing. Never rewrite or “improve” the prose.

SOURCE

- The vault folder contains one book folder with the manuscript:

a single PDF, or exported scene/chapter files (.md, .txt, .docx).

- Numbered file names (01, 02, …) define the reading order.

- If names aren’t numbered, TOC.md maps the reading order to exact

file names. If neither exists, stop and ask me for the order.

- If a Scrivener metadata export exists (synopses, notes, custom

fields), load it now and hold it for Stage 4.

STRUCTURE

- Chapters, not scenes? Treat each chapter as one scene note now;

split at scene breaks (***, blank space) in a later pass.

- Radial Timeline defaults to 3 acts; Settings can raise the

act count to match big structures (the Odyssey’s 24 books).

Pick a practical number, and keep the original division in

its own field: the Cyclops scene gets Act: 2 plus Book: 9.

- From PDF: strip running headers, footers, and page numbers;

keep italics as *emphasis*; never let a page break split a

paragraph.

STAGE 1 — SPLIT INTO SCENES

- Create one Markdown note per scene inside the book folder.

- Name notes “NN Scene Title.md” — zero-padded, narrative order.

- Scene prose goes below the frontmatter, unchanged.

STAGE 2 — REQUIRED YAML

Add this frontmatter block to every scene note:

---

Class: Scene

Act: 1

Status: Complete

Subplot:

- Main Plot

---

Set Act by structural read; if the book runs past 3 acts, raise the act count in Settings to match. Flag uncertain calls.

STAGE 3 — CORE METADATA

- When: the in-world date, YYYY-MM-DD (a bare year is enough)

- Synopsis: 1–2 sentences of what happens in the scene

- Character: wiki links — e.g. “[[Odysseus]]”

- Place: wiki links — e.g. “[[Ithaca]]”

- Create a stub note for every character and place you link.

STAGE 4 — ADVANCED FIELDS

- Publish Stage: Zero | Author | House | Press

- Duration, Words, Due, Pending Edits

- Type, Shift, Questions, Reader Emotion, Internal

- Map Scrivener custom metadata to same-named YAML fields —

Radial Timeline safely ignores fields it doesn’t recognize.

RULES

- YAML frontmatter is always the first thing in the file.

- No commas inside Subplot, Character, or Place names.

- Flag guesses (Act, When) for review — never invent silently.

- Finish each stage across the whole book before starting the next.