# STYLE-GUIDE Excerpt

Source: `data/demo/.manuscript/STYLE-GUIDE.md`

## Narrative perspective

- **POV:** Close third person
- **Narrator distance:** Intimate

## Sentence architecture

- **Average sentence length:** 14 words
- **Sentence variation:** High variation
- **Sentence music:** Lyrical

## Figurative language

- **Metaphor density:** Moderate
- **Metaphor style:** Grounded and sensory
- **Recurring image systems:** Clocks, gears, tides, ocean, hands, touch

## Dialogue voice

- **Tag style:** Action beats preferred over tags
- **Subtext level:** Moderately subtextual

## Physicality

- **Body awareness:** High
- **Place:** Strong
- **Time of day/weather:** Present in every scene

## Always

- Ground every emotion in a physical sensation.
- Let silence speak.
- Give every clock its own character.

## Never

- Explain emotions directly.
- Use cliches about time healing.
- Rush the quiet moments.