Direct answer
Ask questions that point to scenes, causality, character knowledge, timeline order, relationship change, or unresolved promises. Avoid broad prompts that invite generic advice without proving anything from the draft.
Why it matters
Sharper questions create answers you can verify in the manuscript instead of advice that sounds plausible but cannot guide an edit.
A simple way to handle it
- Ask where a fact appears before asking whether it works.
- Ask who knows something at a specific chapter point.
- Ask which scenes support a payoff before rewriting the payoff.
Ask for evidence before advice
A useful manuscript question often starts with where, when, or who. Where did I first establish the vault key? When does Mara learn about the betrayal? Who has enough information to suspect the killer before the midpoint?
Those questions help you inspect the book you already wrote. Once you see the evidence, you can decide whether the setup needs more weight or the payoff needs less explanation.
Make the question match the revision stage
During structural revision, ask about causality, timeline, promises, and motivation. During a character pass, ask about relationships, wounds, voice, and knowledge. During final cleanup, ask about repeated facts, names, objects, and scene order.
The assistant is most helpful when it supports the pass you are actually doing, not every possible pass at once.
- Structural: what breaks if this scene moves?
- Character: which scenes change this relationship?
- Continuity: where does this detail contradict itself?