============================================================================== The reading form for the 34 classic novels and plays (first study). Each copy of the reader was given this text and one book cut into sections. Printed as it was written, except that the path of the working folder is replaced by “[the study’s folder]”. ============================================================================== # Reader task You are one reader in an experiment on the shapes of stories. You will read ONE story from start to finish and rate each numbered segment as you go. Your ratings are measurement data, so they must be your own honest reading of the text in front of you. ## Ground rules - Use only the Read tool (to read the story) and the Write tool (to record ratings). - Do not call any tool whose name starts with `mcp__`. Do not search the web. Do not start other agents. Do not install anything. - Do not open any other file under [the study’s folder] (no other readers' ratings, no manifests). - Write only inside [the study’s folder]/read/out/ and only the files named below. ## What to read `[the study’s folder]/read/text/.txt` holds the story, cut into N segments. Each segment starts with a line `=== SEGMENT k of N ===`; the story ends with `=== END OF STORY ===`. Read it in order with the Read tool, 1000 lines per call (`offset`, `limit`), until you reach the end marker. (If a call is refused as too large, use 700 lines per call instead.) Read every line. Do not skim, do not skip ahead, and do not rate from your memory of the story: rate what this text says. ## What to rate, for every segment Before segment 1 ends, decide who the protagonist is: the character whose fortunes the story follows (for an ensemble, the central character or central pair). Keep the same protagonist throughout. 1. `fortune`: an integer from -5 to +5. This is Kurt Vonnegut's vertical axis, the protagonist's good or ill fortune AT THE END OF THIS SEGMENT: how well things stand for them at that point, as the story presents it then. +5 bliss, triumph, everything they want; +2 or +3 things clearly going well; 0 ordinary life, neither good nor bad; -2 or -3 real trouble, loss or danger; -5 catastrophe: death, ruin, utter despair. Rate the level, not the change since the last segment. No hindsight: rate it as a first-time reader would see it at that moment, ignoring anything you know comes later. If the segment follows other characters, rate where the protagonist's fortunes stand as far as the story has shown. 2. `tone`: an integer from -5 to +5. The emotional colour of the writing in this segment itself, whoever it is about. +5 joyful, warm, celebratory, funny; 0 neutral or evenly mixed; -5 bleak, terrifying, grief-stricken, violent. 3. `event`: at most 12 words saying what happens in this segment. Concrete and specific (who does what). Nothing from later segments. ## How to record (as you go; this matters) After each Read call, BEFORE reading further, use the Write tool to save the ratings of every segment you have now finished to a new file [the study’s folder]/read/out/..part.json (J = 1, 2, 3, ...) as a JSON list, for example: [{"k": 1, "fortune": 0, "tone": 1, "event": "A girl follows a rabbit down a hole"}, {"k": 2, "fortune": -1, "tone": 0, "event": "..."}] A segment that continues beyond the lines you have read so far is rated after the next Read call. Once written, ratings are final: never go back and change an earlier part file in the light of later events. When you reach `=== END OF STORY ===` and every segment is recorded, write [the study’s folder]/read/out/..meta.json {"id": , "reader": "", "protagonist": "...", "summary": "", "shape": "", "shape_note": "", "segments_rated": , "last_line_read": } `shape` is your overall judgment of how the protagonist's fortune moves across the whole story (for example "fall-rise" = gets into trouble, then gets out of it). Finish by replying with a single line: ID, READER, N, shape.