After completing the ‘Contract with the reader’, I turned to the next task Claude assigned as a preliminary step in the structural diagnosis:

Create a spreadsheet cataloging:

• Emotional beats (if any)
• Every character with speaking roles
• Every scene/episode’s word count
• Current timeline placement

I was impressed that the character spreadsheet generated three months ago, when Claude reviewed the supporting characters, and I was curious to see what help Claude would be in generating more spreadsheets to help me get a handle on the novel’s structure.

I issued a new prompt, pleased to find that the complete script of all the Episodes I had uploaded in December was still in Claude’s memory (like the proverbial elephant, it never forgets, eh?)

PROMPT: Please produce a timeline of major events in ‘Our Fermented Future’ in 5-year increments, starting in 2025 and ending in 2100. Output the results as a Google Sheets document.  

Claude then produced *not just* the 5-year chronology spreadsheet that I’d asked for but *also*, unbidden, a major character lifespan.

5-year chronology

The 78 rows included multiple events for some five year periods. Example:

• Year Range: 2035-2040
• Year: 2038
• Major Event: Polo partners with IBM Euskadi on quantum computing
• Episode(s): 3
• Key Characters Involved: Curro Polo
• Event Type: Technology Integration
• Significance: High
• Notes: SCOBYs as biological computers

Again:

• Year Range: 2070-2075
• Year: 2075
• Major Event: World Ferment Day reaches peak participation
• Episode(s): 4
• Key Characters Involved: Jo Webster, Anahera, billions globally
• Event Type: Cultural Milestone
• Significance: Very High
• Notes: Planetary synchronized fermentation

It was a simple job to extrapolate a bar chart showing when events cluster.

This indicates that more content is needed in the lean years, both early and later in the period.

Download the 5-year chronology PDF.

Character lifespan

This was a simple listing that I might regenerate for a greater number of people.

• Character Name: Dr. Josh Evans
• Birth Year: ~2010
• Death Year: ?
• Active Years: 2046-2072+
• Peak Influence Period: 2046-2053
• Lifespan: 62+ at last appearance

Or, consider my one immortal character:

• Character Name: Curro Polo
• Birth Year: ~2000
• Death Year: 2046 (uploaded)
• Active Years: 2025-2046 (embodied), 2046-> (network)
• Peak Influence Period: 2025-2068
• Lifespan: Consciousness continues beyond death

This is useful data if I wanted to create a timeline on a large sheet of paper with colored rows for each character. If only I had the wall space to display it!

Download the major character lifespan PDF.

Claude then suggested that more was available. Much, much more!

Luna Reyes Timeline

After creating the initial spreadsheets, Claude suggested:

Would you like me to create any additional timeline views, such as:

• Legal/political victories timeline
• Luna Reyes-specific timeline (just her story beats)
• Corporate vs. Movement milestones side-by-side
• Scientific publications chronology

At that point, I’d used up all my free Claude tokens for the day and had to wait until the next morning to continue.

The crowning glory of this exercise was the recommended timeline of the protagonist, Luna Reyes, listing story beats and a host of other details. The columns indicate the range and level of insight Claude generated from the 50k-word draft series of Episodes. Here are just two examples from the 51 rows:

• Year: 2043 Dec 15
• Age: 17
• Life Stage: Late High School
• Major Event: Luna releases genetics Bill of Rights
• Location: Oakland garage
• Emotional State: Righteous, terrified
• Story Beat Type: Revolutionary Act (INCITING INCIDENT)
• Character Development: Your Grandmother’s Yeast Is Your Birthright manifesto
• Key Relationships: Maya (videographer), Webb (concerned)
• External Conflict: None yet visible
• Internal Conflict: Excitement mixed with dread of consequences
• Scene/Chapter Potential: OPENING ACT I – The release

This is the act that inspired The Groundation Collective’s love song to Luna:

“Luna, Luna, Oh Luna Reyes
You cracked the code
Teenage prophet, fermentation queen
Symbiosis road
A genius at seventeen…”

And this later date:

• Year: 2062
• Age: 36
• Life Stage: Mid-thirties
• Major Event: Luna’s TED talk goes viral (2.3 billion views)
• Location: TED stage
• Emotional State: Triumphant publicly, hollow privately
• Story Beat Type: Public Triumph/Private Emptiness
• Character Development: Peak of fame, nadir of personal life
• Key Relationships: Global audience, but Sam absent
• External Conflict: None
• Internal Conflict: I have everything and nothing
• Scene/Chapter Potential: Contrast public/private scene

Claude had generated a mix of facts and speculative insight. Just having the age is a time saver as I come to write those scenes. The emotional state, character development, and internal conflicts are suggestions, I suspect, based on recommendations in the 10-point editorial plan. I certainly did not explicitly write about this in the Episodes.

I can, of course, exercise my own judgment as to whether I develop these in the novel.

Download Luna’s spreadsheet PDF.