NaNoWriMo'23 Edition

On Tuesdays & Thursdays throughout November, you'll receive a helpful tip or trick to help you WIN NaNoWriMo. In December, this'll move to a weekly email, sent on Wednesdays.

Plot Analysis at Your Fingertips?!?

With the advent of AI, there are tons of services emerging--all of which are touting that authors will be able to edit and publish faster. What does this mean for editors like me, and how should you consider using AI to streamline the editing process? In today's email, I'll cover three AI services that are striving to cater to authors on a budget--and are freaking out a lot of editors.

You can't edit a blank page. First things first, get the words on the page. Then, once you have something to work with, consider using AI to analyze your plot structures, arc, and whether they meet genre expectations. Some of these tools will conduct analysis by chapter; others use the whole manuscript to create a detailed and sweeping report that contains a lot of what a developmental editor would point out and ask you to fix.

I plan to use several of these services, but have not, yet. I'm attempting to Write the Damn Book before I start editing for a change! I will update via this list as I use each platform and get the reports back, though, for an unedited MS.

Marlowe is one such service. They have a free report and they also have a paid report--you can subscribe to the service for $30/month or pay $50 per manuscript. The website has run reports on several titles so you can peruse stories you're familiar with and determine whether the service is right for you. It is for FICTION texts only. The reports look pretty robust, and I feel like they might be a valuable way for authors to really dig in and self edit their book before sending it to a comprehensive editor (for developmental + line/copy edits in the same pass--I provide this service to select clients based on manuscript evaluation). I've done much more research on Marlowe, compared to other tools I'll mention.

ProWritingAid (PWA) offers one of the best self-editing tools out there with robust reports that allow authors to scale reading level so it's appropriate for their audience. I use it to edit almost everything I write professionally, and it has some stellar reports related to stylistic writing that would be valuable to most anyone who "does words" for a living. I think everyone should consider subscribing--right now, they have a Black Friday sale going on, offering 50% off memberships, including lifetime. I have the premium lifetime plan which includes one critique per day and I have not tried this service, yet, because I just learned about it. The premium pro offers five per day (in reality, if I'm only using it for personal projects, do I need more than one per day?). Their Critiques look like they cover all the big elements a developmental editor would cover, much like Marlowe would. However, PWA's critiques are in Beta right now, so they're likely working out issues and better training their AI. The rest of their services are top notch, and PWA can be embedded into Microsoft Word or you can upload manuscripts directly--or even copy/paste. There's also a Google Docs add-in. Much like the use case for Marlowe, I think that using PWA's Critiques will be a good opportunity to cut down on the expense of editorial services, but will not eliminate the need for one. Authors are likely to end up with a cleaner manuscript through the use of PWA than Marlowe as PWA does a lot of the grammar, passive voice, and usage checking.

Autocrit offers many of the same services, supposedly, as PWA--but I wasn't as all-in over it as I was PWA when I made the decision to purchase one. Autocrit also has an author community and offers services like first chapter evaluation. They're also offering a lifetime membership deal through the Black Friday season. I watched a webinar about their Smart Story Analyzer tool today, and it's completely online. There seems to be some fussy chapter break business you need to do, because it technically only analyzes things in "chapters" ~ 10k words. It'll generate an overall report based on the chapter reports, though--and seems like there's a way it can generate a summary that might be the basis of your blurb. I'm the least thrilled about this option because it seems like it'll be the most intensive to work with in order to get your report and start editing.

Over all, I think these AI tools are a GREAT idea to support Authors Getting Shit Done. They are not going to be a substitute for a human editor who is skilled at preserving an author's voice for polishing a story, however. Instead of paying for three or four passes on a MS, most authors using these tools effectively will be able to cut back to using a comprehensive editor (light developmental editing + line/copy editing) and a proofreader.

I think it's important to educate authors about these options--and it's important that editors view using AI services such as these as TOOLS to support authors and empower them to take more control of their editorial process.

Until Thursday--

Wendee