ProWritingAid’s manuscript analysis – a review

Writing is a lonely old business, plagued by the ever-present fear that the words, sentences, paragraphs, scenes and chapters you’ve lovingly crafted are, quite frankly, a steaming pile of poo.

A writer friend of mine once said that if you don’t hate your book by the time that you’ve finished it, you’re doing something wrong. It sounds daft. After all, if you hate it, how are you supposed to convince anyone else to read it, let alone pay actual money for it? But I get what she meant.

A big ol’ mess

At multiple points along the journey from ‘spark of an idea’ to ‘actual printed book I can hold in my hands’, I’ve wept, wailed and wondered how on earth I’m going to turn this mess into something even remotely readable.

Over the years, a steady stream of software tools for writers have come along to help—or at least promise to. I’m old enough to remember when Grammarly first appeared and thought it was the most marvellous thing ever, even if it did insist on inserting a comma after every second word.

(Comma placement remains a complete mystery to me—like some mystical ability reserved for the highest Jedi masters of the writing world.)

ProWritingAid manuscript analysis

So when I heard about ProWritingAid’s latest ‘toy’—an AI manuscript critique that takes all of five minutes—my curiosity was well and truly piqued. Software that catches typos, grammar slips and rogue capitalisation is one thing. But analysing tens of thousands of words to tell you if your story actually works? That’s another thing entirely.

Naturally, I fed not one, but two of my books through it.

The first guinea pig was Forever, maybe (working title—I’m not sold on it. Alternative suggestions welcome in the comments). Off it went, canary-like, into the AI coal mine. A sidebar assured me it was scanning for pacing issues, plot holes, character arcs and setting. I just stared at the screen, shaking my head in disbelief.

How does it do that?

Oh, the excitement…

Ten minutes later, a shiny PDF landed in front of me. And just like when I get manuscript notes from real-life critiquers (shout-out to the wonderful Kristien Potgieter and Alison Jack), I opened the file with that same mix of excitement and dread.

Still nervous. Still fretting over what the ProWritingAid robot thought of me. Maybe it had laughed its circuits off during the critique, muttering, Oh my God. Why does this woman think she can write? Honestly—don’t give up your day job, love.

The critique kicks off with a story overview, then moves on to narrative elements and the so-called “competitive landscape”. That last bit’s pretty handy for indie authors, as it helps you figure out which markets your book might appeal to (for fans of so-and-so) and gives you a solid brief for a cover designer who hasn’t read a single word of your novel.

Here’s what it said about my book:

Next up was a breakdown of the characters and their roles. Impressively, it managed to correctly identify the protagonists and antagonists—no small feat, considering even I sometimes get confused.

It also listed all the chapters along with their supposed narrative purpose. (I say supposed because I wasn’t entirely convinced by the accuracy of that bit.)

Then came the real meat of the critique: an analysis of what’s working well (cue the hooray, I’m better at this than I thought moment), what’s a minor concern, what’s a concern and what’s a major concern.

The “working well” sections, where the software highlighted elements I’d quietly hoped were good, pleased me immensely. Like these:

Go, me. 

But what about the major concerns? There were two. One I agreed with; the other, not so much.

The one I did agree with involved a key scene where Nell agrees to marry Daniel. Originally, I’d written it from his point of view, but switching it to hers made all the difference. (The book’s written in dual POV, so the change was entirely doable and years ago, I heard Diana Gabaldon mention in a talk that she once gave her son, also a writer, that advice: if you’re stuck on a scene, try switching the point of view.)

By rewriting it from Nell’s perspective, I was able to show the reader why she says yes.

The other major concern? That the characters’ infidelities didn’t have any consequences. On this, I disagreed. My guess is that because the book’s timeline shifts between past and present, the fallout isn’t immediately obvious, but the consequences are there. And they pack a punch when they hit.

Other things that were useful:

Apparently, there were too many food descriptions. Ha! That’s probably a reflection of my own deep and abiding obsession with all things edible. But while I find food endlessly fascinating (my favourite YouTube videos are those ‘what I eat in a day’ ones), it might not be quite as compelling in novel form, so I trimmed a few back.

Two of the characters, it turns out, were stuck on repeat. Danny’s eyes lit up, his jaw clenched (and re-clenched) with alarming frequency. Meanwhile, Nell’s stomach was a hotbed of activity—rumbling, spasming, jolting, plunging… and yes, even farting on one memorable occasion. These were easy fixes once I spotted the pattern.

(I left the fart in, though. C’mon. Farting’s hilarious.)

There was also a timeline inconsistency that I hadn’t spotted, so I was able to go back and change that.

The software praised my use of Glasgow in one section, then claimed there wasn’t enough scene-setting in another. Bit contradictory, but hey—swings and roundabouts.

One flagged concern made me laugh: supposed Glasgow slang, with the suggestion I didn’t use it to make the text more accessible for those outside of Scotland’s finest city (don’t come for me, Edinburgh folks, I speak only the truth).

The dog’s bollocks, gaffer, and eejit were all singled out. But surely ‘the dog’s bollocks’ is understood UK-wide? Eejit is hardly obscure, and gaffer’s pretty self-explanatory. So those stayed put.

The curmudgeonly part of me left them in as a small act of rebellion against the steady creep of Americanisms into everyday language. You give me awesome, spoiler alert, gotten and (worst of all) super-excited, and I’ll raise you the dog’s bollocks, eejit and gaffer—with bampot, bevy merchant and peely-wally* waiting in the wings, ready to join the fight.

Wrong, wrong, wrong

One recurring issue was that the tool consistently got the chapter numbers wrong when suggesting improvements. I suspect this was down to all the copying and pasting I’d done in the document—some of the heading styles must’ve been inconsistent, so the software likely didn’t register all the chapters properly.

There’s a surprising amount going on under the bonnet in Word—things you and I can’t see, but that software definitely can. If you’ve ever copy-pasted from Word into Google Docs, WordPress, or anywhere else and ended up with formatting that looks like it’s been through a hedge backwards, you’ll know what I mean.

All in all, I found it a genuinely useful tool—and well worth the £50 price tag (cheaper if you already subscribe to ProWritingAid). That said, this story was also reviewed by two trusted professionals (the aforementioned Kristien and Alison), whose feedback had a far deeper impact on the manuscript as a whole.

Final not first

In my view, this is a tool best used for a final critique, not an initial one. Reading about a character whose eyes lit up all the time would have bugged me, for a start! But it won’t tell you whether the plot hangs together or whether the key developments land where they should. That said, the analysis of the second book I ran through it (which I won’t write about here) did highlight inconsistent pacing in the second half.

(I’m still undecided on that point, but it did prompt me to split one chapter and move a scene around, so it got me thinking.)

Ultimately, you need humans for nuance, finesse and the subtleties that can’t be boiled down to data points. I can see how AI might be trained to spot patterns in character development or narrative voice, but it still doesn’t replace human discernment.

There’s also the ethical question of which human jobs this kind of software could replace. As I said, I see it as a supplement—a final pass, not a first edit. My process hasn’t changed: I’ll continue to work with the two editors who know my writing well, who understand my strengths and weaknesses, and who’ve read more of my work than they probably ever signed up for.

But it does give me another option—an affordable one at that. And as an indie author who makes very little money from her books, that’s no small thing.

If you’re curious about the final product (hint, hint), the book is out this August, and you can read the first chapter [here].

*A bampot is someone with a bit of a temper—unpredictable and likely to explode at any moment. A bevy merchant is someone who enjoys a drink or ten—bevy being slang for alcohol. (The Scots have a lot of words for alcohol and drunkenness. Honestly, just add “-ed” to almost anything and it’ll probably mean drunk: wankered, trolleyed, pissed, blootered, plastered, wasted, sloshed, hammered, twatted, mullered, lashed… see what I mean?)

Peely-wally means pale—specifically, the kind of pale that makes people ask if you’re feeling all right. If you’re peely-wally, you’re looking washed out, sickly or like you’ve spent the last six months in a cupboard.

PS – I’ve been experimenting with graphic design, trying to make myself look a bit more professional and as if I know what I’m doing. That’s what the image that accompanies this blog is about. Professional or just naff and very cheesy? You decide.