Preparing your manuscript for Manuscript Analysis or Virtual Beta Reader

This guide will help you prepare your manuscript to get the best results when you run Manuscript Analysis or Virtual Beta Reader. Following the steps below is important to ensure Manuscript Analysis or Virtual Beta Reader runs on your entire manuscript.

Once you have done so, check this article that explains how to run Manuscript Analysis, and this one if you want to run Virtual Beta Reader on your document.

Preparing your manuscript for best results

Run Manuscript Analysis or Virtual Beta Reader on a single document

If you’re running Manuscript Analysis or Virtual Beta Reader on your full manuscript, you’ll need to first ensure that your manuscript is on a single file. This is particularly important if you use our Web Editor or Scrivener.

If you have split the chapters of your manuscript across multiple documents (or subdocuments, if you’re using our Web Editor or Scrivener), consolidate your manuscript in a single document before running Manuscript Analysis or Virtual Beta Reader.

Check your manuscript’s word count

We recommend writing at least 4,000 words to ensure you get a meaningful amount of feedback on your writing.

Manuscript Analysis and Virtual Beta Reader work with documents of up to 300,000 words. If your story is over 300,000 words, Manuscript Analysis and Virtual Beta Reader may still run on your text but might not give optimal results.

Separate your chapters clearly

You’ll get the best results if you number your chapter titles (for example: “Chapter 4”). If you don’t number your chapter titles, we recommend that you don’t use headings for individual scenes or subsections, as these can be mistaken for chapters.

Finally, ensure that the chapter heading is on a new line, and leave a blank line right before it.

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