Writing guides
Read your manuscript with sharper eyes.
Practical craft strategies for noticing what the draft is doing—and deciding what to do next.
Audited guide collection · verified September 2026
workflows
How to Outline in Bookshaper
Build your structure in Outline or Beat Cards; adopt what the analysis finds from Beat Gaps
Read guide →insights
Show vs. Tell
When to dramatize and when to summarize
Read guide →insights
Dialogue & Narration Balance
What your dialogue ratio reveals about your manuscript
Read guide →insights
Tension & Pacing
Reading your manuscript's dramatic shape
Read guide →insights
POV Consistency
Maintaining point-of-view discipline across your manuscript
Read guide →insights
Reading Pacing Uniformity
Understanding your manuscript's rhythm and flow
Read guide →insights
Chapter Balance & Scene Length
What uneven chapters and extreme scene lengths signal
Read guide →insights
Continuity & Timeline
Catching contradictions before your readers do
Read guide →insights
Timeline & Chronology
The order events happen, not the order you tell them
Read guide →insights
Narrative Voice
Consistency is not the goal — intentionality is
Read guide →insights
Passive Voice
When it weakens your prose and when it serves your story
Read guide →insights
Filter Words & Adverbs
Removing the invisible barriers between reader and story
Read guide →insights
Dialogue Tags & Attribution
The invisible mechanics of effective dialogue
Read guide →insights
Sentence Variety
Why monotonous patterns lose readers and how to fix them
Read guide →insights
Clichés & Purple Prose
Finding fresh language without overwriting
Read guide →workflows
Proofread Mode Deep Dive
Grammar and style analysis for polished prose
Read guide →workflows
Reading Analyze
The two measured groups, the Editorial Read, and where each finding leads
Read guide →workflows
Character Presence & Arcs
Tracking characters across your manuscript
Read guide →workflows
The Story Bible
What the analysis finds in your story world, and where it goes
Read guide →craft
The Revision Workflow
A complete start-to-finish revision process
Read guide →craft
Genre-Specific Benchmarks
What 'good' looks like across genres
Read guide →craft
Common Manuscript Problems
The most frequent issues and how to fix them
Read guide →workflows
Marketing Blurb Generator
Creating and refining back-cover copy and taglines
Read guide →workflows
Trope Tags
Deriving discoverability tropes from your manuscript
Read guide →workflows
Cover Studio
Designing front, back, and spine covers with AI-generated or hand-built art
Read guide →workflows
Pull Quotes
Pull-quote image cards in your book's own typography
Read guide →workflows
The Submission Kit
Query letters, synopses, and author bios built from the book you already analyzed
Read guide →workflows
Pitch One-Sheet
A one-page PDF sales sheet built from assets you already have
Read guide →workflows
Reader Magnets
Bonus content that looks like it belongs to the book
Read guide →workflows
Retail Metadata
Descriptions, keywords, categories, and bio for your book's store pages
Read guide →workflows
Reading Group Guide
Book-club discussion questions drawn from your manuscript
Read guide →workflows
Preserved Lines
Author-controlled line breaks that survive every export
Read guide →workflows
Footnotes and Endnotes
Bottom-of-page print footnotes, tap-to-pop ebook notes, native Word footnotes
Read guide →workflows
Text Messages, Callouts, and Written Notes
Genre-staple content blocks that render beautifully in every format
Read guide →workflows
Printing and Saving PDFs
Print any planning view — or save it as a PDF — as a clean document
Read guide →workflows
Print-Ready Check
Catch and fix the page-layout flaws that make a book look self-published
Read guide →workflows
Trim Sizes and Margins
Pick the right book size and let the margin advisory keep your gutter print-safe
Read guide →workflows
Accessible EPUB Export
Ship a born-accessible ebook that clears the EU Accessibility Act bar
Read guide →Connected to the work
Good advice is more useful when it meets the manuscript.
Use these guides alongside Analyze and Lume to move from observation to a concrete revision decision.