WEBVTT 1 00:00:02.810 --> 00:00:11.259 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: Hello, everybody! Welcome to our final session of edit to excellence! It is so great to see all of you here. 2 00:00:11.920 --> 00:00:18.080 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: I'm just going to give everyone a second to jump in and join us another bunch of people in the waiting room. 3 00:00:19.120 --> 00:00:41.139 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: and while we are waiting for everyone to come in. I did just want to tell everybody about ways to kind of keep in touch with prowriting aid after this session is over. So this is our final session of edit to excellence. We have absolutely loved working with the team at Annarimo and getting to know and meet all of you over the last 4 weeks. 4 00:00:41.402 --> 00:00:56.610 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: As I mentioned, this is our final session, but it is not the last time we need to hang out together. So if you would like to join us in a few weeks, we are going to be hosting Science Fiction writers. Week. I will put the link to sign up for that in the chat. 5 00:00:56.610 --> 00:01:15.290 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: But basically, if you're not familiar with our writers weeks, we do these every couple of months or so. And basically, what we do is we put on a big week long summit. All about writing in a particular genre. So our next one coming up, I'll just share with you what the sign up sheet looks like. 6 00:01:15.926 --> 00:01:38.689 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: But our next one coming up on September 9th is sci-fi writers week during sci-fi writers week we'll have over 20 different sessions on everything, from how to edit your book to How to Market, your book, to how to build a strong World, or create other characters. And then we also have sessions where you get to network with other attendees and get to meet them. And it's really just 7 00:01:38.860 --> 00:02:01.170 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: they're really just the most fun ever. I feel so lucky that my job is to get to have to talk to people like you about the product, but then also to host sessions like sci-fi writers. Week. It is completely free. You do not have to be a pro writing aid user already to use it. It's completely free for everybody. There are replays available after each event as well. So if you can't make something live, you can register for the whole session and get those replays. 8 00:02:01.425 --> 00:02:11.879 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: And I will also just say that even if you're not a sci-fi writer. To be quite honest, I would recommend signing up anyway, because you'll get access to all the replays which you can then watch in your own time. 9 00:02:12.393 --> 00:02:17.890 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: And the the content is so inspiring. I am not a sci-fi writer myself. And 10 00:02:17.890 --> 00:02:44.974 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: all of the events we host like. For instance, I'm not a crime writer, and I didn't consider myself a romance writer before we started hosting romance writers Week. But the content is just so inspiring on all of these, and there are takeaways that you can use for everything. So we'll do sessions on this on world building, and that will be really, really useful, even if you're not thinking about building a sci-fi world, even if you're just building a world in a mystery novel or something like that. And then there are also sessions again on things like book marketing. 11 00:02:45.390 --> 00:03:06.559 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: running. I believe this time we have an Amazon ads expert or an ads expert as well. So there's just so many so much really useful information. That's really, really just helpful, regardless of what you're doing. So we would love for you to continue and join us at sci fi writers. Week again. It's totally free. And the link, as Michelle has put it in the chat. 12 00:03:06.841 --> 00:03:31.349 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: If you have any questions about that feel free to drop it into the QA. Later, and I will have get to that as we go. And just a bit of housekeeping before we go first.st My monitor like exploded right before we started this session. It seems to be working now, but my colleague Michelle, is here, and if my monitor explodes again. I might just disappear or say, Help Michelle, and she will. She will jump on so just fyi 13 00:03:31.612 --> 00:03:56.259 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: you might see me say, help hopefully, it won't happen. The second is that if you have any questions for us, could you please use the QA. Which is at the bottom of your screen utilizing the QA. Allows me to keep track of your questions. I do try to keep an eye on the chat as we go through as well, but it tends to move pretty quickly. And so if you have a question that you would like for me to answer, please pop that into the QA. 14 00:03:56.620 --> 00:04:17.469 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: And then, finally, if there are any really specific or technical questions about specific technical questions, about prowriting aid today, about your specific you know, tech error or something like that. The best way to get support on that is to email, hello@prowritingaid.com. And that way we can answer those and move as efficiently as possible through the information. 15 00:04:17.500 --> 00:04:28.860 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: All right. Well, thank you all so much for joining us. We are so excited to get started. Today's session is going to be all about how to use technology to make your editing process simple and efficient. So let's just go ahead and dive in. 16 00:04:29.390 --> 00:04:55.629 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: We're gonna cover a number of things today. The 1st is going to look at an overview of the editing process, because I find that a lot of people for a lot of people, the editing process is confusing. And there's a lot of kind of mystery about where it starts, where it stops and what to do. And then I'm gonna talk a little bit more about why I advocate for technology in self editing, and also what I mean by that. I know a lot of people are very skeptical about the use of technology in the writing or editing process. 17 00:04:55.630 --> 00:05:20.540 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: So I'm going to talk about what I think technology is helpful for, as well as the different ways you can scale that up or down, depending on your comfort level. Then I'm going to talk specifically about how to use technology to support story or developmental editing, and then how to use technology to support line editing. So you can come away with this with a strong understanding of the ways that you can use pro writing aid to support your work. Another final thing to keep in mind is that I will be using. 18 00:05:20.540 --> 00:05:39.670 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: We'll be using pro writing aid. We'll be talking a lot about how to specifically use pro writing aid. That being said, all of the things that I'm going to talk about editing wise are also things that you can do yourself. So I'll also talk a little bit about how you can utilize or how you can do that. Editing with your own technology. Stack and then talk about how prowriting aid might make that a bit easier. 19 00:05:39.700 --> 00:05:42.520 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: So let's just go ahead and dive in 20 00:05:43.167 --> 00:05:50.249 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: so first, st what actually even happens during the editing process. So editing is really where your story is going to come to life. 21 00:05:50.250 --> 00:06:15.249 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: This is where you're going to examine every aspect of your story from your plot, your characters, your setting, your word choice your structure, and more so for many of us as writers. The 1st draft is just about getting the story complete and having something then to work from. It's almost like in pottery. Once you have your kind of shape, then you go through the trimming process of really making it look good. That's what editing is. We have the shape of a story. 22 00:06:15.250 --> 00:06:37.159 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: But editing is where the actual story itself really starts to come to life. But that being said, even though it's such an important process and such a such an opportunity for you to craft your story in the way that you envision it. For many writers editing is really scary. And they're they kind of dread the writing pro or excuse me the editing process because they're not sure what to expect. 23 00:06:37.530 --> 00:06:54.199 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: Rather easy to know what to expect during the writing process, like you might UN, you know, end up struggling for word choice, or you might hit writer's block. But you do kind of know that you're working towards an end. Now within editing. It's very difficult to understand where that end actually comes from. 24 00:06:54.350 --> 00:07:17.370 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: So let's look at what a linear editing process might be. And I covered some of this last week as well. But for anyone who wasn't there. I'll cover it again here and go into a bit more depth. Now, a very, very linear editing process that starts in one place and ends in another typically looks like this, you would start with your 1st draft, and when you're done with your 1st draft, when you've typed the end, then you would like to move into something called story editing. 25 00:07:17.370 --> 00:07:42.230 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: Now, story editing is also known as developmental editing, and this is where you're looking at big picture questions of your novel. So you're looking at things like your use of characterization. How your world works. You're looking for places where there are plot holes or places where you might have too much plot. It's all of those kind of big picture pieces. Now, once you've completed a round of story editing, you might enlist the support of beta readers or critique 26 00:07:42.230 --> 00:07:46.089 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: partners to give you an overall sense of how your story is working. 27 00:07:46.090 --> 00:08:14.739 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: Then, once you feel like you're in a good place. You understand how your story is working. You're satisfied with that. You'd likely move into line editing. Now, line editing is where you're going to zoom in. And instead of look at the big picture, you're going to go line by line to understand how to improve your. So your story at the sentence level. So at this stage, you're really looking at the clarity of your sentence structure. You're also starting to do things like copy editing where you're, you know, polishing for grammar, spelling, style mistakes, etc. 28 00:08:15.230 --> 00:08:37.790 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: And again, just really looking at that kind of micro level sentence by sentence versus the story or development mental editing stages where you're looking at the higher level. Then the final stage before you go into your final draft is to work with a professional editor. Now a professional editor can come in and can really kind of polish and make sure that your draft is ready to go and ready for for 29 00:08:37.789 --> 00:08:46.250 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: people to see it for the audience to see it. Now this is an incredibly linear editing process. If you were to proceed through editing one step after another. 30 00:08:46.250 --> 00:08:47.230 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: but more. 31 00:08:47.230 --> 00:09:12.210 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: In more cases, editing is actually a very kind of convoluted process, where you're repeating multiple stages or going back and forth between stage to stage. So for many people, they do a lot of rounds of story editing before they even send it to a beta reader or a critique partner. Some people decide to do a story edit, then send to a beta reader, then take that feedback and do a story edit again. Then do a critique partner story edit again before they even go down to line editing. 32 00:09:12.210 --> 00:09:33.509 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: So you might get stuck in a loop between one phase or 2 phases. You might just choose to do a round of story editing yourself, and a round of line editing yourself before you bring in a beta. Reader, you might decide to do 2 rounds of those before bringing in a you know, Beta, reader, you might go from story editing and decide. You want to go straight to having a professional editor because you're not strong with line editing. 33 00:09:33.660 --> 00:09:56.629 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: But again, all of those journeys are valid. Every single editing process is unique, and what makes a good editing process is up to you and up to how you like to work. So some writers prefer to work by themselves the entire time, so they want to make sure that they are the ones doing their story, editing and line editing. Some. I like to work with other people the entire time, so they might say that they're 34 00:09:56.690 --> 00:10:09.109 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: unable to provide objective feedback on their own stories. They want to bring beta readers or critique partners in right away. Some people really like to use technology as part of the process. And some people really don't like to use technology as 35 00:10:09.110 --> 00:10:32.270 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: part of the process. Some people go through one round of revisions. Some people go through dozens and dozens and dozens, no matter what the process looks like. That is okay. It's all up to you, and what suits you and your story best. What I do recommend, however, is that every draft goes through at least one round of each of these stages in order to feel confident that the draft that you're sharing with people is the best that you possibly can make it. 36 00:10:33.560 --> 00:10:58.499 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: Now let's look in a little bit more depth of the 2 different phases of editing that I recommend. So the 1st is story editing. So story editing is where you're taking an in-depth. Look at your plot, characters, and world like I just mentioned. This is the macro level. This is the big picture of your novel, and the reason that we do. This 1st is so that we make sure we're not wasting time on editing the language of lines that will ultimately be 37 00:10:58.500 --> 00:11:23.489 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: removed, because during the story editing phase, you might do things like, remove an entire chapter, or delete a whole character or side character from the novel. So if you're removing or even adding in huge amounts of text, you want to make sure that the story itself is fairly solid before you come into line editing, which is where you're looking at language, how you're using language to convey your story. So at that stage, you're really trying to 38 00:11:23.490 --> 00:11:45.819 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: make sure. Or at this stage, you're really looking sentence by sentence to try to understand how to best, you know. Convey the story that you're trying to tell, but you want to make sure that the sentences that you have on there are the sentences that you want to. You want to spend the time polishing. They're not things that you're going to edit or delete, or remove or add, in which would again slow the process down. I mean, you have to do it again. 39 00:11:46.120 --> 00:11:55.000 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: So we typically recommend doing them in this sequence, where you do 1st round of story editing, to make sure the story is very solid before you move into line, editing itself. 40 00:11:56.500 --> 00:12:20.340 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: Alright. So now that we know kind of what I recommend, and at a very baseline editing for focus, let's talk about why technology is helpful for editing. So one of the reasons why I think technology is very helpful for editing is because it can save time and money. Technology. Editing is very, very challenging, and it's really difficult and expensive to find resources, particularly if you're working by yourself. 41 00:12:20.410 --> 00:12:39.660 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: So if you are looking to query a polished manuscript, or if you're looking to self publish, it can be really difficult to find an editor who is accredited who you like working with. And then, even if you find those 2 things. It can be really expensive to to find that type of person. So technology can help and kind of fill some of those gaps. 42 00:12:39.660 --> 00:13:01.370 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: So some of the ways that it can support you are 1st by providing instant feedback. Now, even if you find an editor that you like, it can be. You know, it's a huge there were. You're working with a human, so it can take a lot of time to get that feedback back from from them. They might have a waiting list of clients, and you might want to be making moves on your manuscript more quickly. So technology allows you to get kind of that instant feedback. 43 00:13:02.155 --> 00:13:25.589 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: Technology also helps you polish before you use a human editor. Now you'll see on that the editing journey that I recommended that you do use a human editor at a different point, provided that's within your budget. Now, utilizing technology before you send your manuscript to your human editor will help you save time and make sure that that editor is getting a manuscript that's in the best state possible. 44 00:13:25.590 --> 00:13:42.820 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: You want to make sure that the human editor is providing the feedback that's most useful to you. So, for instance, if you're really struggling with your story, you will likely want to do one round of story edits and one round of your own line edits before you send it to a story or developmental editor. 45 00:13:42.820 --> 00:14:00.720 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: That's because you'll utilize the editor more effectively. If you have a bunch of unclear sentences, or overly wordy sentences, or grammar mistakes, or things like that, that editor is going to be distracted from their mission of working on the story, and will often spend time, you know, correcting grammar. 46 00:14:00.720 --> 00:14:16.249 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: doing, you know, doing things on sentence structure. Where are you really trying to pay them and work with them on things like story. So polishing your manuscript before you send it to an editor with the support of technology can help you. Get the most out of that support right and get the most for your money's worth. 47 00:14:17.002 --> 00:14:29.317 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: Now, technology can also help you share difficult to find information. So human editors are fantastic at so many things. They can help you rewrite sentences. If you're working with a story editor, they can help you. 48 00:14:29.760 --> 00:14:31.479 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: They can help you. 49 00:14:31.990 --> 00:14:53.059 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: you know, kind of look at the the content of your story. Establish, you know, is the plot moving too fast. Here. Is it moving? Too slow? All of those types of pieces? But some of there are some things that are just difficult for any human to do. We'll look at a few of those in pro writing aid in just a second, but just off the top of my head. One, for instance, is the number of repeats within your document. 50 00:14:53.060 --> 00:15:18.040 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: So repeats are things like, you know. You've repeated the same word or phrase multiple times within a paragraph, or the same word or phrase multiple times. Even within a chapter. Now, a human person will probably find that because it'll set off that that you know. Oh, you know. Have I? Have! I repeated myself. It'll set off that kind of echo in someone's mind. However, what a human per a human editor can't do is find in the click of. 51 00:15:18.040 --> 00:15:27.099 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: But in every single instance of where you've repeated yourself within the text, that's where technology can help and support it can really make sure that you are. 52 00:15:27.190 --> 00:15:34.229 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: You are just kind of finding those things that might be incredibly difficult or tedious for people to to find 53 00:15:34.310 --> 00:15:55.780 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: all right. So technology, I think, is really helpful in saving the kind of time and money. Now, how you use technology within your editing process is a spectrum, and every single one of us is going to fall somewhere within the spectrum. So some of us might decide that we don't want to use technology at all for any type of editing. Now I will say that 54 00:15:55.930 --> 00:16:20.119 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: I feel like that's a bit of a misnomer, because all of us who are writing in something like Google docs or word, or even scrivener, are going to see spell, check errors. And you know places where you haven't capitalized something. So that is in theory, using technology to support with some of the line and copy editing. But that being said, you can kind of end on the spectrum where you don't want to use technology at all. You just want the support of human editors or the support of Beta readers critique partners yourself. 55 00:16:20.570 --> 00:16:32.149 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: or you could be on the spectrum of. I would like to use technology to do everything from rewriting full pages to supporting me in ideation on different chapters. Every single person is going to 56 00:16:32.150 --> 00:16:57.049 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: be somewhere along that editing spectrum where you will fall will depend on you and your comfort level, and what you're trying to do with your document. So if you're trying to get published in with a traditional publisher who has very strict rules about using AI. You might want to fall stronger to this end of the spectrum. Now, that does not mean you cannot use technology at all, and I'll talk to you a bit more about what 57 00:16:57.050 --> 00:16:58.889 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: you can do in that instance. 58 00:16:59.143 --> 00:17:22.729 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: But you might want to fall more on this end of the spectrum, because you're trying to avoid any AI writing laws. If you're just self publishing, or you're working somewhere where you're not as concerned with that then you would want to be, maybe, or maybe you would want to be more on this side, or maybe you just want to be straight in the middle again. What works for you and how much you use. Technology is going to depend on your goals, and then how you want to edit. 59 00:17:23.020 --> 00:17:31.779 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: So there will be a spectrum depending on what you're trying to do. But you can use technology, depend, no matter where you kind of fall on the spectrum in order to support you. 60 00:17:31.780 --> 00:17:56.410 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: And let's take a look at what that means. So first, st we're going to talk about how to use technology for story editing. And again, as I go in through this. I'm going to talk about how we can utilize tech for story editing. I'm going to show you how providing aid can support you with this. And then I'm also going to talk within each of the sessions within each of the sections about that spectrum. So again, I know that the utilization of AI is a concern for a lot of writers. 61 00:17:56.410 --> 00:18:03.418 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: So as I talk about this, I'm going to show with each of the features how that looks on the different ends of the spectrum. So how you can 62 00:18:03.860 --> 00:18:06.160 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: utilize technology on the kind of 63 00:18:06.180 --> 00:18:13.159 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: the Never AI side of the spectrum. But then, also how you can move to the other end of the spectrum if you would like to. 64 00:18:14.040 --> 00:18:38.229 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: Okay. So first, st let's talk about story editing. So, as I mentioned during the story editing phase, you're evaluating your manuscript. And the story that you're telling you're taking a substantive look at the structure and develop a development of your story or argument. So you're really trying to look at what is my chapter? Excuse me, what is my story? Level plot? How are things progressing? How are my characters working? 65 00:18:38.450 --> 00:18:56.250 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: So some of the kind of questions that you'll be asking while you're doing this. This type of work on your manuscript are first, st you know, does my setting have an engaging sense of location? But also is it utilizing time, date, object, senses? So you're going to ask that Macro question of kind of is my 66 00:18:56.270 --> 00:19:21.999 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: story setting really working? You'll also be asking yourself about your characters. Are they there for a purpose? Do they have clear goals and a recognizable point of view do I have effective arcs across the entire novel, but then also within each scene and within each act, am I creating a plot that's progressing in a logical way, and in a way that's entertaining for your readers. So these are the types of questions that you're asking yourself during the story editing phase. 67 00:19:22.780 --> 00:19:52.269 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: and then technology can support with that depending on your goals. And what you're comfortable with, it can do everything from helping you identify character arcs, to understanding whether or not you're using a, you're using creating a an effective setting. So let's 1st take a look at how we can utilize technology to get an instant critique on your story. So I am here within the pro writing Aid web editor. And as I mentioned, one of the areas that you'll want to look at on. Your kind of story editing is just the overall success 68 00:19:52.270 --> 00:20:03.449 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: of your story, and whether it's kind of hitting those big key pieces that are going to make your story more effective. Now the critique report which I'm going to run just now. 69 00:20:04.071 --> 00:20:14.469 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: It's going to give me that kind of big picture. Look at what's happening. It might take a second just because my Internet is slow. Since I'm sharing my screen. Okay. So the critique report is 70 00:20:14.470 --> 00:20:39.380 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: kind of like a developmental edit. That happens instantly, like a developmental editor's report that happens instantly on your story. So 1st it goes through, and it describes your higher level of strength. Sorry, my someone's at the door, so my dog has just lost his mind. But 1st it'll look at some of the higher level strengths of your story, then it'll give you a brief overview of things like your plot, your characters, your tension, your point of view. 71 00:20:39.704 --> 00:20:56.580 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: Your setting, your style, voice, paragraph structure, etc. So if we look at setting, for instance, which is one of those questions that you want to be addressing during the story editing phase. This tells you that you know this chapter is doing a good job of effectively looking at 72 00:20:56.980 --> 00:21:00.500 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: descriptions of the sunset. However, there are. 73 00:21:00.570 --> 00:21:29.430 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: you know, there's an opportunity to give more information about the specific location as well as its significance. So that gives you kind of a good instance, a good look out kind of what what might happen. This also tell talks about the characters. So it gives you a kind of that instant feedback on. Are my characters effective? So it talks about the the protagonist, what what her desires are. So you can kind of assess that. And see, is this what I'm actually trying to get across? And then for any of the other characters you can see if it's 74 00:21:29.450 --> 00:21:56.990 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: full kind of fully what you're looking for or not. So again, this kind of critique report gives you this 1st level overview of just how am I doing on the story editing perspective? It's instant. So you're able to access that feedback immediately, and then from there you can do a number of things. So this report allows you to just get information about your story. It's doing nothing to edit your text. So it gives you kind of that initial feedback of Am I on the right track? Am I doing what I would like to do in this section of the story? 75 00:21:57.160 --> 00:21:59.942 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: From this point. You can take the 76 00:22:00.430 --> 00:22:28.100 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: you can take the feedback and apply it in any way that you would like. So you might just choose to kind of print out this report, have it with you, and then go back into different sections. And choose to add some of the pieces it it discusses, or remove some of the pieces it discusses. But you can also do things like generate additional text, if that's something that you would like to do. But again, that 1st baseline level is dependent on how you are comfortable. So if you would just like to have the information and write the text yourself, you can easily easily do that. 77 00:22:28.417 --> 00:22:43.642 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: Then the next thing that you can do so we also talked about looking at senses. So one of the things that is really important in looking through your story. Editing is kind of understanding that sense of setting. So, as we saw in the Critique report this, 78 00:22:44.080 --> 00:22:54.580 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: the critique said that the setting is is, does a good job of looking at things like like like upsetting kind of the the 79 00:22:54.580 --> 00:23:17.971 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: the visuals of this this space, but it could give you more information. So then you could come into something like the sensory report and see if you're doing a strong job of creating a really vivid setting. So the sensory report looks at the ratio of words in your document that are related to each of the 5 senses, so we'll be able to see of our sensory words. A 1st of all, how many sensory words do we have in this 80 00:23:18.370 --> 00:23:40.493 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: in this excerpt, and then we can also look at things like, what's the breakdown of those in order to create a well rounded setting? You're going to want to make sure that you have sensory words that are across all 5 senses. But we can see right here that the sensory, the sensory words in this expert are very, very heavily weighted towards sight, and we're completely missing any 81 00:23:40.810 --> 00:24:10.049 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: sight, sound, touch, smell words at all. So we can see right away that we're missing one of the 5 senses, and that again, it's very heavily weighted in one direction or another. This is a really great example of the ways that you can utilize technology without actually having AI touch or alter your text at all. So with these least sensory words, you can have the summary from the Critique report of where you're strong and where your setting can use more importance or more emphasis. 82 00:24:10.360 --> 00:24:29.520 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: Then you can come into the sensory check and see actually what are the specific things that I can do. So you can see from this that we need to add, we need to create a more balanced sensory experience. And then also, you know, add in smell words, this, again, is just information that would be really, really difficult for a human editor to give you then 83 00:24:30.990 --> 00:24:40.240 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: Which you can kind of do again instantly, with a touch of a button. If you are more comfortable with technology, then you can always do things like come in 84 00:24:40.480 --> 00:24:46.539 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: and add additional sensory rephrases. So that's again something that you can do and then move from there. 85 00:24:47.430 --> 00:25:17.120 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: So that's 1 of the ways that you can use critique and sensory language. And you can also get suggestions for improving details within the within the document. So you can do things like. If you're more comfortable with AI, you can come in and you can highlight a certain sense of text and add in additional details. So you can add in, for instance, emotional detail. So look at things like, how do we want to create emotion within this character? So we could talk about how 86 00:25:17.480 --> 00:25:46.319 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: you know this. This scene was etched into her memory. Now this feature again utilizes AI much more, much more than the previous features, but one of the ways that you can think about utilizing it. Something like this is a if you're comfortable with it, you can utilize it to see and kind of brainstorm text. So that's 1 level to look at it, brainstorm, and then take inspiration from that, or you can directly paste it into your text again. What you want to do is dependent on your 87 00:25:46.760 --> 00:26:15.860 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: your specific level of comfort, and what you're trying to achieve. So at that very baseline level. You can just understand what's going on with your text. You could just look at your sensory languages, which is simply just kind of a count of the sensory word within your text, and then you can make all the changes yourself if you're more comfortable with AI, or like to use AI as part of your technology process. Then you can use a utilize AI to do things like ideate on different text, or even insert that text into your document again, completely depending on what you're comfortable with. 88 00:26:17.110 --> 00:26:28.920 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: Now let's take a look at line editing as well, and I know a lot of people have put some questions in the chat. If you have questions for me, please make sure you drop them in the QA. As well. That way I can make sure that I have time to answer them at the end. 89 00:26:29.794 --> 00:26:36.719 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: Okay, so that's a look at how technology can support for story editing. Let's zoom into line editing a little bit more. 90 00:26:37.422 --> 00:26:59.340 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: So line editing is the phase where you're looking at the use of language to tell a clear and engaging story. So during line editing, you're basically looking at things like your word choice, your readability, your style and your overall goal is to make sure. That your sentences are as clear as possible, so that your readers understand with understand, and can engage with your story. 91 00:26:59.560 --> 00:27:18.229 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: So some of the things that you'll look for while editing your manuscript are things like, you know? Are your subjects and verbs the stars of your sentences? Is your writing readable for your specific audience? Are you choosing specific words that explain exactly what you're trying to say, so that that meaning is as clear as you as you can get it to be. 92 00:27:18.360 --> 00:27:38.840 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: you'll also be looking at things at this point like, have you kept up the pacing? Do you have too many long sentences back to back? And have you eliminated as many echoes and repeats as possible. So these are all things that you'll be looking at during the line editing stage and technology can really help you during this stage, depending again on your goals and what you're comfortable with. 93 00:27:38.840 --> 00:27:48.890 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: So it can do everything from helping you to simplify your sentences to identifying places where you've repeated yourself. And again we can scale that up and down, depending on your comfort with AI. 94 00:27:49.680 --> 00:27:58.949 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: So let's 1st look at repeats. So, as I mentioned repeats, are a really great way to utilize technology in a way that a human editor would really struggle with. 95 00:27:59.130 --> 00:28:03.110 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: So if we come in here to providing aid and click the repeats button 96 00:28:03.170 --> 00:28:28.170 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: within just a few seconds, providing it can tell you all of the repeated words and phrases that you have within your document, and this would also continue up. So if you had, for instance, 8 love, you know an 8 word phrase that repeats, it would find those as well. So it finds all of the repeated words and phrases within the report. You can go straight into the you can go straight into the report. You can see exactly where those repeated words and phrases are. 97 00:28:28.170 --> 00:28:33.200 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: and you can decide if that's something that you want to repeat, or something that you want to kind of remove. 98 00:28:33.517 --> 00:28:50.109 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: So that is an example of something that is incredibly difficult for a human editor or for you to do in your own manuscript. And again, it's not utilizing AI features in any way. You're just getting that kind of information that you can then choose to do to do with as you will. 99 00:28:50.410 --> 00:29:15.259 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: The echoes report similarly allows you to come in and not just see where you've repeated yourself, but where you've repeated yourself within a like a specific section, so prorating, it allows you to specify the length of the echoes that you'd like. So you could say, you know I want it within 100 words. I want to see all my echoes within 100 words all you know, within 200 words, etc. So that really helps you kind of come in and see. Okay, where are places that I'm going to take my reader out 100 00:29:15.260 --> 00:29:26.330 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: the story by again repeating myself, and this is an opportunity for me to make those changes without you know, without having to manually go word by word and understand what I've done. 101 00:29:27.090 --> 00:29:32.830 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: You can also do things in within the within the text, like measure your readability. 102 00:29:33.400 --> 00:30:01.819 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: So readability is really important because mass market fiction often has specific readability levels for the audience to best engage at one top at 1 point. So the readability check 1st of all gives you an overall. Look at your documents, readability score, and then it'll also highlight places that are difficult to read or slightly difficult to read, where you might want to make some changes, to make it a little bit more easy for you to understand. You can also, in our real time, report here on the sidebar. 103 00:30:01.990 --> 00:30:22.169 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: look at where your readability grade matches for your particular document type. So we allow you to choose your particular genre as well as to switch to other document types. If you're writing something for business or something like that, and then give you a range for the readability level so that you can see if you're in the accurate or in the range that's recommended for your particular document, or if you're a bit outside it. 104 00:30:22.433 --> 00:30:40.630 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: so again, that gives you a sense of whether your work is going to be engaging and readable for your audiences. And again, at that level. This there's no kind of AI involved at all in that, just giving you a sense of whether your document is at the kind of level that would be expected for your readers. Now it can also make changes like, let's see. 105 00:30:43.580 --> 00:31:04.890 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: enhancing readability with these types of phrases. So places where you have made sentences overly wordy, or said something in a really really complicated way that doesn't need to be. It'll help you. It'll help you kind of make those sentence level changes which, again, are not AI generated. But it'll help me make those sentence level changes that can make your sentences tighter and easier to read. 106 00:31:06.650 --> 00:31:17.530 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: So we can measure readability. And then also, as we're starting to look at, we can look at overly wordy sentences. So I am in the real time. Report here, and it'll help me identify places where I can 107 00:31:17.670 --> 00:31:29.169 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: fix specific phase phrases. But then we can also go into the sticky sentences, check here, which is a report that looks at sentences that have over 40% glue words. 108 00:31:29.170 --> 00:31:53.800 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: And now glue words are words like prepositions, conjunctions, articles that are necessary for sentences. But if your sentence has too many of them. It can kind of slow the reader down and make the sentence less effective. So the sticky sentences check is really useful for identifying places where you have a grammatically correct sentence. But the sentence could be shorter, clearer, and more concise in order to get your meaning across more effectively. So this is 109 00:31:53.800 --> 00:32:00.689 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: really great way of coming in and identifying places that you can make those changes and then being able to 110 00:32:00.900 --> 00:32:27.140 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: to, to kind of make those changes in the ways you want. So the baseline sticky sentences check does not use AI to identify that. It simply identifies the send or generative AI to identify those sentences. It simply identifies the sentences that might be problematic within your document, and then also tells you what those kind of extraneous words are, so that if you're trying to rewrite the sentence, you kind of know what you want to reduce, remove, or replace when you're rewriting it yourself. 111 00:32:27.160 --> 00:32:56.190 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: Now, if you're more comfortable. With AI. You can use an AI feature, a generative AI feature like suggest rephrases to give you additional ideas of how you want to rewrite that sentence, but the level is completely dependent on your comfort level again, the baseline report is just looking and identifying the sentences that might be problematic, giving you the information that you can then do with as you would like. Or if you're more comfortable with AI, you can utilize it. The suggest rephrases tool to get different ways to look at that. 112 00:32:57.140 --> 00:33:26.839 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: As I mentioned, you can also get rephrases in the real time. Report as well. So the real time report you can come in here, you can highlight any sentence and rephrase it in a number of different ways, so you can add more sensory detail to it. You can shorten, you can expand it. You can add a dis like a different additional emotion context to that. It's really kind of dependent on what you'd like. And one of the ways that a lot of writers will use. This is just to look at these sentences, and rather than take any of them, just use them as inspiration for ways 113 00:33:26.840 --> 00:33:30.399 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: they could change things or could make things more effective. 114 00:33:31.940 --> 00:34:01.480 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: So all of those are different ways that you can utilize technology to make your line editing process clearer and more effective, and again depending on your comfort level with AI, you can utilize it to just get that kind of baseline information like your repeats your overly wordy sentences, and then it and at that baseline kind of have that that blueprint of what you need to change. And then, if you're more on the AI comfortable end of the spectrum, you could then utilize AI to to improve that. But you don't have to. It's just kind of dependent on what you need. 115 00:34:02.140 --> 00:34:18.169 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: So, as we mentioned, editing is really difficult and time consuming using technology to speed up this process and making it more effective can help your journey be more cost effective. It can help you get that kind of instant feedback, and it provides kind of an inexhaustible resource to support your journey. 116 00:34:18.830 --> 00:34:32.352 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: All right. I wanted to make sure we had plenty of time for questions, because it looks like we've got a lot in here. So I am just going to start at the top and work through as many as I possibly can. 117 00:34:32.699 --> 00:34:39.399 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: if you have any questions. Please feel free to pop them through the QA. And I will go through as many as I can. 118 00:34:40.020 --> 00:34:44.020 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: Thank you all so much for listening. Let's start at the top. 119 00:34:44.040 --> 00:35:09.722 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: So Alex asks, is there a good way to plan a novel? Alex, there are tons of different ways to plan a novel. I'll actually, I'll plug sci-fi writers week. Here. There are going to be sessions about planning during sci-fi writers week. But, to be honest, there are so many different ways to plan a novel. It really kind of depends what works for you. There are methods like the snowflake method. There are methods. 120 00:35:10.468 --> 00:35:38.890 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: you know, people utilize tools like save the cat, or systems like save the cat, to also plan. So it really kind of depends on what works for you. Some people choose to plan not at all, and then just move. Just kind of go in without that. So I would really recommend coming to something like sci-fi writers week. Or you can go to our community. And we have all of our replays on planning and outlining there available for free again. There are just dozens and dozens of methods there. So it's really about a bit of trial and error and finding what works for you. 121 00:35:41.216 --> 00:35:49.939 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: Okay, so I think it's Ashley or Ashley. Asked about tips for maintaining consistency between edits and drafts. 122 00:35:49.950 --> 00:35:56.120 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: This is a really really good question. One of the things that I would say is to make sure you 123 00:35:56.120 --> 00:36:21.069 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: label your drafts and edits very, very carefully. So if you are sending things out to beta readers, critique partners, line editors, etc. One of the things that you'll want to do is make sure that you label that, and give every single person different drafts. One of the things that I have done is have kind of a master copy of my manuscript, and then, if I'm sending it out to Beta readers or critique partners, I'll get that feedback back and then apply 124 00:36:21.070 --> 00:36:40.050 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: that to the master copy rather than again having kind of multiple copies where people are editing on top of each other. So I particularly like to keep things very, very separate and label my different versions. So that way I have backup saved for each of my edits, and I can also just make sure that I am kind of clear what's coming from where? 125 00:36:42.411 --> 00:37:09.570 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: Okay, Martin says. Can pro writing aid? Create a query letter from your story for you. So no, we don't have any long form, generative text features like that. We don't have any of the kind of like drafted query letter. It can help you. Look at your query letter that's already written and expand certain areas, or, you know, make edits to make it more effective. But we don't have any like large scale, generative text features. And that's 1 of the things that we kind of utilize. 126 00:37:09.810 --> 00:37:19.819 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: We're we are here to help you make your writing better. We are not here to help you just completely do the writing for you. So we don't have any large scale. Generative AI features like that. 127 00:37:21.730 --> 00:37:29.479 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: Marian has a really good question. If an author uses technology for editing. Does that mean the author has to state that AI was used? 128 00:37:30.070 --> 00:37:54.519 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: this is a really good question, and my answer is going to be that it depends. So it depends in a number of different ways. 1st of all, there isn't a universal standard for submitting your writing to anywhere. So the 1st thing you want to do is familiarize yourself with the standards of the place that you're submitting to. Where, whether that's you know you're querying an agent, whether you're trying to get traditionally published, whether you are self publishing on Kdp 129 00:37:54.530 --> 00:37:58.582 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: kind of whatever it is you need to familiarize yourself with the 130 00:37:59.080 --> 00:38:03.550 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: with the standards of that that submission process. So that's the 1st thing. 131 00:38:04.005 --> 00:38:23.100 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: The second thing, as I just stated, technology is a spectrum. So something like the repeats report does not use any generative AI at all. So it is just literally scanning your text and looking for all of the places that you've repeated yourself. So you could utilize technology in that instance without using generative AI, 132 00:38:23.100 --> 00:38:45.100 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: if you're using phrases like Re rephrase where you are actually rephrasing, and then inserting that into your text that would then fall into generative. AI. So it really depends on what the standards are of where you are submitting, and then your level of comfort. If you are unsure, or unclear, I would recommend, we allow you to just turn all those generative AI features off. 133 00:38:45.378 --> 00:39:06.259 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: So you can come in here to the menu. Just this top button and turn off rephrase and turn off sparks, and that will turn off all of the generative AI features that edit your text. You can just totally turn those off. And then all of this is technology. So all of these things like the spell checks, etc, places where you're using stronger adjectives. Passive voice. All of these reports up here 134 00:39:06.580 --> 00:39:12.890 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: are not generative. AI driven. And so you can use technology. But it's not generative. AI, if that makes sense. 135 00:39:15.005 --> 00:39:23.269 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: Great! Kay says, can you specify which text to analyze a single paragraph, an entire novel, draft or chapter by chapter. Yes. 136 00:39:23.679 --> 00:39:39.989 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: you can do this in a couple of different ways. The 1st is simply by uploading one chapter at a time, or only working out one chapter at a time. I actually really recommend that people do not put their entire draft into prowriting aid. Because 137 00:39:39.990 --> 00:40:04.549 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: A, it'll take a really really long time to generate a report. But B, you're never gonna edit the entire novel in one sitting just the same way you didn't write it in one sitting? So I typically recommend that people do work chapter by chapter so you can look chapter by chapter, and then just kind of go from there. You can also highlight a particular paragraph. If you're doing something like if you're working in something like a word, add in you can highlight a particular paragraph, and then report. 138 00:40:04.550 --> 00:40:05.780 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: Run the reports on that 139 00:40:08.650 --> 00:40:17.059 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: Martin has a good question. The critique is to described as a comprehensive story critique. Yes, it is a critique on your chapter. Not the entire work. 140 00:40:17.080 --> 00:40:29.710 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: So could we're working on a a feature to let us do the entire work. But right now it's up to 4,000 words, so it can be a bit more than one chapter. But it's not not built for a full length text yet. 141 00:40:32.670 --> 00:40:57.399 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: Great so Scott asks another question, how much of the manuscript can be searched at once. Chapter certain number of pages. Should you limit the scope, or is it smart to search the whole manuscript? I'm just gonna expand on this a little bit because Martin's question was specifically about critique, which has a 4,000 word limit. But the other reports technically don't have a word limit. If you have premium now. So like if I wanted to run repeats, for instance. 142 00:40:57.780 --> 00:41:03.919 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: There's no specific word limit on that. Now. What I will say are a few things. First.st 143 00:41:04.500 --> 00:41:19.559 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: The longer the words are the words you're running, it are the longer the software will take. So if you're running on 50,000 words, it's going to take a very, very long time for that report to run, and it may not run at all depending on the strength of your Internet connection. And your computer speed. 144 00:41:19.570 --> 00:41:30.750 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: I typically say that 10,000 is like the top end of where it's going to run and still be pretty quick. But again, a lot of that depends on your computer strength, your Internet strength, etc. 145 00:41:30.820 --> 00:41:35.620 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: Again, the other reason I say this is because it tends to not be. 146 00:41:36.130 --> 00:41:44.780 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: Yeah, none of us kind of edit in in one sitting. If that makes sense. So working at, you know, the chapter or couple chapter level is a bit better. 147 00:41:45.243 --> 00:41:49.720 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: Great. And then, yeah, a couple of people asked that same question. 148 00:41:50.480 --> 00:41:57.390 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: yeah. Someone saying, you want to run reports by scene again. I I tend to look chapter chapter by chapter, scene by scene. 149 00:41:58.843 --> 00:42:22.112 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: I just saw Chris in the chat, said, sound up for Sci-fi week. Yes, there are any other genres or events planned. We'll have a horror writers event in October, then we'll start with romance in February. Fantasy, crime, etc. So we just keep keep rotating through. But horror will be the next one after sci-fi as well. So if you sign up for sci-fi, you'll be on our events list as well. So then we can make sure. 150 00:42:22.900 --> 00:42:25.300 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: that you are doing that as well. 151 00:42:25.639 --> 00:42:36.349 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: Deb has a couple of questions about the the function. So I'll do a little bit more of an in-depth demo on each of these after after I finish for both of your questions, Deb? 152 00:42:36.740 --> 00:42:47.089 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: Martin asked. Can it learn my style of writing and make suggestions for rewriting based on that? Yes, in a number of different ways. So 1st you can come into the settings which is up here. 153 00:42:47.390 --> 00:43:02.210 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: and then open your settings, and change this in a number of different ways. So you can, for instance, select the author that you want to compare your work to. You can also turn on or off a number of different checks. 154 00:43:02.210 --> 00:43:21.450 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: You can also do things like check, add in your own personal, overused words. So if you know that you tend to repeat yourself in a particular way, you can do that, and then you can also do things like, set your character diff distance between repeats. Talk about your kind of minimum phrase, word length for repeats, etc. 155 00:43:21.450 --> 00:43:43.550 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: and then we also give you the opportunity to create your own dictionary as well as your own style. Guide. So the own. Your own dictionary allows you to add in different character names or things like that, and then you can also go into your style, guide, and really customize the specific things you want to look for. If that makes sense. So you can say, I, you know, really want it to look for this particular 156 00:43:45.020 --> 00:43:52.889 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: You know this particular type of grammatical error. Or to look for this, and you can actually kind of code it yourself. So we do offer that opportunity to change from there. 157 00:43:55.187 --> 00:43:57.219 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: Is there a port 158 00:43:58.320 --> 00:44:03.102 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: got? Okay? So Winnie has a great question. Sorry if I mispronounced that. 159 00:44:04.020 --> 00:44:21.669 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: I recommend. So the question is, is this a report you look at after your draft, or while you're writing? What's the difference between the real time report and other reports? So the 1st question, if you look at this after your draft, or while you're writing, when I'm working on my own fiction, I keep pro writing aid turned off. 160 00:44:21.970 --> 00:44:48.589 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: If I'm trying to get words onto the page. So if I'm doing something like Nanowrimo, for instance, I keep providing a turned off during that because I find it really distracting to receive edits while I'm writing, because I'll just kind of get finicky, and I'll start looking at the highlights, and I'll go back and I'll start editing, and that is not really helpful for me to get more words on the page. So sometimes I'll come back and look, you know, after I've finished a chapter, and just do like a brief cleanup of the grammar, etc. 161 00:44:49.226 --> 00:45:04.550 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: but I tend to turn it off while I'm trying to get my drafts done again, just because it's it's useful for me to just move as fast as possible and not get distracted. So that is how I tend to approach it. Now. 162 00:45:04.680 --> 00:45:30.190 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: prowriting aid. You can use it to support your story editing and your line editing. And again, as I mentioned, if you finish a scene one day, you know, particularly in Nanowrimo, and you're looking for another task, you can go back and utilize it just for that particular day. But I do tend to recommend that if you're trying to get as many words on the pages as much as possible that you that you do that without the without it turned on, unless you have a lot more willpower than I do. 163 00:45:30.510 --> 00:45:38.690 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: Real time report and other reports. Great question. So the real time report, as its name suggests, is available in real time. So it is 164 00:45:38.780 --> 00:46:08.029 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: style, grammar, spelling, and passive voice errors. So it'll just respond to that as you are writing, so it gives you those suggestions and is responsive to what you're writing. In that moment every other report runs your text as as it is when you are pushing that button. So the repeats report, for instance, will run on all of the text that I show when I click it, but it won't run that in real time. While I'm writing. I have to click the button to run it. If that makes sense. 165 00:46:10.833 --> 00:46:12.200 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: I'll write. 166 00:46:12.340 --> 00:46:31.969 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: Irene asks. I would like to use technology for for editing, especially at sentence level. Where would I find free programs to do this just providing aid. Yes, Irene, great question. So prowriting aid is free up to 500 words at one time. So you can definitely use this for free at up to 500 words at one time. 167 00:46:35.503 --> 00:47:01.986 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: Jeffrey has a great question. So have there been any questions or discussion on the macro level about ethics, legal employment implications, future, you know. Current implications. What of making many editorial and soon writing positions obsolete. I've seen many public books published with the author's name, and AI as the co-writer. What are the legal requirements? Ramifications? If you co-write or use AI in writing one's book super. Super great question, Jeffrey. 168 00:47:03.050 --> 00:47:24.740 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: I'll answer the last part first, st like the legal requirements and ramifications. That's the same that I mentioned a bit earlier. It's really, really going to just depend on where you're submitting and what you are saying about your work at the time that you submit it. So every single publication on Earth right now has different standards for AI. So you'll need to make sure you're thinking about how 169 00:47:24.740 --> 00:47:33.900 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: you know what, how you're representing yourself at that point. So that's kind of to the legal, the legal legal requirements question. It's gonna just depend on where you're submitting 170 00:47:34.240 --> 00:47:49.359 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: the ethical side. Is really interesting. So, and I say this as a writer and as a person whose job at this company, and have forever has been to be a writer, and as somebody who hopes to be published as a novelist, and then my other work has been in an as an editor. 171 00:47:51.010 --> 00:47:54.470 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: What I will say is that a prowriting aid does not. 172 00:47:54.610 --> 00:48:07.763 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: Our intention is never to replace editors or writers. Our intention is to help people do that better and more effectively, as I recommended earlier, I think human editors should 100% be part of this process? 173 00:48:08.110 --> 00:48:31.320 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: because I think there are things that a human editor or a human reader can tell you that a text can't like, or an AI generator can't like an AI generator can't tell you if you like it, or if they like it, or like what made them cry or why they formed a bond to Jane versus any other character. Or how Jane, you know, is going to haunt their dreams that night. Right? So 174 00:48:31.320 --> 00:48:56.100 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: technology can never do that. And technology is also fallible. You know, we do our very, very best to make prowriting aid as strong as possible. But there's always like going to be small little errors here and there, and things that we're optimizing and tweaking, and just the same as humans are fallible. But it's always great to have human eyes on this on your work. To get. Just as Andrea is saying in the chat, that emotional intelligence, that understanding of like 175 00:48:56.100 --> 00:49:02.299 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: is this, is this good? So IA hundred percent, and providing aid. A 100% 176 00:49:02.470 --> 00:49:21.058 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: stands behind human editors and human writers. Our job is just to help fill in those gaps and make things more effective. So for editors. If you're a professional editor, this can help you again find those things that might be really tedious for you to find like your repeats or your echoes. Then you can come in and you can focus on the things that the tech can't do right? So it's that kind of more 177 00:49:21.750 --> 00:49:36.359 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: more impactful pieces. But I also do think that. Yeah, there is a lot of danger on AI kind of replacing. Or there are tools out there that are asking, you know, having people like generate an entire book in one click, and we are very strongly 178 00:49:36.520 --> 00:49:47.067 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: not doing that because we're here to try to make it better to help you do your job better, and to support humans rather than to kind of replace and just generate text with a click. 179 00:49:47.620 --> 00:49:56.239 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: that's you know, we're our our goal is to be your toolkit and to be a tool that you can utilize along with all of the other tools rather than just a 180 00:49:56.310 --> 00:49:59.269 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: yeah, rather than just something that can write for you. 181 00:50:01.140 --> 00:50:02.730 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: Okay. 182 00:50:03.150 --> 00:50:08.787 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: got a few more minutes. So Ed says, one of my more frequent errors. 183 00:50:09.250 --> 00:50:11.708 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: is leaving out a word. 184 00:50:13.150 --> 00:50:23.109 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: I might, in a previous sentence I might omit leaving and not notice it. So pro writing aid might not know what I meant to say, but it will just point out meaninglessness or whatever. 185 00:50:23.110 --> 00:50:46.990 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: Yes, so sometimes prowriting aid can find places where you've left out a word sometimes it can't. But this, I think, Ed, is a great example of places where human editors like we just talked about come in because the human editor is probably going to be better at predicting or understanding what you're trying to say. And technology might struggle with that. And so this is again, one of those reasons why I advocate for human editors, and I advocate for technology as a part of your editing process, not the part. 186 00:50:46.990 --> 00:50:48.620 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: A whole editing process. 187 00:50:51.113 --> 00:51:01.610 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: Cool, Chris asks, does prowriting aid support for narrative games and interactive text like twine. Definitely narrative games. I've actually used prowriting aid on 188 00:51:02.223 --> 00:51:08.359 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: d, and d adventures that I've written for, or campaigns that I've written for some games that I 189 00:51:08.720 --> 00:51:19.970 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: was the GM. For. I don't know what twine is, though. So I'm not sure, Chris. If you wanna elaborate in the chat I can answer on twine, I would assume. Yes, but I have not done it previously. 190 00:51:24.760 --> 00:51:26.260 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: Cool. Okay. 191 00:51:26.688 --> 00:51:38.859 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: so Ashley asked a good question, how does prowriting hate aid help with the overall plot when the critiques are limited to 4,000 words. Great question, Ashley. So 1st and foremost, the the 192 00:51:39.460 --> 00:52:00.450 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: story editing stage is not just where you're looking at the full book, but also where you're looking at it in chunks. So that's where those kind of big picture chunks like the 4 K chunks will come in. So you're looking again at the macro level. What that really means is anything bigger than like the page. So you're looking at scene level. You're looking at chapter level, etc. So story editing, you're doing kind of all of those different pieces. 193 00:52:00.450 --> 00:52:23.899 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: everything bigger than the the individual page and the individual sentences. So that's where it kind of comes in and helps with story editing. In terms of the critiques being limited to 4,000 words. Yes, it will look at the plot within a particular chapter or scene right now, but it's not going to look at your plot overall. What you can do is you can kind of run them on every individual scene, and see how that all or every individual chapter, and see how that stacks up. 194 00:52:23.900 --> 00:52:30.560 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: But that's 1 1 of the reasons why we're trying to expand the level of words that it works on. So we can do that overall plot as well. 195 00:52:34.910 --> 00:52:49.953 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: great Scott asks, What's the best way to monitor continuity? Or mistakes in identifying characters like their ages, descriptions, other characteristics beyond just one chapter? Or is that all about better planning upfront. This is a really really good question. 196 00:52:50.530 --> 00:53:19.879 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: I'll say right now that our technology, as it exists, does not have the features to do that. This is again where a human editor can come in, and also where kind of planning upfront can support. But there are also going to be changes that you probably make throughout the Doc, like throughout the writing process, like you might decide to have the same character, but age them up, or age them down for one reason or another. Again, these are the types of tools where we're looking towards building. But right now a human editor would be the best place to identify things like that. 197 00:53:22.930 --> 00:53:25.370 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: okay, let's see. 198 00:53:26.020 --> 00:53:36.829 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: Martin asks on the my style guide, can you use a polished work and have it. Compare to your other works. Not right now, Martin, but I'll also save this as a feature request. 199 00:53:38.740 --> 00:53:39.745 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: Okay, 200 00:53:40.880 --> 00:54:01.560 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: fijord again. I'm so sorry if I mispronounce that says, Do you have a feeling for when to draw the line and say that the editing is done? I've had readers try to tell me that I should do things to edit, change a story that I thought it was done, and it's hard to know when to be firm about that really good question. So the 201 00:54:02.690 --> 00:54:26.490 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: answer is, it depends on what your goals are. And ultimately, as the author, you are the person who has the final say so. Some people can tell you. You know, everyone's basically always going to have an edit for your text. Even any single one of us can kind of go to any book, and we might suggest changes for that or things that will be done. That's kind of the nature of human engagement with text. 202 00:54:27.435 --> 00:54:28.240 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: So 203 00:54:28.570 --> 00:54:34.170 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: when I would recommend drawing, the line is when you are happy with the story that is on the page. 204 00:54:34.310 --> 00:54:59.160 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: as I mentioned previously, I would recommend going through at least one of each of those stages of editing, so doing, a comprehensive developmental edit, getting a round of feedback, doing a comprehensive line. Edit, if you can, working with a professional editor of some kind, if you do, at least one of those one of each of those stages that is the kind of 1st place that I would draw the line, and you might say I am done 205 00:54:59.160 --> 00:55:07.090 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: now. Done depends a bit on what you're trying to do, done at that stage might be trying to query. To get traditionally published. 206 00:55:07.190 --> 00:55:17.810 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: Done also might mean that you are trying to self publish, in which case you might go through several additional rounds of editing that you would have done with a traditional publisher. But you won't do 207 00:55:17.920 --> 00:55:33.030 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: if you're self publishing. So it's really kind of up to you. And when you are happy with the manuscript again, at a very, very baseline level, I recommend doing at least one of each of those stages, and then going from there, I would also just say. 208 00:55:33.050 --> 00:55:58.690 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: try to understand the characterize or and characterize the feedback from those readers and kind of qualify it. So is that feedback valuable. So 1st of all, are these people who typically read in my genre, if you are writing romance. But you've asked a bunch of sci-fi readers to read your book. Maybe they just like it, but maybe they just don't like romance right or vice versa. Right? If you ask a bunch of romance readers to read sci-fi. So see? First, st 209 00:55:58.690 --> 00:56:07.839 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: you know, are they? Are they my ideal reader? Second of all take kind of their feedback in terms of what they like, and don't like with a grain of salt. 210 00:56:08.111 --> 00:56:30.070 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: I would say, if they are strongly, strongly opposed to something. Understand why, you know, it might just not be for them, or maybe they hate one character, but another person will love that character. If they're, however, saying, Oh, you know, there's a giant plot hole that will maybe be some feedback that you want to kind of understand. So looking at. Is this them not liking something? Or is this like a true structural issue with the document itself? 211 00:56:30.550 --> 00:56:31.769 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: Okay. 212 00:56:31.910 --> 00:56:38.244 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: we've only got a couple of quick minutes. So I want to return to Deb's questions at the beginning, and just give a 213 00:56:38.570 --> 00:56:54.799 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: a quick overview of each of the different reports. We have more than 25. So I'm not going to go through all of them. But I'm going to talk kind of about the overall grouping of them. So this 1st grouping of reports up here. So 1st of all, you access all of the reports by just pushing the button. 214 00:56:54.800 --> 00:57:11.329 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: and you can access any of those reports and then get a kind of an overview of what the report does at the top here. And so, as I mentioned, prowriting aid is free for people, for everybody, if you're checking on 500 words or less. So I highly recommend just coming into the tool, signing up for free and then seeing. 215 00:57:11.985 --> 00:57:27.119 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: Yeah, seeing what's in there. So these kind of core reports are basic things like your grammar, your style, your spelling, your overused words. Combo, is the ability to create a bunch of different combinations of reports together. So that's like your own kind of custom report 216 00:57:27.240 --> 00:57:42.309 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: the repeats, looks at, repeats, and echoes. I think somebody had asked for. The difference between the 2 repeats is just straight up. All of your repeated words. Echoes are repeats that are close together, so like repeats that are within a certain number of words of each other. 217 00:57:42.310 --> 00:58:01.129 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: repeats, on the other hand, looks at like all of the times you've said turquoise within your whole manuscript echoes, looks at how many times you've said turquoise within 50 words. If that makes sense, the structure reports are all about your sentences. So it looks at your kind of sentence structure, your sentence length, and your transitions from place to place. 218 00:58:01.725 --> 00:58:11.064 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: Readability is looking at how you can make your work more readable. So it's looking at things like your sticky sentences. Places where you have 219 00:58:11.727 --> 00:58:22.550 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: you know, done overly wordy sentences, places where you used cliches or diction that might be difficult to read. And then, if you come in here to basically, as you expand your screen. More and more things come up. 220 00:58:23.227 --> 00:58:35.722 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: So you'll also look at consistency, which will look at consistency of spelling of numeral like numerals. That type of thing. Acronyms looks for places that you've utilized, acronyms that might need to be explained. 221 00:58:36.368 --> 00:58:55.180 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: Fiction reports are specifically for fiction writers who are looking at things like your use of dialogue tags, and the percentage of dialogue within your text. You also have that sensory report that looks at the sense sensory language, and then pacing looks at how your work is paced, and whether you have too many shorter or longer paced sentences together. 222 00:58:55.200 --> 00:58:57.679 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: So that is a very, very brief overview 223 00:58:57.800 --> 00:59:03.619 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: again. I would recommend coming in here. You can look at any report and then look at the top to understand what it's saying. 224 00:59:04.126 --> 00:59:23.039 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: All right. I know there are a lot more questions. So please, if you have any of them feel free to email hello@prowritingaid.com, and thank you all again. So much for participating in this and for joining us, or joining us for all of these sessions, and we would really be happy to see you at Sci-fi week, or any of our future weeks from here. 225 00:59:23.260 --> 00:59:29.419 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: Thank you so much, and thank you so much. To Nanowrimo. It has been such a joy to get to know all of you and get to hang out with you. 226 00:59:29.680 --> 00:59:30.790 Hayley @ ProWritingAid: Bye, everybody.