I've used ProWritingAid for years, mostly for the kind of sentence-level and chapter-level editing it's always been good at. Manuscript Analysis interested me because it does something quite different: instead of looking at a piece of the book, it tries to look at the book as a whole.
That sounded useful, but I also wanted to know how useful.
So I ran Alice's Adventures in Wonderland through it and spent some time going through what ProWritingAid thought was working, what it questioned, and where I disagreed with it. I also talked directly with ProWritingAid about how the AI behind the feature handles writers' manuscripts.
There was quite a bit I liked. There's also one part of the pricing model I wish they'd handle differently.
What is ProWritingAid’s Manuscript Analysis?
Most of ProWritingAid's traditional reports look at the prose in front of you. Manuscript Analysis backs up considerably farther and tries to make sense of the entire story.
Give it a manuscript and it looks across five areas:
- About My Story
- Narrative Themes
- Plot & Structure
- Characters
- Setting
And for each area, it gives you clear, actionable feedback with a color-coded system:
- Green (Working Well)
- Yellow (Minor Concern)
- Orange (Concern)
- Red (Major Concern)
When it flags something, it usually gives you enough context to find the part of the manuscript it's talking about, rather than dropping a generic observation on you and leaving you to hunt for it.
Before getting into the reports themselves, though, there's an obvious question with any AI feature that reads an entire unpublished manuscript: what happens to the text you give it?
Does Manuscript Analysis Use AI (Artificial Intelligence)?
Yes.
That wasn't especially surprising, but Dave and I did want to know what happened to the manuscript after you handed it over. In particular, we wanted a straight answer about whether ProWritingAid used any of that writing to train its AI or other algorithms.
We asked a senior member of the ProWritingAid team directly on a Zoom call:
- Do you use the text run through Manuscript Analysis to train your AI?
- Do you use any text checked by ProWritingAid to train your AI or algorithms?
They told us no to both.
ProWritingAid's own documentation now says the same thing: it does not use customers' writing to train its AI models or algorithms.
If you'd like to dig further into how ProWritingAid handles your data, you can read through its Trust Center here.
How to Run Manuscript Analysis
How you access Manuscript Analysis depends a little on where you're using ProWritingAid.
In the Web Editor, Desktop Everywhere, or one of ProWritingAid's browser extensions, open the Edit section in the right sidebar, choose Critique, and then select Manuscript Analysis.
The process is similar in ProWritingAid's integrations. Open the ProWritingAid menu, go to Edit, choose Critique, and select Manuscript Analysis. In Word on Windows, you may first need to click the ProWritingAid button in Word's toolbar to open the menu.
Manuscript Analysis needs enough of the story to see patterns across it, which is why ProWritingAid recommends using at least 6,000 words.
Note: Manuscript Analysis is designed for manuscripts between 6,000 and 300,000 words. ProWritingAid says longer manuscripts may still run, but the feedback may not be as reliable.
For my test, I uploaded “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” by Lewis Carroll, which clocks in at just over 29k words.
Once you start the analysis, ProWritingAid gives you an estimated wait time. You don't have to sit there watching it work either; you can keep using ProWritingAid, and the finished report will be saved in your Feedback History.
For reference, my Alice analysis finished in 2 minutes and 50 seconds.
How to Review Your Manuscript Analysis
Once the report is finished, you can move through the five sections individually. Here's what ProWritingAid gave me when I tested it with Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
Using my “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” test, let’s look at each section.
1. About My Story
About My Story gives you a snapshot of your genre, narrative structure, characters, and competitive landscape. It's basically ProWritingAid's read on what kind of book you gave it before it starts critiquing the individual pieces.
For “Alice”, Manuscript Analysis highlighted the genre…
Alice tumbles down a rabbit hole into a whimsical world filled with peculiar creatures and bizarre events. She encounters a talking White Rabbit, attends a Mad Tea-Party, and navigates the nonsensical rules of the Queen of Hearts' croquet game. Throughout her journey, Alice grapples with constant changes in size and struggles to make sense of the illogical reality around her.
The plot outline…
- Alice follows the White Rabbit down a rabbit hole and falls into Wonderland.
- She experiences numerous size changes due to magical food and drink.
- Alice attends a Mad Tea-Party with the March Hare, Hatter, and Dormouse.
- She encounters the Queen of Hearts and participates in a chaotic croquet game.
- Alice's adventures culminate in a trial, after which she awakens from her dream.
The setting…
Wonderland is a dreamlike world accessed through a rabbit hole. It exists outside of normal time and space, with shifting landscapes and illogical rules. The environment is often whimsical and nonsensical, populated by talking animals, playing cards, and other fantastical creatures. The story primarily takes place outdoors, in forests, gardens, and a croquet ground.
The themes and motifs…
- Identity and Growing Up: Alice's constant size changes symbolize the challenges and uncertainties of growing up. She struggles to maintain a sense of self as her physical form and perspective shift throughout the story.
- Logic vs. Nonsense: Wonderland operates according to its own illogical rules, creating a constant clash between Alice's rational mind and the absurd reality around her. The story explores the nature of language, meaning, and the limits of reason.
- Order and Chaos: The Queen of Hearts' tyrannical reign and the chaotic events of Wonderland contrast with Alice's desire for order and understanding. This highlights the unpredictable nature of life and the absurdity of societal structures.
The competitive landscape…
This story would primarily appeal to children aged 6-12, both boys and girls, from diverse cultural and educational backgrounds. While particularly resonating with those who enjoy imaginative stories and wordplay, its themes of identity and growing up can also connect with adolescents and adults. The book's accessibility allows it to be enjoyed by readers across income levels and occupations, although it is typically purchased by parents or educators for children's entertainment and educational purposes.
And even a character breakdown:
2. Narrative Themes
The Narrative Themes section tries to identify what the book is saying beneath the plot and then checks how consistently those ideas show up across the manuscript.
With “Alice”, Manuscript Analysis pinpointed several themes it believes works well, including Effective Use of Size Change as a Metaphor, Exploration of Identity, and Satirical Elements of Victorian Society.
Here’s a screenshot of one “Working well” example:
Manuscript Analysis also identified two themes that could be improved:
If I agreed with one of those observations, I could see where ProWritingAid found it in the text and what it thought I might change.
3. Plot & Structure
Plot & Structure highlights the plot points that are working well in your story (and those that could be better). For each item, ProWritingAid explains what it's reacting to and points you toward the relevant part of the manuscript. When it thinks something needs work, it also gives you a suggested direction.
With “Alice”, Manuscript Analysis found plot and structure that worked well…
Plot and structure it had concerns about…
And several plot and structure elements it had “minor concerns” about…
As before, when Manuscript Analysis believes an element could be improved, it offers suggestions. You can take them to heart or ignore them.
(Something tells me Lewis Carroll would have ignored the “Mad Tea-Party Lacks Direction” concern.)
ProWritingAid has also made the feedback easier to work through since I first tested Manuscript Analysis. You can jump from a flagged issue directly to the relevant spot in your manuscript, and you can mark individual pieces of feedback based on whether you agree with them, disagree with them, or are still thinking them over.
4. Characters
The Characters section looks at how the major characters come across over the course of the manuscript, including places where their motivation, role, or development may feel thin.
With “Alice”, Manuscript Analysis loves the Queen of Hearts, Alice’s strong voice, and the funny dialogue…
But it also has concerns with Alice’s emotional depth, lack of clear motivation, passive role in the story’s climax, and her lack of curiosity:
Note: As shown in the above screenshot, Manuscript Analysis lets you expand or collapse any element (for improved readability).
5. Setting
The last section focuses on Setting, including how clearly the world comes across and whether ProWritingAid sees places where it could be developed further.
Manuscript Analysis likes the “Whimsical and Dreamlike Atmosphere” and “Imaginative Wonderland Creatures” in Carroll’s story…
But it says “Wonderland” itself has a few potential areas of concern:
What to Do With the Manuscript Analysis Feedback
I wouldn't treat any of this feedback as an instruction.
The Alice test is a good example of why. ProWritingAid wasn't wrong to notice that the Mad Tea-Party wanders around without much traditional direction. Whether Lewis Carroll should have “fixed” that is another question entirely.
That's how I'd use Manuscript Analysis on my own work. If it points out something I already suspected, or makes me notice a problem I hadn't seen, great. If I think the suggestion would make the book worse, I ignore it.
The report is there to give me another perspective on the manuscript, not make the decisions for me.
If I make substantial revisions and want another look at the book afterward, I can run Manuscript Analysis again. That's where the Story Credit system becomes important, because every new run costs another credit.
You Need Credits to Use Manuscript Analysis
Every new ProWritingAid account starts with one free Story Credit, and you can use it on Manuscript Analysis without paying for Premium first. You could also spend that credit on one of ProWritingAid's other whole-story tools, so it isn't specifically reserved for Manuscript Analysis.
After that first run, you have to buy more credits.
This is the part I wish ProWritingAid handled differently. Premium and Premium Pro subscribers get discounts on Story Credits, but ProWritingAid doesn't include a regular allotment of them with either paid plan.
If I'm already paying for Premium Pro, I'd much rather see an occasional Story Credit included with the subscription than have every Manuscript Analysis run remain a separate purchase.
Current Story Credit prices start at $25 each for Premium Pro users:
$35 each for Premium users:
And $50 each for free users:
Buying larger bundles lowers the per-credit price, and those same credits can also be used for Plot Analysis, Virtual Beta Reader, or Marketability Analysis.
I also don't think most authors will burn through credits constantly. Manuscript Analysis makes more sense at particular points in a draft than as something you rerun every afternoon.
Whether the extra cost bothers you will probably depend on how often you use the other Story Credit tools too. The same credits work with Plot Analysis, Virtual Beta Reader, Marketability Analysis, and other whole-story analyses, so someone using several of those could go through them considerably faster than someone who only runs Manuscript Analysis once or twice per book.
The Bottom Line on Manuscript Analysis
Manuscript Analysis was one of the features that made me start thinking about ProWritingAid as something bigger than a grammar and line-editing tool. Since then they've added several other ways to analyze a story, but this is still probably the one I'd use first if I wanted to step back and get a broad look at an entire draft.
I liked it more than I expected to.
Some of the feedback on Alice was insightful, some of it was debatable, and a few suggestions were things I'd happily ignore. That's about what I want from software like this. I don't need it to be right about everything. I need it to notice enough interesting things that I look at my own manuscript differently.
The ability to work across as much as 300,000 words is especially useful because the report can see relationships that a chapter-by-chapter critique can't. And because every new ProWritingAid account gets one trial Story Credit, you can try Manuscript Analysis once before deciding whether buying more credits makes sense for you.
I still wish Story Credits were included periodically with the paid plans. They're not, even with Premium Pro, and that makes rerunning the analysis something I'd think about rather than do casually.
But I'd rather have that complaint about the pricing than discover the report itself wasn't useful.
If you already use ProWritingAid and have a free Story Credit sitting in your account, Manuscript Analysis is worth trying on a draft that's far enough along for the tool to have something meaningful to work with.
