One common question AutoCrit users ask is: Do I run reports on my manuscript on a chapter by chapter basis, or on the complete work?
The answer is, essentially, whichever you like – because AutoCrit does both!
While the AutoCrit text editor is kept intentionally free of intrusive bells and whistles, it does have the ability to detect and segregate chapters based on chapter headings. This allows you to choose specific chapters on which to run the various reports.
As the author, you’re in charge of your work – remember, all of AutoCrit’s reports are suggestions based on the contents of successful, published books. If you want to keep certain word choices, sentence lengths, repetitions and so on, that’s entirely up to you – yet the editorial guidance of AutoCrit might just spark a few alternate approaches you hadn’t thought of before.
So if a certain chapter feels sluggish or “off” in some way, you can tell AutoCrit to analyze by chapter and jump right into fixing that one chunk of text. The same approach is also useful for writers who like to tidy, nip and tuck as they progress through their story.
On the other hand, if you have a completed manuscript that needs tightening and plan to go through from start to finish, just let AutoCrit scan the entire thing and then dive in! You’ll be walked through each comparison in exactly the same way.
Since AutoCrit analyzes text based on a number of averages within various fiction genres (we don’t want to give away all the secrets of our algorithm, though!), you’ll get the same superior results regardless of whether you’re going one chapter at a time or attacking the whole hog.
How to Analyze by Chapter
To target specific chapters, you’ll need to ensure the Analyze by Chapters option is set to “yes” under the settings tab. By default, this is selected. To view results for your entire manuscript, simply select “no” and re-analyze your text by selecting your desired Category button.
When Analyze by Chapters is selected, AutoCrit searches your text for a line by itself starting with the word “Chapter”. When found, the word and heading are highlighted, as you can see here:
With your chapters collated, you can now quickly navigate through your analysis results using the “Previous/Next” navigation buttons provided within the sidebar.
Now you can jump to chapters in your text using the “Jump to Chapter” drop-down box located at the top of your text. Simple!
If you’d like to see this in action, check out the video guide in our Getting Started series by clicking here.
Ultimately, with AutoCrit you are in control. However you want to approach your analysis, and whatever you choose to change based on the recommendations given, the power is in your hands.
Your writing will be improved… but it will still be absolutely, incontrovertibly yours.
Why not give it a try right now? Hop on over and create your new Free Forever account for totally cost-free access to the AutoCrit editor and a selection of popular reports. How does your book stack up against the competition?
