Free Manuscript Health Check
How is your manuscript really working?
Upload your manuscript — any length — and we’ll assess up to the first 5,000 words, giving you a free diagnostic assessment covering areas such as opening strength, readability, pacing, dialogue, point of view, character clarity and repetition.
Free • Any length • Up to the first 5,000 words assessed • DOCX or PDF
AI-assisted, and clear about it
This is an AI-assisted diagnostic designed to give you useful early insight into the opening of your manuscript. It is not a replacement for professional editorial assessment.
What it can and cannot do
It can identify patterns, possible issues and useful areas to investigate. It cannot replace developmental editing, copy editing, proofreading or a full-manuscript assessment.
Your manuscript remains yours
Quill & Reed does not claim ownership of uploaded work. Submitting a sample does not create or register copyright protection.
What the Health Check looks at
Thirteen areas of the reader experience, described in words rather than a single score.
- Opening strength
- Does the opening create enough reason to continue reading?
- Readability
- Is the prose easy to follow?
- Pacing
- Does the opening move at an appropriate pace for its genre?
- Sentence variation
- Is sentence rhythm varied enough?
- Dialogue
- Does dialogue feel purposeful and readable?
- Point of view
- Is the narrative perspective clear and consistent?
- Character clarity
- Can the reader understand who matters and why?
- Repetition
- Are words, phrases, ideas or beats repeated unnecessarily?
- Structural signals
- Does the opening suggest a clear direction?
- Consistency
- Are there obvious contradictions or continuity issues?
- Genre signals
- What kind of book does the opening appear to be?
- Likely readership
- What type of reader may be drawn to it?
- Formatting
- Are there obvious presentation issues?
- Step 01
Tell us about the book and how far you have got.
- Step 02
Upload a DOCX or text-based PDF, or paste your text.
- Step 03
We read up to the first 5,000 words.
- Step 04
You receive a written report with specific next steps.
Health Check or professional editing?
Health Check
- — Up to the first 5,000 words
- — AI-assisted
- — Diagnostic pattern identification
- — Free
- — Useful early direction
Professional editorial assessment
- — A human editor
- — Deeper judgement
- — May cover the full manuscript
- — Structural and stylistic context
- — Bespoke, paid specialist service
Related guides
- Improving your opening chapter
- Fixing pacing in a novel
- Writing better dialogue
- Fixing point of view
- Developmental editing vs copy editing
- How do I know when my book is finished?
- What to do after your first draft
- How to publish a book
Individual guides are being written; links currently open the relevant resource section.