We all have a creative side, so consider meeting my friend Marlowe if you are an aspiring author. Authors.ai is a relatively new web property directly related to enhancing your novel’s success or manuscript using Artificial Intelligence. Practically, Marlowe (the intelligent AI engine) reads and writes manuscripts in under an hour. Marlowe is labeled as a self-editing tool but’s it is much more nuanced. Authors who seek feedback on their manuscripts can look no further. Authors.ai has one mission; they want to help authors write books that readers love, using artificial intelligence.

Let us begin with the basics. Marlowe can read your book and deliver concise feedback on your manuscript “within the hour.” Marlowe, by the way, is a “she.” :) She is inexpensive, does not play favorites ( no bias, well up to a certain point ), and knows what it takes to make a compelling story. Marlowe has spent years analyzing best-sellers and applies her knowledge to provide editors and authors a platform to propel your book to great success. Genre, character traits, pacing, narrative arc, and story structure all play an essential role, but if you want a page-turner, you will want to add data science, and Marlow is the crucial ingredient.

Marlowe is the creation of chief data scientist, Matthew L. Jockers, Ph.D. Jockers is co-author of the best selling book The Best Seller Code and two text-mining books. He is among the world’s leading experts in applying machine learning principles and text mining to novel-length fiction.

Marlowe can analyze significant turning points of your novel and narrative arc to emphasize patterns in the book that graphically exhibit through patterns the central arc of the narrative and primary conflict and conflict resolutions. For example, this data equates to the peaks and valleys of your story. The more peaks and valleys, the more of a roller coaster ride the characters are experiencing. The result, in most cases, is a gripping page-turner and an engaging read. On the other hand, if the arc does not have as many peaks and valleys (a story which may not veer prominently from the center axis), it will not have as many peaks, and valleys ultimately might not be as compelling or successful.

Marlowe underscores narrative beats and organizes them as positive or negative. The idea here, of course, is that Marlowe is looking for patterns. If the beats are equidistant from each other as successful books typically are, it might sell more books than others which have these types of patterns. Marlowe can define by a percentage of lively beats and negative beats and parse out sentences of those beats for the author to edit or reconsider through Natural Language Processing.

Marlowe also introduces a pacing model that simulates the experience readers have when diving feverishly into the narrative. Suppose you wrote a manuscript, in your edited feedback, Marlowe will illuminate authors and share where their readers tend to turn pages more quickly. It will analyze which sentences are fast pacing and which ones are pacing more slowly. Once again, in the edited feedback, a chart is provided that looks similar to an area chart.

Further, Marlowe can understand character traits as well. “Is she agreeable, understanding, calm and assuring,” or is “he reactive, impulsive, anxious, and worried.” These are great starting points for an in-depth character analysis, not only for producers and casting directors who need to understand the psychological nuances inside the characters’ minds. Once again, charts are provided in bar graph format to depict the character trait’s intensity based on cluster patterns of the words associated with the character.

Further, Marlowe can analyze the narrative and dialog components of your story. The dialog can slow down the novel’s pace, which is often necessary but can also generate “in the moment” scenes that the reader will devour. While there is no magic formula for determining how much dialog your manuscript requires, it is significant to understand when you compare dialog to pace and vis-a-versa. In any event, Marlowe will provide a percentage based on dialog vs. narrative, so you can adjust accordingly as required.

Marlowe devours subject matter in your manuscripts, repetitive phrases, explicit language, adverbs, and adjectives among various other components such as sentence stats and punctuation data. For those who like to write and many of us here have published books, authors.ai is a great place to consider before taking your manuscript to an editor or publishing house.