Streamline Your Book Editing with This Simple Writing Prompt
Editing a book manuscript is like a juggling act, you need to maintain a consistent tone, differentiate characters, and keep the timeline of events clear and accurate. Readers are too sensitive to timeline flaws or characters that talk too similarly. If you’re self-publishing without a professional editor checking for accurate story tone, timing, and character diffeention is a must.
Fortunately, AI tools like ChatGPT or Claude can help. This is the ethical writing assistance you crave. With a simple writing prompt, you can analyze your entire manuscript and receive insights on these key elements. I’ve used this for my book Gross Potions, published in 2019, and realized the timeline was wrong. For much of the book the family is traveling the globe and for one leg of the trip, the time between locations was much too fast.
I then updated the timeline, added dates to the chapters, and republished them. For another book where it’s a bunch of teens, I was wondering if my characters may be written too closely and my hunch was write. I’m now writing the next draft ensuring a clear distinction between speaking styles
In this post, I’ll give you an easy writing prompt so AI can review your manuscript in any AI-powered editing app. For bigger books, somewhere over eighty thousdand words, Claude works better. If you’re an author looking to refine your book or an editor with too much on your plate, this method will help you achieve professional-level results.
The Problem: Editing for Tone, Characters, and Timeline
When writing, it’s easy to overlook certain details that can affect your manuscript’s overall quality:
- Tone Consistency: Shifts in tone can confuse readers and disrupt the flow of the story. This is the enemy of rhythm. It’s hard to regain your reader’s momentum if the tone shifts from chapter to chapter.
- Character Differentiation: Characters should have distinct voices and behaviors. When they sound or act too similarly, it can weaken the narrative.
- Timeline Accuracy: Keeping events in a consistent and logical order is essential for story coherence. If there are inconsistencies in timing, readers will notice. I find if you add a scene in Act I there tends to be a domino effect that shifts the entire book.
The Solution: Using AI to Review your Book
AI-powered tools like ChatGPT and Claude can help you identify and correct these issues quickly and effectively. Below is a step-by-step guide to using AI to edit your manuscript.
Prepare Your Manuscript
Save your manuscript as a .pdf.
Use the Tailored Writing Prompt
Next, you’ll need a prompt that directs the AI to focus on tone consistency, character differentiation, and timeline accuracy. The following simple writing prompt is what I use to review my book for errors and consistency. Check for all three or just one at a time. It works either way, almost like magic.
Prompt for Claude/ChatGPT:
“You are a book editor reviewing a manuscript attached as a PDF or document file. Your task is to analyze the following:
- Tone Consistency: Review the manuscript and assess whether the tone is consistent throughout. Identify any sections, scenes, or sentences where the tone feels out of place or shifts unexpectedly. Provide examples of these shifts and recommend changes to make the tone more uniform.
- Character Differentiation: Analyze how each character is written, particularly in dialogue and actions. Ensure that characters are distinct and not written too similarly. If characters’ voices, speech patterns, or behaviors overlap too much, point out these instances and suggest ways to differentiate them more clearly.
- Timeline of Events: Create a timeline for each scene of the story, noting the day of the week, time of day, date, and year (if explicitly mentioned or implied). Identify any inconsistencies in the timeline and suggest corrections to keep the events in chronological order.
Analyze the Results
Once you’ve uploaded your manuscript and used the prompt, the AI will return a detailed analysis, focusing on the three main areas:
- Tone Consistency: You’ll get examples of where the tone shifts unexpectedly and suggestions on how to adjust it for a smoother reading experience.
- Character Differentiation: The AI will highlight where characters may sound too similar and provide ideas for making their voices and personalities more distinct.
- Timeline Creation: A clear, structured timeline of events will be generated based on the context of your manuscript, with any inconsistencies noted for correction.
For example, if your story starts on a Tuesday but later references a Monday for no apparent reason, the AI will catch this inconsistency and point it out.
Other Writing Prompts
If you want a deeper analysis, you can adjust the prompt to focus on other areas like pacing, dialogue flow, or even emotional arcs.
Bonus: AI-Powered Proofreading Prompt
Looking for a quick grammar check on top of your content review? Here’s a bonus prompt for proofreading your manuscript:
Proofreading Prompt:
“Please review this document for grammar, punctuation, and spelling errors. Highlight any awkward sentence structures and suggest revisions for clarity and flow. Attached Document:
How do you use AI to help your writing? Comment below and pass this post along to fellow authors and editors!
Christopher lives in Vermont with his wife, twin boys, border collie and corgi. He has owned a film production company, sold slot machines, and worked for Tony Robbins. He writes in his magical tiny house and sometimes writes in his blog at chrisrodgers.blog
Visit his author’s page.