Review of AutoCrit

Review: Will AutoCrit Help You Write and Edit a Good Book?

Last Updated on by Michael Brockbank

When it comes to writing your book, the editing process is a vital component of your success. You never want to just slap anything up on Amazon and call it a day. Can AutoCrit help you structure and edit a good book?

It’s a possibility, especially if you like data analysis of how you compare to others in the industry. Not to mention having access to AI tools that can assist with structure and writer’s block.

Keep in mind that I don’t condone any tool that will automatically write text for you.

However, AI can be used to crunch numbers, analyze data, and help you get ideas for how to proceed in your book. So, the AI in AutoCrit is something that I can get behind as it doesn’t take any of the creative credit.

It’ll show you data and reports while providing ideas and suggestions, but it’s still up to you to write the manuscript.

What is AutoCrit?

AutoCrit is an online writing and editing platform that uses your web browser. By analyzing your text, AutoCrit can provide in-depth reports about your style while comparing how you stack up against other authors and genres.

Using available AI tools, you can get ideas from the Inspiration Studio, get insights about your overall story, identify the use of repetitious words and adverbs, and much more.

You’ll have access to things like a Story Structure Builder, Contextual Thesaurus, and tools that can help you change the overall mood of the manuscript.

If you’re not sure about how to put together a good story, you can also use AutoCrit’s Academy section. This area provides a wide variety of information on topics covering everything from creating your protagonist to elements of Gothic Fiction.

It is important to note, however, that the best parts of AutoCrit are locked behind a paywall. I’ll go over the costs in a moment, and they might not be all that bad considering what you get for the money.

As a Writing App

AutoCrit Writing App

The free version of the AutoCrit writing app is quite limited compared to others on the market. Unless you upgrade to premium services, you don’t have access to writing goals and have very limited abilities to use the reporting system that makes the platform worthwhile.

The wrap-around style of the writing app feels a bit awkward as your text fills the span of the monitor instead of having proper margins to simulate an actual book from a page.

The text formatting tools at your disposal are exceptionally basic in AutoCrit. However, all of the necessities are there to write a novel, as long as you don’t need advanced image placements on certain pages.

From the writing app, you have access to all of the functions of AutoCrit easily accessible, as long as you’re paying for the premium tool. This includes everything from the Story Analyzer to getting inspiration to write what happens next.

In regards to a writing app itself, AutoCrit seems like a barebones overlay of Atticus…only without the formatting options.

Personally, I don’t like the extended wrap-around layout and prefer pages to have margins to simulate those from a book. For me, it just looks cleaner and more professional.

As an Editing App

AutoCrit uses AI not to write your work for you but to analyze what you have created. Then, it gives you suggestions and comparisons based on other authors or genres.

Using the various reports at your disposal (premium-only tools), you can fine-tune the manuscript for a better read overall.

At the end of the day, it’s better not to think of AutoCrit as a “complete” editing system. You’ll still want a set of professional human eyes on your work as well as using beta readers to structure a good book.

What Can You Expect from AutoCrit?

Keep in mind that the pros and cons below are for the paid version of AutoCrit. The platform really doesn’t have much to offer as a free system.

Pros

    Cons

      Lots of Data Reports

      The driving element of AutoCrit is the sheer number of reports you can get from your manuscript. It’ll show you everything from the overall pacing of your story to its readability score.

      This can help you put together a cleaner manuscript that has a better flow overall. This is especially true when looking at the pacing of the story.

      Part of writing a good book is balancing the pacing throughout the book. But if it leans too far to either fast or slow, it could create a poor experience for the reader. Of course, this also depends greatly on the story you’re trying to tell.

      Comparing Against Authors and Genres

      Stephen King vs Me

      One of the neater aspects of AutoCrit is how you can compare your writing style to that of other writers or genres as a whole.

      Now, this doesn’t mean your story will be on par with some of the greatest authors in the world. However, it does give you an idea of your structure versus that of other writers.

      After all, you’ll still have to write a story people want to continue reading.

      This is also based on the faith that AutoCrit’s analysis of other authors and genres is accurate. Unless you calculate the data yourself, it’s virtually impossible to know for certain.

      Extensive Summary Report

      Summary Report

      Instead of viewing the data points one by one, you can choose to run a Summary Report. This will take your entire manuscript and pit it against your chosen author or genre.

      You can choose to run the report with AutoCrit’s scoring system, or by a direct one-on-one comparison.

      The scoring system is a method that AutoCrit uses to denote the overall structure of your novel. Anything over 70 is considered ideal, and even the developers state that you shouldn’t try to aim for 100.

      The Summary Report also gives you tips on what you can work on in the manuscript. As you can see in the image above, I need to work on the pacing of this particular story.

      Using the Noteboard

      Having a split-screen view of a noteboard is ideal as I often forget parts of the story I want to flesh out. In AutoCrit, you can create the board and add as many notes as you want complete with tags for easy searching.

      You can also color-code the notes, rearrange them with drag-and-drop functionality, expand into full-screen mode, and keep track of the things you want to adjust in the manuscript.

      In the event you want to work on the story outside of AutoCrit, you can easily export the notes as a DOCX or RTF file.

      Built-in Thesaurus and Dictionary

      A nice feature of AutoCrit is the built-in thesaurus and dictionary. Once open, all you need to do is double-click a word. Then, AutoCrit will either give you a definition of the term or a synonym, depending on your needs.

      This is great for those who don’t want to use the same words throughout the manuscript. It helps you avoid redundancy while also potentially finding a much better fit by definition.

      It is worth noting that even though AutoCrit provides a decent list of synonyms, it pales in comparison to what you’d get by using the Grammarly Chrome extension or through a Google search.

      Nonetheless, it’s a time-saving step that may be all you need.

      Dictate and Text Reader

      AutoCrit has voice-to-text dictation and a built-in text reader. This can be helpful for those who would rather speak than write, of which there are plenty of authors who do so.

      However, the dictate function is a bit wonky at times. In my test, if I didn’t specifically turn it off before leaving a manuscript, AutoCrit would continue to record my voice. The end result was butchering a few titles and changing text fields on the platform.

      Secondly, the dictate function is ultra-slow to respond, especially when pitted against other text-to-speech apps. It takes considerably longer for AutoCrit to fill in the text and could be quite off-putting if you have to wait for the system to catch up.

      As for the text reader, it uses the standard robotic voice that has been in use since the late 1990s. It would have been nice if the text reader would have been more akin to some of the AI-driven voices of today.

      Still, it is interesting to hear the story read aloud…even if it’s just a step above listening to the late, great Stephen Hawking giving a speech.

      Using the Inspiration Studio

      AutoCrit Story Builder

      One of the AI-driven features of AutoCrit is the Inspiration Studio tools. This section can help give you ideas about how the story progresses, changing the overall mood, and building stories from scratch.

      You don’t have to use any of the ideas the system provides, but it could potentially help with writer’s block.

      Again, keep in mind that AutoCrit doesn’t write anything for you. It only provides ideas for what you can write.

      Community, Academy, and Author Services Sections

      The paid plan for AutoCrit gives you member discounts for various courses and services.

      In the Community tab, you can connect and interact with other authors in a variety of forums. You can submit snippets to your peers for critiquing, join daily accountability posts, check-ins for writing, or learn tips and tricks for the platform.

      The Academy section, in contrast, is quite limited. There are several courses posted each month, but most are not free. Although you get a discount for being a member, they can range up to several hundred dollars per class/workshop.

      As for Author Services, you don’t have a lot of options available. At the time of this post, there are only four and they vary greatly in price.

      Exporting as ePub or PDF

      In 2024, AutoCrit added the ability to export your manuscript as an ePub or PDF file for publishing. Although it doesn’t have a lot of the formatting options of platforms like Atticus, this is a nice addition for those who just want to get their books on sites like Amazon.

      You can also export your manuscript in various common file types such as DOCX. This is great for a backup or if you’re sending it to a human editor to give it a once-over.

      One of the features I like about the export tool is that it will give you a preview window of what your book will look like on mobile devices. Now, I don’t like the non-indented layout of eBooks nowadays, but that’s just my personal preference.

      While AutoCrit does an alright job at exporting books, there are far better tools out there for formatting.

      Word Frequency Seems Broken

      Word Frequency Report

      One of the reports in AutoCrit seems to be a tad broken. According to the Word Frequency analysis, I need to remove all instances of my character’s names. That, to me, seems a bit drastic.

      I even changed the comparison from Stephen King to the Horror niche and AutoCrit still thinks I use names and objects too often.

      Out of all of the reports available, though, this seems to be the only one that doesn’t work. That is unless it’s some obscure setting that I haven’t seen or that the developers neglect to highlight.

      No Margins in Writing Layout

      Unlike other writing apps, such as Reedsy, Word, or LibreOffice, AutoCrit doesn’t have margins when writing. This means the text itself fits the full screen of its page.

      Why does this matter? I like it when apps provide a facsimile of a book while writing. This can give you an idea of paragraph lengths and how the story flows overall.

      Keep in mind that longer paragraphs equate to a slower pace when reading. Not knowing where those margins are could be detrimental to the pacing of your book.

      Plus, I think proper print margins just makes the writing process look more professional.

      Fiction Analyzer

      The Fiction Analyzer is a neat tool that will break down the points within the story. For instance, you can get a report of the character conflicts, world-building, possible contradiction events, and a timeline analysis.

      For the most part, the tool works well enough. However, I found that it cannot handle chapters that are more than 10,000 words. So, if you plan on using AutoCrit to analyze a short story that goes beyond 10k, you’ll need to break it up into smaller parts.

      This isn’t necessarily a terrible con to the platform, and it’s certainly not a deal-breaker for me. But I wanted to point it out in case you have extra long stories without chapter or part breaks.

      If you do, it may be worth using scene breaks in the manuscript and then letting AutoCrit assume they are chapter sections instead.

      How Much Does AutoCrit Cost Comparatively?

      Perhaps one of the biggest hangups people might have about AutoCrit is its price tag. Initially, it is $30 per month for an editing app. And while it does offer quite a bit of insight into a novel, I’m not 100% convinced it’s worth the money.

      Especially when you consider Grammarly is only $12 and ProWritingAid starts at $10 per month. Even ProWritingAid has an Author Comparison feature.

      Even with AutoCrit’s “special deals” they run periodically, the platform is still considerably more expensive than alternatives.

      Perhaps what sets AutoCrit apart from other editing apps is the extensive list of reports and the Community tab. AutoCrit just seems to have more actionable data available and personal interaction than something like Grammarly.

      So, it’s up to you if reporting and accountability are worth more than twice what other systems are charging.

      How Far Does the AutoCrit AI Go?

      Perhaps the biggest selling point for me is how the AI for AutoCrit doesn’t write the text for you. The artificial intelligence merely analyzes your work and provides suggestions on how to polish up the manuscript.

      You still have to write the text yourself.

      As I do not support AI-generated content to any degree, using AI in this fashion is more realistic for my needs and wants.

      It is very interesting to see what the AI suggests in the Inspiration Studio features, though. And I can see how it could be very helpful for those who get stuck on parts of their stories.

      Think of AutoCrit’s AI as nothing more than a data analytical tool for writing your story.

      Would I Suggest Using AutoCrit?

      AutoCrit has a lot of neat data reports for analyzing the overall structure of your story. It can help you find redundancies, streamline pacing, and help with overall readability.

      While it offers all of these things and then some, it’s still up to you to write a good story. AutoCrit is merely a vessel to help you with a manuscript’s layout.

      With that being said, I’m on the fence when it comes to suggesting it as a viable writing tool.

      If you’re serious about publishing stories, whether you’re putting out a book or adding something to Wattpad, AutoCrit may be a worthwhile investment. The only thing that gives me pause for concern is the platform’s price tag.

      As I mentioned above, it’s much more expensive compared to some popular alternatives. And I don’t know if the “neatness” factor is worth the extra cash.

      Then again, it may be worth the money, especially if you plan on writing several pieces every month. Perhaps you want to polish up some short stories for Vocal Media contests and whatnot.

      The bottom line is that I would only suggest using AutoCrit if you can afford the $30 per month. The community sections, reports, and story analysis are nice, but they won’t guarantee you’ll write a better novel.

      Otherwise, there are plenty of alternatives that have many of the same features.

      Questions Regarding AutoCrit and Editing

      Can you import files to AutoCrit?

      AutoCrit supports DOCX, RTF, and TXT file types for importing. Unfortunately, it does not support ePub or MOBI files.

      Is AutoCrit considered AI Writing?

      Although AutoCrit uses AI for data analysis, it does not write any of the text for you. It will provide suggestions and ideas for continuing the story, but the actual writing is still solely your responsibility.

      How many genres does AutoCrit compare?

      Currently, AutoCrit compares your work against 13 fiction genres and 8 non-fiction genres. You can also compare your manuscript against a large number of authors.

      Is AutoCrit better than hiring a human editor?

      AutoCrit has some nice features to help you structure and polish your manuscript. However, a human editor is far superior, especially when it comes to various written emotional nuances that AI will never grasp. Of course, that also depends on the editor.

      Don’t Skimp on the Editing Process

      Good editing contributes greatly to selling books. If people give you bad reviews because the story was too difficult to read, confusing, or had a mess of grammatical mistakes, you won’t sell many future copies.

      AutoCrit can help by highlighting areas you might want to restructure while providing ideas on how to continue with your story. Of course, you’ll still want to have a professional editor give it a once-over before you call it finished.

      In any case, don’t skimp out on the editing process. It can mean the difference between selling a handful of copies or becoming a best-selling author.

      Michael Brockbank
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