For Every Tale, a Journey
Writing anything can be difficult. It's an inherently messy thing to accomplish, and every storyteller has their own process of how to get there. For those who stumble or are finding their way for the first time there are 'industry standards' and 'helpful guides' all over the internet that can assist at several stages. Except, we noticed, not so much for one very critical step: feedback.
There is plenty of help for finalizing a manuscript. There is many an aid with editors. But the tools out there for those who need to get the formative piece between those stages are few and far between. The expectation for writers to already know who to share their work with and how to take the responses leaves a chasm. We built Manuscript.Ink to provide a bridge for that gap.
What's on the Table?
The Manuscript.Ink platform offers a space for folks to collect feedback from other writers, experienced critiquers, and those they know personally in a central place. It's also a space for those who enjoy critique or exploring works blossoming into the wild to participate in the growth of these tales.
We have tools for sharing manuscripts openly or privately, providing feedback and commentary on manuscripts, collaborating on feedback quality, and learning communication tips to help improve feedback both given and received. Feedback is such a vital step in the journey to bringing a story to the open. We set out to help improve every creative's interaction with it.
A Platform for Progress
The various publishing industries often go through periods of 'standard' and 'popular', where the majority pay attention to what is most likely to sell based on whatever current trend. Editors can go through these cycles as well, providing advice or sticking to preferences that fit with what's 'on top'. But not every storyteller wants to tell what is currently popular and not every reader is a part of the standard.
We want to elevate all kinds of stories - the popular and the minority alike - and have built Manuscript.Ink to bring those interested to niche stories as they are told. Spotlights and highlights are trend agnostic. No algorithm dictates what should or should not be displayed. So we try to make finding what alpha- or beta- readers a story needs as simple as possible.
Why Human-Centric?
Storytelling is a human art. A machine can undoubtedly assist with the mechanical portions of communication: the grammar and definition of things. However, with the push of things labelled 'AI' in the creative space and the promise that the machine can produce quality on a creative's behalf, we believe it is immensely important to help the human on both ends of the equation. Because only the storyteller and the reader can experience the connection developed with stories they truly lose themselves into.
In that connection, we aim at crafting the cornerstones of a community - to make it easy for storytellers to grow in collective and craft.