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Editorial letters for early drafts

Feedback for your next draft.

Send a chapter and get an editorial letter on what's working and what needs another look. The feedback uses examples from your pages and suggests where to start. An AI tool drafts the analysis; Aksel reviews every letter. You decide what to change.

Get feedback on a chapterSee sample feedback

Free during the test phase. No card needed. Letters usually arrive within a few days.

What a note looks likefrom Aksel's own draft

But he'd clearly heard that something in my phrasing earlier that day was slightly off, and it was obvious he found the whole thing a little exciting:

— Can I ask an old sea dog for advice?

Suggest cutting
Two lines down he clears his throat and straightens his back — the moment already shows this. Cut the explanation and let the reader discover it.
Effect on the reader
The reader is told what to feel a beat before she would have felt it herself, and the discovery is spent.
Try next
Find every place the narrator says what the next gesture is about to show. Read the scene once without them.

See the full excerpt and feedback ↓

Sample feedback on my own draft

This is a rough passage from my own novel, with two of the letter's nine findings shown in full below. The manuscript was read in Norwegian. I've translated this excerpt into English so you can follow the examples.

Chapter draft, first pass · a son calls his father · excerpt from a real readRed = change · yellow = works, keep it

Dad picked up a little faster than usual, as if he'd been sitting there waiting for the answer key to all the speculation he'd been building up — and for all I know had even been debating it with his wife, Theresa. Was it money trouble, was it things with Margareth, was she pregnant, had I quit my job, or was it something else entirely, something he didn't have the imagination to speculate about? He didn't know. But he'd clearly heard that something in my phrasing earlier that day was slightly off, and it was obvious he found the whole thing a little exciting:

— Can I ask an old sea dog for advice?

I was pleased with the opening line. It set up a nice distance and took some of the danger out of what was coming, and it confirmed that something big was under way. I was lit up, wired; I couldn't for the life of me sit still on the grandstand and talk the way I'd imagined it, so I wandered, now and then all but hopped, restless, between tired planks and mutinous nails.

— You are, after all, the most experienced man I know in the field.

I meant his three marriages and, shall we say, somewhat overlapping transitional arrangements, but I wasn't sure he'd caught it yet. He cleared his throat; I could almost hear him straighten his back, senses sharpening:

— Go on, then.

I couldn't be bothered to beat about the bush any longer:

— I'm considering leaving Margareth.

The notes link back to passages in the draft. The findings below explain the reasoning and name the writing techniques involved.
From the feedback letterTwo of the findings, in full

Here are two findings from the letter, shown in full. Select a quotation to find the passage it refers to in the draft.

What works

The reveal is held to the last line, and nothing relieves it early

The opening line does not ask the real question — it asks permission to ask one: «Can I ask an old sea dog for advice?» And every line after it raises the price without naming the goods: a compliment that is really a joke about three marriages, a cleared throat, and one whole line for the father, «Go on, then.» The business arrives in the final position: «I'm considering leaving Margareth.»

Why it works: two mechanisms are stacked. The dialogue is oblique — this is Sol Stein's indirection: direct exchanges kill a scene, talking around the point powers it, because a reader who must assemble what is unsaid presses harder than one being told. And the charged thing lands at the end, in what Strunk called the emphatic position — the place in a sentence, and by extension a scene, where weight naturally falls. Every line before the last one becomes fuse. A first draft that does both by instinct should protect this shape through every revision.

What to improve

Twice, the draft explains what it has already proved

«I was lit up, wired» stands directly beside its own evidence — a man who cannot sit still, wandering «between tired planks and mutinous nails». And at the other end of the line, «it was obvious he found the whole thing a little exciting» arrives two lines before he clears his throat and straightens his back — the moment that shows the same thing without a word.

Why it matters: naming the feeling first collects the reader's response in advance — told the call is exciting, she reads the moment as an illustration instead of feeling it land. Browne & King call the discipline R.U.E. — Resist the Urge to Explain — and it is the most common note on strong first drafts, because the evidence is usually already on the page and the explanation is scaffolding left standing. The move: cut both clauses, change nothing else. Normal debris of a freewriting pass; revision only has to stop explaining.

The suggested revision is to remove explanations where the action already gives us the feeling. The letter also points out which parts of the scene are worth keeping.

How it works

Each step, and who does what →
  1. 1

    Tell me a little about the book

  2. 2

    Send the pages

  3. 3

    The tool reads it twice

  4. 4

    You get a letter

  5. 5

    You tell me what helped

A few practical questions

How is AI involved?

Karlove uses Claude, made by Anthropic, to read your pages and draft the feedback. I wrote its instructions using notes from books on writing craft. Those notes guide the analysis; they aren't training data for a new model.

I review every letter before sending it, edit the feedback and remove notes that don't hold up.

The tool doesn't write scenes or offer replacement prose. The letter gives you suggestions to work through in your own manuscript.

Who owns my manuscript?

You keep all rights to your manuscript. It isn't published, shared with other customers or used as an example without your permission. Claude processes your pages to produce the feedback, and I review the letter. You can delete manuscripts from your account. The privacy page explains storage, local copies and what deletion removes.

How long does it take?

Usually a few days. I review and edit each letter before sending it. If it will take longer than expected, I'll let you know.

What languages do you work in?

You can send your manuscript and fill in the brief in any language. The letter comes back in English, with quotations kept in the original language so you can find them in your draft.

How is this different from pasting my chapter into a chatbot?

Karlove follows a set of instructions based on my craft notes: use examples from the manuscript, explain the reasoning and suggest a next step. I review each letter before sending it. Earlier letters and your feedback are included in later readings.

You can see how that looks in the sample. A chatbot conversation may suit you too; the sample should help you decide whether this format is useful.

Will an AI detector flag my manuscript because I used this?

Karlove doesn't add AI-written prose to your manuscript. It gives feedback for you to consider while you revise. I can't promise how an outside AI detector will classify your writing.

Will it rewrite my work?

No. It analyses your draft and suggests things to try. You write any new passages yourself and decide which suggestions to use.

How does it fit into the actual writing?

Keep writing in whatever app or notebook works for you. When you have pages you'd like feedback on, send them here. Read the letter when you're ready to revise, and make the changes in your manuscript.

I find it helps to leave some time between drafting and editing, so I can look at the pages with a bit of distance.

Why does the letter name craft books?

They give you somewhere to follow up on an idea. The tool works from my notes on around thirty books about writing, and the letter names a source where it helps explain the feedback.

In the brief, you can choose short explanations or a more detailed look at the techniques involved.

Can I send a rewritten chapter back?

Yes. Send it as a new read and link it to the earlier one. The previous letter and your feedback go with it. If the earlier manuscript is still stored, the tool can compare the versions too.

A read includes one revision of the letter. Sending changed pages counts as a new read, which is free during the test phase.

Is this a replacement for a professional editor?

No. It's intended to help you work through an early draft. A professional editor brings their own experience and judgement, and can work with you in ways this service doesn't cover.

What if the book is already good?

The letter should explain what's working and focus on anything worth another look. There's no requirement to find a set number of problems.

Do you read non-fiction?

It was built for fiction, memoir and narrative non-fiction. I haven't tested it on other kinds of non-fiction.

Start with one chapter

Choose a chapter you'd like another perspective on. Reads are free while the site is being tested.

Upload your pages and answer eight short questions about the book and what you want help with. You can add more to the brief later, when you have time.

The letter usually arrives within a few days. After you've worked on the chapter, you can send it again for a new read.

Get feedback on a chapter

If you try it, I'd like to hear which notes helped and which missed the point. — Aksel