What arrives

The letter

Two levels. First the handful of things that are structural or run through everything, then the rest, ordered so you can work through it rather than drown in it. It closes with what to do first, because a cloud of possibilities is how writers end up doing nothing at all.

What works, in the same detail

Knowing why a passage lands is the fastest route to more of them, and it is craft rather than courtesy. "Great voice" has never helped anybody. "The line stands alone with nothing explaining it afterwards, and that is why it lands" might.

A summary you can print

Premise, conflict, protagonist, and what the book is about underneath, written up from your form and your pages. Useful to you, and useful to put in front of somebody else. It comes free, as thanks for filling the form in properly.

Somewhere to push back

Every note is something you can argue with. Ask for more examples, or tell us we have misread the book. Being told what a book is actually trying to do is worth more to us than anything else you could send back.

See it in action

A real page from a real read, with the letter's notes marked on it — red for what should change, yellow for what it builds on. Hover a mark and the note follows.

See the example on the front page