Free tool
Is your novel ready to query? Get a free readiness score
Paste or upload your opening chapters, up to about 10,000 words. You get a score out of 100, six ratings and the issues most likely to stop an agent, each tied to the passage it came from.
- Free
- No signup
- Your text is not stored
What the score measures
The score is the average of six ratings, each from 1 to 10, times ten. The ratings cover what an agent's first reader judges in the opening pages: the opening, pacing, clarity, character, prose and dialogue.
A 5 is a competent draft with clear problems. A 7 is a draft an agent would keep reading. A 9 or 10 is rare, and the tool is told not to inflate scores to encourage you.
Because the headline number is plain arithmetic on the six ratings, you can always see where it came from.
What to do with each severity level
- High: likely to make an agent stop reading. Fix these before you send a single query.
- Medium: weakens the read without ending it. Fix them in your next revision pass.
- Low: polish. Worth a look once the bigger issues are gone, not before.
How to read your score
80 and above: the opening reads as ready. Polish what's left, then query in small batches so you can learn from the response.
60 to 79: close. Fix the high-severity findings and score it again.
Below 60: revise before you query. The opening pages are often all an agent sees with a query, and the usual advice is not to query the same agent twice with the same book.
The ready-to-query checklist
Use this alongside the score. If you can't tick an item, the manuscript probably isn't ready, whatever the number says.
- The draft is finished and revised at least once, not just proofread.
- Page one shows a character who wants something, in a specific situation.
- Every chapter changes something: a goal, a relationship or what the reader knows.
- Beta readers who aren't friends or family have read the whole book.
- The word count sits inside the usual range for your genre.
- You can pitch the book in two sentences: who, what they want and what's in the way.
- Your query letter is written, and someone has critiqued it.
- You've checked for continuity slips: names, timelines and dropped threads.
When to hire a human editor instead
A score reads a sample. It can't tell you whether the ending pays off, whether the middle sags or whether the book fits the market. A developmental editor reads the whole manuscript and can.
If you've revised twice and the score won't move, or the findings keep pointing at structure rather than sentences, that's the moment to pay for a developmental edit.
See what an edit costsRun it on the whole manuscript
These tools read a sample. StoryWith AI reads the whole book: structure, pacing, continuity, and a readiness score with every issue linked to its passage. Start free, then upgrade when you're ready to analyze the whole book.
More free tools
- Story RaterRate a chapter or short story on hook, pacing, clarity, dialogue and character, with your top three fixes.
- Query Letter GraderInstant checks on length, word count, genre, comps and greeting, plus an AI review with line-level fixes.
- Query Letter GeneratorAnswer six questions about your novel and get a first-draft query letter in agent format.
- Editing Cost CalculatorEstimate developmental, line, copyediting and proofreading costs from published EFA rates.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Is the readiness score really free?
Yes. There's no card and no signup. Free tools share a fair-use limit of 6 runs every 12 hours, so everyone gets a turn.
How much of my manuscript can I check?
Up to about 10,000 words, roughly your first three chapters. Many agents' submission guidelines ask for an opening sample of about that size. To check the whole manuscript, start a free StoryWith AI account and upgrade when you're ready to analyze the whole book.
Do you keep my chapters?
No. Your text is sent to our AI provider to produce the score and isn't saved by StoryWith AI. We don't use it to train AI models.
Can a score tell me if an agent will sign my book?
No. Agents weigh the market, their list and their own taste, and no tool can predict that. The score tells you whether your opening pages have the problems that most often get a manuscript rejected early.
Why did my score change when I ran it again?
The ratings come from an AI reading, so a rerun can move by a few points. Look at which findings repeat across runs: those are the ones to fix.
Which languages does it work in?
It reads your chapters in the language they're written in and answers in that language.
How is this different from the full manuscript analysis?
This tool reads a sample in one pass. The full analysis in StoryWith AI reads the whole book scene by scene, tracks continuity, maps your structure and links every finding to its passage, and you can rescan after each revision.