I tried the ProWritingAid Virtual Beta Reader.
What I liked:
It was fast: 100K words processed in mere minutes.
It was comprehensive and well structured. From story overview and plot highlights to reader experience, each element appears in a separate section.
Many nice extras, such as a character list that also indicates the feelings each character is likely to evoke in the reader. They even took the trouble of suggesting a title for each chapter instead of merely numbering them.
A clear overview that lists strengths and weaknesses and suggests several opportunities for improvement.
What I didn’t like:
Too many factual mistakes.
For example, it noticed only one scene from Louise’s point of view. I counted nine chapters written entirely from her perspective, plus eight more in which the point of view alternates from scene to scene. How do you argue with an AI?
Similarly, it suggests there is no explanation for the mother’s animosity toward Vadim. Apparently it skipped the second scene in chapter 14, where Louise’s mother not only reveals her backstory (a high-school pregnancy that made her a single mom at roughly the same age as Louise) but explicitly states that she doesn’t want the same fate for her daughter. Not to mention quite a few other scenes where she calls Vadim a bad influence and explains why.
Some proposed chapter titles too were way off. Why would chapter 22, in which Vadim and his friends send Greg the money, and Louise senses the impending misfortune, be titled “Class of 1995”? That would be more appropriate for chapter 34.
What’s not there:
Don’t expect it to go through a manuscript and highlight every weak spot or inconsistency the way a developmental editor would. You’ll probably have to run it several times to uncover other potential issues.
Oh, well—I suppose that’s about as much as you can expect for one free credit. Overall, I liked the feedback, in spite of these limitations and inaccuracies.
What do you know?
Surprisingly enough, it suggested “Gretna Can’t Get Any Greener” as a possible title. Not that long before, I had changed the title to “May you remain forever young,” reflecting the closing line of the graduation song. The virtual beta reader suggested bringing back the old title, without even knowing what it was. Its other two suggestions were “The Unlisted Son” and “A Sky of Orange, White, and Blue”.
In brief:
It’s certainly worth the small fee ProWritingAid charges. However, it doesn’t replace the developmental editor. Unless you have a great team of beta readers willing to go through the manuscript and highlight each and every inconsistency, plot hole or unexplained coincidence, you might consider hiring one.
