How FirstReader Works

Your point of view selection directly controls how FirstReader evaluates your manuscript. If you select "first person" but your novel is written in third person limited, every POV-related finding will be wrong, and your POV score will not reflect reality.

First person (single narrator): The entire story is told through one character's "I." FirstReader will flag any places where the narrator seems to know things they shouldn't or describes events they weren't present for.

First person (multiple narrators): Two or more characters take turns narrating in "I." Enter each narrator's name so FirstReader can track whose chapter is whose and evaluate each voice distinctly.

Third person limited (single POV): The story follows one character's thoughts and perceptions using "he/she/they." FirstReader will flag head-hopping if the narration dips into another character's internal thoughts.

Third person limited (multiple POV): Different chapters or sections follow different characters. Enter each POV character's name.

Third person omniscient: The narrator can see into any character's mind at any time. FirstReader adjusts its craft rules accordingly and will not flag perspective shifts as errors.

Not sure: If you genuinely don't know, select this. The analysis will still run, but POV-specific feedback may be less accurate. You can always re-run with a corrected selection later.

When your manuscript has a specific POV character (or characters), entering their name helps FirstReader distinguish between the narrator's internal voice and external observations. This matters for craft analysis.

Enter the name exactly as it appears most often in your manuscript. If your character goes by "Danny" in the text, enter "Danny," not "Daniel." FirstReader will validate the name against your manuscript and suggest corrections if there's a close match.

For multiple POV characters, separate names with commas. Each name will be validated independently.

Most novels are written in past tense ("She walked to the door"). FirstReader assumes past tense by default.

If your manuscript is written in present tense ("She walks to the door"), you need to tell FirstReader. Without this setting, every verb in present tense gets flagged as a tense inconsistency, which buries the real tense issues under hundreds of false positives.

FirstReader will attempt to auto-detect your tense from the first few chapters and suggest the correct setting. If you see a suggestion, it's usually right. If you intentionally shift tenses between timelines or chapters, choose the dominant tense and mention the shifts in your Author Notes.

FirstReader scans your manuscript and extracts every name that looks like a character. This automated extraction is good but not perfect. You will often see:

False positives: Place names (Paris, Brooklyn), brand names (Mercedes, Glock), titles (Captain, Professor), or celebrity references that aren't characters in your story. Uncheck these. If they stay checked, FirstReader will track them as characters and waste analysis time on irrelevant "character arcs."

Missing characters: Characters who are only referred to by nickname, title, or pronoun might not be detected. Use the "Add" button to include them. This is especially important for first-person narrators who may rarely be called by name in the text.

Getting this list right matters because it feeds directly into the character map, which in turn affects continuity analysis, developmental feedback, and character arc tracking.

The character map is where you tell FirstReader that "Danny," "Dan," "Daniel Brennan," and "Detective Brennan" are all the same person. Without this, FirstReader treats each variation as a separate character, which fragments its continuity tracking and developmental analysis.

Why it matters: If your character is called "Mom" in dialogue and "Catherine" in narration, FirstReader needs to know these are the same person. Otherwise, it might report that "Catherine disappears in the middle chapters" when she was there all along, just called "Mom."

How to use it: - Click a character to see their detected aliases - Use "Add alias" to connect names the tool missed - Merge characters if the tool split one person into two entries - The more complete your character map, the more accurate your continuity and developmental reports will be

This step is optional but strongly recommended. You can skip it and come back later, but your first analysis will be more accurate if you take two minutes to clean up the map.

Author Notes are your chance to give FirstReader context that it can't infer from the text alone. Think of it as a brief note to your editor before they start reading.

Good things to mention: - Intentional style choices ("The fragmented sentences in chapters 3-5 are deliberate, reflecting the character's dissociation") - Unusual structure ("Chapters alternate between present-day and 1985 timelines") - Neo-pronouns or non-standard pronoun usage - Series context ("This is book 2. Characters from book 1 are referenced but not re-introduced") - Dialect or vernacular ("The dialogue uses Appalachian dialect intentionally")

What not to put here: You don't need to summarize your plot or describe your characters. FirstReader reads the full manuscript. Author Notes are specifically for things that might look like mistakes but aren't.

This field is optional. If you have no unusual structural or stylistic choices, you can leave it blank.

FirstReader offers several analysis tiers, each building on the last:

Dev Only ($89): Developmental analysis without craft scoring. Produces an editorial letter, chapter-by-chapter narrative notes, and continuity tracking. Choose this if you want big-picture structural feedback rather than line-level craft analysis.

Prose and Showing ($99): Evaluates prose quality and show-vs-tell balance. Good for a focused check on sentence-level craft.

Dialogue and POV ($149): Adds dialogue craft and point-of-view consistency. Covers the four most common craft dimensions.

Full Craft ($199): All six craft dimensions: prose quality, show vs. tell, dialogue, POV, scene structure, and pacing. The most comprehensive craft analysis.

Full Craft + Dev ($249): Everything. All six craft dimensions plus the full developmental report, editorial letter, and continuity analysis. The complete picture.

Every tier analyzes your full manuscript, not just a sample. The difference is which dimensions of craft are evaluated, not how much of your manuscript is read.