Craft Library
The IronProse Craft Library.
Master the mechanics of fiction. Explore 70+ MFA-level writing concepts with examples, fixes, and rules—from Show Don't Tell to Chekhov's Gun.
Grammar & Mechanics
6Correctness-focused checks for common errors.
Comma Splice
Flags run-on sentences where two independent clauses are joined only by a comma.
Read guideDangling Modifier
Flags introductory participial phrases whose implied subject doesn't match the main clause.
Read guideDialogue Tag Tense
Flags present-tense dialogue tags ("says") in past-tense narration.
Read guidePronoun Ambiguity
Flags sentences where multiple same-gender pronouns make it unclear who is doing what.
Read guideSpell Check
Detects misspelled words with context-aware suggestions.
Read guideTense Consistency
Detect unintentional shifts between past and present tense.
Read guideWord Choice & Economy
9Tightening prose at the word level.
Adverb Density
Flags paragraphs with excessive -ly adverb usage.
Read guideFilter Words
Identify perception verbs that create unnecessary distance between the reader and the experience.
Read guideHedging & Weasel Words
Detect weak qualifiers that undermine the authority of your prose.
Read guideIntensifier Overuse
Flags words like "very", "really", and "extremely" that weaken rather than strengthen prose.
Read guideNominalization
Flag abstract noun forms of verbs that hide the action.
Read guidePassive Voice
Detect passive constructions and suggest active alternatives.
Read guideVerb Strength
Flag weak, vague verbs and suggest vivid alternatives.
Read guideWord Economy
Flags removable filler words and wordy phrases that can be cut without losing meaning.
Read guideWordiness
Flags bloated phrases that can be replaced with shorter, stronger alternatives.
Read guideCraft & Style
11Sentence-level techniques that sharpen prose.
Body Language Clichés
Flags overused physical reactions that every author defaults to when showing emotion.
Read guideClichés
Detect overused phrases, dead metaphors, and hackneyed similes that weaken original prose.
Read guideEmotional Restraint
Detects overwrought emotional expression in narration — exclamations, melodramatic clichés, and adjective piling.
Read guideExposition Budget
Flag scenes where pure exposition exceeds the budget — no dialogue, action, or sensory detail.
Read guideFiller Sentences
Flags "throat-clearing" opener sentences at the start of scenes that add no information.
Read guideOpening Strength
Scores the first paragraph for reader engagement — flags passive, abstract, or backstory-heavy openings.
Read guideOverused Sentence Opener
Flags repetitive sentence beginnings — "There was/were", "It was", and consecutive gerund (-ing) openers.
Read guidePurple Prose
Detect overwritten passages — adjective stacking and weak verb + adverb combinations.
Read guideSensory Channels
Detect scenes that rely on only one sense — usually sight — missing opportunities for immersion.
Read guideShow, Don't Tell
Detect "telling" language that names emotions instead of showing them through action, sensation, or dialogue.
Read guideSimile Freshness
Flags clichéd similes ("as quiet as a mouse", "like a bull in a china shop") and encourages original comparisons.
Read guideSentence & Rhythm
5Variety and flow at the sentence level.
Echoed Sentence Structure
Flags consecutive sentences that follow the same grammatical pattern (Subject-Verb-Object monotony).
Read guideRepetition
Identify echoed words and pet phrases — unintentional word repetition that weakens prose.
Read guideRepetitive Sentence Length
Flags runs of consecutive sentences that are all roughly the same word count.
Read guideSentence Complexity
Flag overly long and deeply nested sentences.
Read guideSentence Rhythm
Detect monotonous sentence openings and flat sentence-length patterns that lull the reader.
Read guideReadability & Structure
5Document and paragraph-level analysis.
Pacing
Detect introspection runs and overlong paragraphs that stall the narrative momentum.
Read guidePacing Variance
Measure sentence-length variation and subordination ratio — the "heartbeat" of your prose.
Read guideParagraph Balance
Flags walls of text (very long paragraphs) and orphan paragraph runs (excessive single-sentence paragraphs).
Read guideReadability Score
Computes the Flesch-Kincaid grade level and flags passages that exceed a threshold.
Read guideTimeline Consistency
Detects temporal logic warnings — rapid time direction changes and vague time reference overuse.
Read guideDialogue
6How characters speak and interact.
"As You Know, Bob"
Flags exposition disguised as dialogue — characters telling each other things they would both already know.
Read guideDialogue Intent
Classify speech acts in dialogue and flag blocks with low tension or variety.
Read guideDialogue Tag Variety
Detect overuse of "said" and other repetitive dialogue tags.
Read guideDialogue Tags
Detect said-bookisms, adverb tags, and talking heads in dialogue.
Read guideDialogue-to-Narration Ratio
Flags scenes that are heavily skewed toward either dialogue or narration.
Read guideSaid-ism Soup
Flags exotic dialogue tags that are used so often they lose their impact.
Read guideCharacter
2Character introduction and voice.
Story Structure
19Scene and story architecture.
Beat Sheet
Validate document structure against beat sheet percentages — Catalyst, Midpoint, All Is Lost.
Read guideCharacter Description Density
"Too much description crammed into a sentence" and "reads like a police
Read guideChekhov's Gun
Track significant objects — flag "unfired guns" (introduced but forgotten) and "unloaded guns" (climax objects with no setup).
Read guideFichtean Curve
Flag slow setups and low crisis counts — hallmarks of a narrative lacking escalating tension.
Read guideGenre Rules
Apply genre-specific structural checks — auto-detected from keyword clusters.
Read guideHero's Journey
Detect monomyth beats and flag missing stages in the Hero's Journey archetype.
Read guideMomentum
"The middle drags" and "I lost interest" are the most common pacing critiques
Read guideNarrative Levels
Detect embedded narratives — flashbacks, dreams, stories-within-stories — and flag unclosed ones.
Read guidePoint of View
Detect POV shifts within scenes — unintentional switching between first and third person.
Read guidePromise / Payoff
"Setup that goes nowhere" and "foreshadowing without payoff" appear in 3.0%
Read guideScene Grounding
Detects "White Room Syndrome" — scenes where dialogue or action happens with no spatial or temporal context.
Read guideScene Health
Evaluate scenes against the Story Grid's Five Commandments.
Read guideScene Transitions
Detects abrupt scene, time, and location shifts that may disorient the reader.
Read guideScene–Sequel
Detect unbroken runs of action scenes or reflective sequels using Dwight V. Swain's framework.
Read guideStory Bible
Check for internal contradictions in character attributes and scene lighting/time of day.
Read guideStructure
Analyzes document structure — chapter/section organization and narrative coherence.
Read guideTension & Stakes
Flags scenes with zero conflict, consequences, questions, or internal tension.
Read guideTicking Clock
Detect deadlines introduced in the narrative and flag when urgency fades.
Read guideUnreliable Narrator
Detect contradictions between a first-person narrator's claims and their actions.
Read guideEmotional Arc
3Emotional trajectory and consistency.
Emotional Residue
Detect "emotional amnesia" — major events with no emotional aftermath in subsequent scenes.
Read guideLeitmotifs
Identify recurring phrases across scenes and alert when a motif goes silent.
Read guideTone Shifts
Detect emotional pivot points and sudden intensity changes across the text.
Read guideVisualization & Metrics
3Data for charts and scorecards.
Sentiment Arc
Per-paragraph sentiment scoring with flatline and sharp-reversal detection.
Read guideStyle Scorecard
Calculate composite style metrics — concreteness, imagery, vocabulary richness, pacing score.
Read guideTension Curve
Per-paragraph tension scoring for pacing analysis and visualization.
Read guideRhetorical Devices
2Classical figures of speech.
Uncategorized
32Action Beat Imbalance
Flags scenes where over 80% of dialogue paragraphs include a micro-action beat (nodded, sighed, shrugged).
Read guideAdverb Dialogue Tag
Flags dialogue tags with -ly adverbs ("he said angrily").
Read guideCliché Simile
Flags overused similes like "cold as ice" or "quiet as a mouse."
Read guideConjunction Flood
Flags paragraphs where over 40% of sentences start with coordinating conjunctions (And, But, So).
Read guideDialogue Homogeneity
Flags scenes where all characters speak in uniform-length dialogue lines.
Read guideEmotion Naming
Flags tell-verb + emotion-word patterns that name emotions instead of showing them.
Read guideExposition in Dialogue
Flags "as-you-know-Bob" dialogue where characters tell each other things they already know.
Read guideFloating Body Parts
Flags sentences where body parts perform actions independently of their owners.
Read guideGhosted Characters
Flags characters who are introduced early in a scene but vanish for 800+ words without mention.
Read guideHedging Language
Flags narrative paragraphs with 3+ hedge words (seemed, somewhat, quite, rather).
Read guideInanimate Usurpation
Flags scenes where inanimate objects are grammatical subjects more often than characters.
Read guideLeft-Branching Overload
Flags sentences where too many words appear before the main subject and verb, exhausting the reader's working memory.
Read guideMonologue Excess
Flags single dialogue paragraphs exceeding 150 words.
Read guideMotivation Transparency
Flags long scenes with no indication of character motivation or intention.
Read guideName-Dropping
Flags dialogue that uses a character's name when only two characters are in the scene.
Read guideParagraph End-Weight
Flags paragraphs that end on weak, low-energy words like prepositions or pronouns instead of strong nouns or verbs.
Read guideParticiple Swarm
Flags sentences with multiple simultaneous "-ing" actions or "as/while" constructions that imply physically impossible concurrent actions.
Read guidePOV Slippage
Flags third-person limited scenes where non-POV characters' internal states are described.
Read guidePrepositional Centipede
Flags sentences with 4+ consecutive prepositional phrases, creating telescoping descriptions that are clunky and hard to visualize.
Read guideProp Permanence (Coffee Cup Tracker)
Flags objects that characters pick up but never put down within a scene.
Read guidePsychic Distance Oscillation
Flags abrupt jumps between close and far narrative distance without transition.
Read guideQuestion Clustering
Flags 3+ consecutive rhetorical questions in a paragraph.
Read guideSaid Avoidance (Saidism)
Flags exotic speech verbs that draw attention to themselves.
Read guideScene Transition Whiplash
Flags scenes that end with fewer than 15 words before cutting to the next scene.
Read guideSensory Imbalance
Flags scenes that rely on a single sense (usually sight) for 80%+ of sensory language.
Read guideSetting Amnesia
Flags long scenes that never reference a physical location.
Read guideSubject–Verb Chasm
Flags sentences where the main subject and its verb are separated by 10+ words, forcing the reader to hold the subject in working memory too long.
Read guideTalking Heads
Flags 6+ consecutive dialogue paragraphs without narrative grounding.
Read guideTautological Pairs
Flags redundant verb + body-part combinations where the verb already implies the body part involved.
Read guideTeleporting Actor
Flags characters who are present in one scene but appear in a different location without an exit transition.
Read guideTemporal Marker Absence
Flags long scenes that lack any time-grounding references.
Read guideTense Drift
Flags narrative paragraphs where verb tense shifts between past and present.
Read guide