Planning
For writers with an idea rather than a manuscript.
Most services here assume a draft already exists. This one does not. If you have a scene, a character and a conviction, that is enough to start — and deciding the hard things now costs a fraction of discovering them at sixty thousand words.
The Read
$99Is this one book or five, and what has to be decided before you write?
Send us what you have — a premise, a chapter, an outline, a finished draft, a mess. You get back an honest assessment: what is genuinely strong, what is missing that will hurt at forty thousand words, and whether this supports one book or a series. If you already have your own character notes or outline, this is where we read them and tell you what we would be inheriting.
- Two to three pages, written, not a call
- Whether this is one book or several, with the reasoning
- The questions that have to be answered before drafting is safe
- An honest recommendation, including when that recommendation is that you do not need us
The $99 comes off whatever you buy next. Start here whatever you are considering — it is also how we work out what anything else would honestly cost.
What can be built
Buy one, or buy up the list and pay less. Prices are for a standard novel; shorter and longer work is banded below.
The Cast
$70 – $765Who are these people, and which of them is redundant?
Every character who matters, built out to the point where they can survive a novel. The contradiction at the centre of each one, what they want against what they need, the lie they believe, and how they speak differently from everybody else in the room.
- Full profile for each principal character
- Arc across the book: where they start, what breaks, where they land
- Voice notes — vocabulary, rhythm, what they never say
- Flags where two characters are doing the same job and one should go
The World
$70 – $765What are the rules, and which doors are you closing?
The document that stops Book Four contradicting Book One. Every rule written down with the reason it was chosen, so that when you are tempted to break one in chapter thirty you can see what it would cost. Historical background where the story needs it, invented history where it does not.
- The rules of your world, each with the reasoning behind it
- Historical and factual research where the story touches the real world
- The consequences you are accepting by choosing each rule
- Open questions handed back to you, with a recommendation on each
The Spine
$180 – $2,040Does this story actually work?
The argument of the book. Fifteen to twenty-five beats, not fifty — act turns, the logic of the escalation, and where the tension winds and releases. If the middle does not hold, this is where you find out, before sixty thousand words have been written toward it.
- Act structure with every turn identified and justified
- The escalation logic — why each movement raises the stakes
- Heat beats placed and reasoned, where the genre calls for them
- A written note on what we considered and rejected, and why
The Blueprint
$225 – $2,550What do I write on Monday?
Chapter by chapter. What this chapter is for, who is in it, what changes by the end, and what must stay true while you write it — including what each character is not yet allowed to know. The document you open at the desk instead of staring at a blank page.
- An entry per chapter: purpose, point of view, location, target length
- The moments that must be scenes rather than summary
- Continuity carried in — objects, injuries, established detail
- Dialogue landmines: what a character cannot say yet, because they do not know
The Series Bible
$2,000 flatHow does this hold across five books?
The timeline, the plant-and-harvest map, and the book-by-book arc. Built before Book Two it costs a fraction of what it costs later; built after Book Four it is archaeology, and sometimes the honest answer is that a published detail has to be quietly retired.
- Timeline running from your earliest event forward
- Book-by-book arc with the reason each instalment escalates
- Plant and harvest: what is foreshadowed where, and where it pays off
- A living continuity record you keep updating as you write
Buying up the list
Each document makes the next one faster to build, so the more of them you take, the less each one costs.
What it costs
A twenty-five thousand word novella should not cost what a two hundred thousand word epic costs, for you or for us. Find your length, read across.
| Length of the book | The Cast | The World | The Spine | The Blueprint |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1,000 – 5,000 words | $70 | $70 | $180 | $225 |
| 5,000 – 10,000 | $110 | $110 | $300 | $375 |
| 10,000 – 25,000 | $180 | $180 | $480 | $600 |
| 25,000 – 60,000 | $290 | $290 | $780 | $975 |
| 60,000 – 100,000 | $450 | $450 | $1,200 | $1,500 |
| 100,000 – 150,000 | $610 | $610 | $1,620 | $2,025 |
| 150,000 – 200,000 | $765 | $765 | $2,040 | $2,550 |
Longer than 200,000 words: add $110 for the Cast, $110 for the World, $300 for the Spine and $375 for the Blueprint, for every further 10,000 words.
The Series Bible is a flat $2,000 for a series of up to five books, whatever length those books are — its work is the span of the history, not the size of any one volume. Longer series are quoted.
Changing your mind is included. Twice is quoted.
Every document includes one major revision. You read the Cast, decide your protagonist should be the youngest rather than the oldest, and we rebuild it — that is part of the work. A second structural change to the same document is quoted separately, because refining a decision and re-litigating it are different jobs. Small corrections are never counted.
Why this is cheaper than fixing it later
A developmental edit on an unplanned ninety thousand word draft runs into the thousands, and it may come back telling you the middle does not work — after you have written ninety thousand words toward it.
The Spine costs $1,200 and tells you the same thing before the words exist.
A manuscript built from a Blueprint also arrives at editing with fewer serious findings, and costs less to edit. Planning is not an upsell before the real work. It is the thing that makes the real work cost less.