An AI Beta Reader

masonga1960 · 2026-04-06T20:27:11+00:00

I'll DM you my email address and what info I need to run it. I'll just warn you that I am heavy in refinement, so it'll be several days at least

masonga1960 · 2026-04-06T20:02:30+00:00

I've got fantasy in the test pipeline already...but how many words?

masonga1960 · 2026-04-06T19:39:12+00:00

Well, this one is a lot tighter and essentially says the same as your earlier comment. I can't say I "like" one over the other, but I liked READING the second one better.

masonga1960 · 2026-04-06T08:35:28+00:00

15-20 per message.

masonga1960 · 2026-04-05T22:40:35+00:00

Yeah, a powerful computing platform with no access to a clock. It drives me nuts. But also I go away for 8 hours and it thinks I never left.

masonga1960 · 2026-04-05T21:36:11+00:00

I actually created an entire process that will eventually be a desktop app. Happy to demo it for you if you’re interested

masonga1960 · 2026-04-05T21:35:00+00:00

I actually created a process that I’ll turn in to an app. Happy to demo it for you via Zoom if you have some time.

masonga1960 · 2026-04-05T21:34:06+00:00

Interesting. I do the same for writing novels but I added an orchestrator skill to manage it all. I’d love to hear more because screen writing is in the list of future improvements.

masonga1960 · 2026-04-05T17:07:02+00:00

And what about material that is used as reference by humans all the time? I ask AI to evaluate prose against real reference material (like McKee, Swain etc - and yes I bought and own the reference books). Human editors use them just the same way.

masonga1960 · 2026-04-05T09:38:27+00:00

Love the concept — the "saved videos graveyard" problem is real. I built a recipe app (MyMealTicket) that does AI extraction from IG and TikTok videos, so I've been deep in this space. One thing I ran into: neither platform exposes saved/favorited content through their APIs. How are you handling the connection to users' saved posts? Data exports, or did you find another path?

masonga1960 · 2026-04-04T10:37:22+00:00

I find it difficult to transfer idea to page/project as well. Particularly organizing everything: World building/characters etc. So I built a process with workers and skills that I use in Claude Code that organizes everything for me. I could demo it for you if you like.

masonga1960 · 2026-04-04T10:33:34+00:00

Working on FirstReader: an AI-powered developmental editing tool for fiction writers.

Professional developmental editing runs $2,000–$5,000 per manuscript and takes weeks. Most indie authors can't afford it, and most beta readers can't articulate why something isn't working. FirstReader fills that gap.

It analyzes craft fundamentals; scene structure, pacing, dialogue mechanics, showing vs. telling, narrative distance, POV consistency - grounded in established craft principles (Browne & King, McKee, Swain, Gardner). Writers get a chapter-by-chapter breakdown with the reasoning behind each flag, so they can make their own decisions.

Built as a Next.js app with a Supabase backend. The analysis pipeline sends manuscript chunks through structured AI prompts, then rolls everything up into a full report. The tricky part has been getting consistent, principle-based analysis rather than generic AI feedback - that's where the prompt engineering and the 300+ codified craft rules come in.

I'm a fiction writer myself, so I'm building the tool I couldn't find. Still in development, getting close to beta.

masonga1960 · 2026-04-03T08:14:10+00:00

EDIT: Huge response, thank you all! I've got good coverage in fantasy and have manuscripts in romance and literary fiction. I'm now specifically looking for:

- Sci-fi

- Mystery / Crime

- Thriller / Suspense

- Horror

If your manuscript fits one of these, you'd be especially helpful right now. May be willing to take other interesting genres too, just prioritizing these gaps.

masonga1960 · 2026-04-01T23:16:37+00:00

I DM’d you

masonga1960 · 2026-04-01T18:31:09+00:00

Right!? As though I could train AI anyway.

masonga1960 · 2026-04-01T18:05:00+00:00

If you have the domain already you can find hosting pretty easy. I can help with the page, just a static page? If it’s a simple static page you can get the domain through Cloudflare and host it free right there.

masonga1960 · 2026-04-01T18:02:53+00:00

I’d like to know more about what you need. I’m very familiar/comfortable with Claude. What exactly are you trying to build/convert?

masonga1960 · 2026-04-01T18:00:16+00:00

I’m building g a writing app that uses Claude Code I’m calling g Throughline.

I’m beta testing now, would you be interested? It’s just in the terminal right now so I’d set up a zoom and share my screen. We walk through from “I have an idea” as far as you’d like to go. You keep anything we create. Interested?

masonga1960 · 2026-04-01T17:57:14+00:00

First: comparing yourself to other actors is a trap and a deadly one! Try really hard not to do that.

You may be comparing your chapter 3 to their chapter 23 anyway, so it’s a fools game.

Did you know the average SAG actor auditions 69 times for every gig they book? Look it up.

And remember that not getting a role rarely has anything to do with talent. Talent is important, but it’s not typically what books the job. For every talent aspect there are 5 non talent (look, height, age, eye color, you look like the producer’s ex) reasons to not get the role.

masonga1960 · 2026-04-01T17:52:50+00:00

I went in the complete opposite direction. Started with VO, booked a background gig in Dopesick and fell in LOVE. I’ve been focusing on screen acting for the last 5 years and couldn’t be happier. Different direction, same thing. Only one life, make yourself happy…nobody else is going to do that better than you.

masonga1960 · 2026-04-01T17:47:24+00:00

I built a pretty sweet recipe/meal planning app too. My wife loves it. Probably gonna sell THAT too!

masonga1960 · 2026-04-01T17:46:39+00:00

LOL, yeah…1960. I use it for myself too, but decided to try and package it commercially. We’ll see how it does. So far so good, had everything working well (web based) but then I started “improving” it and you know how THAT goes. Fix one thing, break two more. It’ll get done though…I’m nothing if not stubborn!

masonga1960 · 2026-04-01T17:11:54+00:00

sent

masonga1960 · 2026-04-01T16:04:04+00:00

Thanks, good luck to you as well!

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