Word and phrase rules
Flag overused words, anachronisms, or terms that break your period or setting. Mark them as errors, warnings, or things to simply keep an eye on.
Understanding is step one. Control is step two.
VoiceCheck for fiction writers
Your draft changed.
Your voice doesn't have to.
Every revision is a chance for your writing to drift. A word you'd never use creeps in. A sentence pattern you've been breaking shows up again. A character starts talking like the others.
VoiceCheck is a set of rules that describes how you write. Once defined, it reads every chapter and tells you when something doesn't match.
A spell-checker is for spelling.
VoiceCheck is for your style.
Spell-checkers know the rules of English. VoiceCheck knows the rules of your manuscript — the ones you set.
You define what matters: a word you want to avoid, a sentence pattern that breaks your narrator's register, a phrase only one character should ever say. VoiceCheck watches for all of it, across every chapter, every draft. It builds on what Clark already understands about your manuscript.
Character voice rules
Define how a specific character speaks — vocabulary they use, patterns they avoid, register shifts that would feel wrong. VoiceCheck applies those rules only when that character talks.
Manuscript-wide rules
Rules that apply everywhere: narrator tone, tense consistency, passive voice, sentence structure patterns you're deliberately building or deliberately avoiding.
Four ways to build your ruleset
You don't need to know anything technical. VoiceCheck meets you wherever you are.
1
Write your own
Describe the pattern in plain text. "Avoid the word 'suddenly'." "Flag any sentence over 60 words." "Catch passive voice in action scenes." That's all it takes.
2
Pick from the library
Browse a built-in library of common rules: clichés, said- bookisms, filter words, adverb overuse, anachronism lists for historical fiction, and more. Add any of them in one click.
3
Tell Clark in plain English
Describe what you're trying to catch, and Clark turns it into a working rule. "I don't want Elena to sound uncertain — flag hedging language when she's narrating." Clark builds the rule. You review and add it.
4
Let Clark read the manuscript and suggest rules
Clark can scan your draft — looking at your actual prose — and surface patterns worth watching. He'll notice that you've been consistently doing something in the first half that drifts in the second. He makes the suggestion. You decide whether it becomes a rule.
No setup required. Clark finds the rules your manuscript already implies.
Clark reads your whole manuscript.
Not just the open chapter.
Most writing tools check the page you're looking at. Clark knows the entire manuscript — every chapter, every character, every decision the story has already made.
When he suggests a voice rule, it's because he found a real pattern in your real prose. Not a generic tip. Not something he thinks might apply to fiction in general.
Something specific to your manuscript, grounded in the text.
Clark noticing a pattern
"You've used 'somehow' 34 times in 19 chapters."
"It appears most often in chapters 3, 7, and 14."
"Want me to add a rule to flag it going forward?"
Or ask him directly.
"Does my narrator's voice feel different in the second half?" Clark will compare passages, find the drift, and tell you what changed. Then offer to make it a rule.
What writers do without VoiceCheck
Without VoiceCheck
- Read every chapter looking for drift
- Rely on beta readers to catch voice inconsistencies
- Maintain a personal style guide in a separate document
- Catch problems in editing, not while writing
- Start each draft hoping the voice held together
With VoiceCheck
- Issues flagged in real time as you write
- Rules live in the manuscript, not a separate doc
- Clark actively suggests new rules from your prose
- Voice problems found in chapter 4, not chapter 40
- Your ruleset builds as your manuscript does
VoiceCheck is built into Authorial — no separate tool, no export required. Your rules live with your manuscript.
Now you can see it working.
But power without control is a risk.
See how your manuscript stays yours →