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VSProse

@vsprose.bsky.social
12 followers 12 following 145 posts

VSProse helps fiction writers edit with AI without losing their voice. www.vsprose.com

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VSProse @vsprose.bsky.social · 17h
Help, Send Feedback opens a small box. You write what happened. Two tick boxes let you add your logs or the edit transcript, and both are off unless you tick them. Nothing leaves your computer until you press Send. If we cannot be reached it saves a zip on your Desktop.
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VSProse @vsprose.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Nobody reported this one. We went looking. If you opened a review, then went off and changed the chapter underneath it, saving that review could put the older text back over your newer writing. It now refuses, keeps your newer words, and keeps your accept and reject decisions.
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VSProse @vsprose.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Where your book lives while VSProse edits it: on your disk, as plain .txt or .md files. The app reads them, sends only the chapter you are editing for its edit, and writes back only what you accept. Delete the app tomorrow and your chapters are where you left them.
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VSProse @vsprose.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
A tester told us three cards in the practice lesson pointed at a button that is not on that screen. She reported two of them. We went looking and found the third, and all three are fixed in the same release. That is what the closed beta is for, and it is why the waves are small.
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VSProse @vsprose.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
We are not building a machine that writes your book. The AI suggests, you decide, and every suggestion is a diff you accept, reject or edit by hand. Your chapter files are plain text on your own disk and VSProse never rewrites them behind you. These are your words. Full stop.
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VSProse @vsprose.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
The closed beta has its first writer in the app. The invitation went out on Friday morning and the account was open six hours later. The next invitations go out in small waves, so we can read every report properly before the next one lands.
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VSProse @vsprose.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Shipped this month: a practice lesson inside VSProse. Help, Start Here, Quick Orientation opens a small practice book of its own and walks you through the whole editing cycle in 32 steps. It never touches your own books, it uses no pages, and you can run it before you sign in.
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VSProse @vsprose.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Proofread is the third pass, and it is the last look for small slips. Doubled spaces, a space before a comma, a word typed twice. By the time you get here the copy edit and the line edit have been through, so what is left is the stuff that gets past everyone at 1am.
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VSProse @vsprose.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Line edit is the second pass. Same chapter, different job: flow, sentence shape, clarity. On an old public domain paragraph it will offer to split a sentence that runs on. It will not make the writer sound like someone else. You accept the ones you want and reject the rest.
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VSProse @vsprose.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Copy edit is the first of three passes in VSProse. Spelling, grammar, punctuation, and nothing else. Take a line from a book out of copyright and put a space before the full stop. The copy edit marks it, and shows the space as a small box so you can see what changes.
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VSProse @vsprose.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Doors open, a few more places in the closed beta. VSProse runs your chapter through copy edit, line edit and proofread on your Mac or Windows desktop, and every change waits for your yes or no. Thirty pages free, no card, one per person. Name down here: vsprose.com/beta
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VSProse @vsprose.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Every name that comes in on the beta page is read by a person, and a person writes back when your place is ready. The queue is small and moves in waves, so we can read every report properly. If you publish your own books: vsprose.com/beta
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VSProse @vsprose.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
A few more places in the VSProse closed beta. Bring thirty pages of a book you are actually writing, the chapter you know needs work. Copy edit, line edit, proofread, and you accept or reject every change by hand. No charge: vsprose.com/beta
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VSProse @vsprose.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Continuity across a 300 page draft is its own discipline, and nobody admits how hard it is until book two. The ugly spreadsheet version still beats a tool that tries to do the thinking for you.
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VSProse @vsprose.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
The doors are open on the closed beta and there is room for a few more. Tell us what went wrong, the button that was not where you looked, the suggestion that missed, and we top your pages back up. Thirty free pages to start: vsprose.com/beta
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VSProse @vsprose.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
We are opening the doors on the VSProse closed beta and taking in a few more writers. Thirty pages of your own book, copy edited, line edited and proofread. Nobody is charged. Put your name down at vsprose.com/beta and we write to you when your place is ready.
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VSProse @vsprose.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
The VSProse closed beta has room for a few more writers. Thirty pages of your own book, copy edited, line edited and proofread, free. Put your name down at vsprose.com/beta and we write to you when your place is ready.
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VSProse @vsprose.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Readers never buy a novel for its grammar. They put one down for it, around page three, without ever saying why. The copy edit is the pass that keeps them in the chair. Thirty pages of yours, all three passes, free: www.vsprose.com/free-chapter
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VSProse @vsprose.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Aug 3, 2026 It refused two grammar fixes and told the author why: a quote pair was left half-open. There were no quotes near them. The apostrophe in students' got counted as an opening quote with no close. The fix leaves single-quoted dialogue invisible to the guard.
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VSProse @vsprose.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Most craft advice is one author's workaround sold as a rule: passive voice bans, adverb bans, all of it. Useful as a data point about how that writer thinks. Useless as law. The only test: does cutting it change what the reader feels, not just what the sentence looks like.
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VSProse @vsprose.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
A sentence checker passes a novel with blue eyes in chapter two and dark eyes in chapter fourteen; every sentence is correct. The mistake lives between the sentences. That needs its own pass. www.vsprose.com/blog/grammarly-vs-v…
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VSProse @vsprose.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Name the person doing the action so the sentence has a clear source of energy. Active verbs make the moment more direct and immediate. Before: The door was opened by Mara. After: Mara opened the door.
Craft tip card. Before: The door was opened by Mara. After: Mara opened the door. Rule: Name the person doing the action so the sentence has a clear source of energy. Active verbs make the moment more direct and immediate.
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VSProse @vsprose.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
A structural pass you can do on an index card: one sentence per scene, saying what changed. Who knows something new, who lost something, what is now impossible. If you cannot write the sentence, the scene is a cut waiting to happen.
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VSProse @vsprose.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Jul 27, 2026 Three test screenshots, three filenames: light theme, filters, auth popup. All three the same file. Byte for byte, same MD5, same size, same timestamp. The suite ran the same photo three times and ticked three boxes. The auth screen was never actually seen.
Three test screenshot filenames side by side, each showing the same MD5, file size, and timestamp, marking them identical.
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VSProse @vsprose.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
A $4.99 ebook at 70% royalty earns you $3.49. Sudowrite, Grammarly and ProWritingAid together: 151 copies sold a year before you break even on the tools. Do that sum before the renewal. www.vsprose.com/blog/the-hidden-cos…
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VSProse @vsprose.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Jul 20, 2026 The AI split one quote edit into two halves, each safe on its own. Accept one, reject the other, and your manuscript ends up with an opening quote and no close. A choice that only worked if you took both. Four rounds of fixes and 247 lines of test to catch it.
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VSProse @vsprose.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
It’s our attempt at an anti-slop, editing tool which mimics the typical agency copy, line, proofread flow. Check it out we’d be happy to have you as a beta tester where all your edits are free for the next couple of weeks. Drop me a message here or sign up on our site and I’ll reach out to you.
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VSProse @vsprose.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Jul 13, 2026 A 70-word chapter's progress bar sat 45% full. The 2,554-word chapter beside it barely moved. Same screen. The orange bar has no label, no tooltip, and isn't bound to anything you'd recognise. The shorter the chapter, the more finished it looks.
Two chapter views. Left: 70-word chapter, orange bar about 45 percent full. Right: 2,554-word chapter, bar barely filled. Neither bar has a label.
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VSProse @vsprose.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Beta readers get one clean read. Spend it on typos and typos come back. Fix the mechanics first; save their read for the question only a person can answer: where did you stop caring? www.vsprose.com/blog/beta-readers-v…
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VSProse @vsprose.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Replace the adverb with action that shows emotion. Let the dialogue and beat convey anger without naming it. Before: I never want to see you again, Mara said angrily, with tears in her eyes. After: I never want to see you again, Mara said, slamming the door.
Craft tip card. Before: I never want to see you again, Mara said angrily, with tears in her eyes. After: I never want to see you again, Mara said, slamming the door. Rule: Replace the adverb with action that shows emotion. Let the dialogue and beat convey anger without naming it.
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VSProse @vsprose.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
You can reject every suggestion in a pass. The chapter stays exactly as you wrote it and the editor takes no offence. We counted that as a feature, and it is the one we would defend hardest.
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VSProse @vsprose.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Jul 6, 2026 We committed a file no human is allowed to touch, then wrote a 37-line test whose only job is to catch anyone who touches it. It regenerates the file and diffs it byte for byte. The DO NOT EDIT comment was already there. Nobody trusted it.
Code card: a test regenerates a schema file and asserts it matches the committed copy byte for byte.
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VSProse @vsprose.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Jun 22, 2026 Same manuscript, same screen, two page counts. Status bar: 52 pages. BOOK INFO panel: 33. Two different call sites estimated pages by different rules. An 18-page gap on the exact number a novelist carries to a publisher, and the tool couldn't pick one.
VSProse screen: status bar reads 52 pages while BOOK INFO reads 33 pages for one manuscript.
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VSProse @vsprose.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Jun 15, 2026 The nightly regression has been red since 9 June. Not one test failed. The report upload hit 'Artifact storage quota has been hit'. GitHub recounts usage only every 6 to 12 hours and still counts artifacts it had expired. A week of green tests, logged as red.
Stat card: zero tests failed, yet every night red since June 9 on a storage quota error.
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VSProse @vsprose.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Use said or asked when the dialogue already conveys the emotion. This keeps the reader focused on the speaker’s words instead of instructing them how to react. Before: ‘You came back,’ she exclaimed. After: ‘You came back,’ she said.
Craft tip card. Before: ‘You came back,’ she exclaimed. After: ‘You came back,’ she said. Rule: Use said or asked when the dialogue already conveys the emotion. This keeps the reader focused on the speaker’s words instead of instructing them how to react.
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VSProse @vsprose.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Cut the filter verb so the scene feels immediate. Describe what happens instead of reporting that someone noticed it. Before: I saw the rain streak the window while she spoke in a whisper. After: The rain streaked the window while she spoke in a whisper.
Craft tip card. Before: I saw the rain streak the window while she spoke in a whisper. After: The rain streaked the window while she spoke in a whisper. Rule: Cut the filter verb so the scene feels immediate. Describe what happens instead of reporting that someone noticed it.
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VSProse @vsprose.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Copy edit: grammar, usage, consistency. Line edit: rhythm, word choice, the sound of it. Proofread: the last sweep. All three on thirty pages of your novel, free, no card. Claim now; the credit unlocks when the closed beta opens in September. www.vsprose.com/free-chapter
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VSProse @vsprose.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
May 25, 2026 Our production smoke test passed green through three broken releases. It ran npm start, which never touches the packaged bundle. We tested a copy nobody installs.
Two columns: source tree with lib/ full and npm start green; packaged app.asar with lib/ empty.
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VSProse @vsprose.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
One test for your own AI line: would you be embarrassed if readers knew how much was involved? A typo fix? No blush. A paragraph you did not write? You already know. The line moves; the test does not. www.vsprose.com/blog/how-to-use-ai-…
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VSProse @vsprose.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Cormac McCarthy skips quotation marks. Woolf runs a sentence half a page. Hemingway repeats "and" until it is rhythm. All three bleed red in Grammarly. A fiction editor asks whether you meant it first. www.vsprose.com/blog/ai-editing-wit…
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VSProse @vsprose.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
May 18, 2026 Header: 'Words: 8K'. The panel below: 'Words: 13K'. Same book, same screen. Two code paths counting words, never speaking to each other.
A VSProse project screen. The header reads 'Words: 8K'. The BOOK INFO panel below reads 'Words: 13K'.
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VSProse @vsprose.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
VSProse opens in closed beta in September. Free full access for the whole beta, no card, no trial clock. What we ask: use it on the book you are actually writing, two ten-minute check-ins, and permission before we ever quote you. Apply: www.vsprose.com/beta
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VSProse @vsprose.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
May 11, 2026 You edit a theme's description, save it, click into a chapter and back. Your words are gone, swapped for auto-generated text. The aggregator was told to 'prefer longer description', so every pass it overwrote your careful line with the machine's longer one.
Code card of mergeChapterData preferring the longer description, overwriting curated book-level text on every re-aggregation.
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VSProse @vsprose.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Apr 27, 2026 573 lines of WebGL shader code. Vertex maths, fragment maths, texture sampling. All so a 64 pixel portrait can flicker like a dying CRT. It's a writing app.
A tiny 64px editor portrait with a green CRT phosphor scanline effect, shown at real size and enlarged, captioned 573.
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VSProse @vsprose.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Apr 20, 2026 The status bar said 'VSProse v0.6', typed by hand. Making it read the actual version number took 7 files and 46 lines. In Electron the half that draws the screen isn't allowed to open a file. It has to ask the other half, over a wire, for one string.
Git commit card: 7 files changed, 46 insertions, 4 deletions, to wire the app version to the status bar.
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VSProse @vsprose.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Apr 13, 2026 A test called 'app starts with empty state' saved a screenshot of a full project. Ten chapters, status bar reading 'Chapters: 2/4 Words: 10K'. The app quietly reopened the last project on launch. First-time users would have opened it to someone else's test novel.
Screenshot from a test named for the empty state, showing a loaded project: chapter list and status bar reading Chapters 2/4, Words 10K.
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VSProse @vsprose.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
Cut the camera. She saw the door open. He felt the cold creep in. Delete the watching and the feeling and keep what happened: the door opened, the cold crept in. The reader is already inside her head. The filter verb only reminds them they are not.
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VSProse @vsprose.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
Apr 6, 2026 To check whether the AI's writing suggestions are any good, we built a second AI to mark them. It runs after every build and commits a verdict to a permanent archive. We never got round to building the AI that checks the second one.
A file tree of an archive folder with timestamped subfolders, each holding one AI evaluation report.
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VSProse @vsprose.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
A test for any editing tool: can you refuse half of what it gives you? If what comes back is one rewritten paragraph, you are choosing between yours and theirs. An editor hands you one comma at a time, and you keep the ones you agree with.
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VSProse @vsprose.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Mar 23, 2026 To test a writing tool I needed writing, not Chapter 1.txt. So I wrote a whole book. 27 files changed, 1861 insertions. Ten chapters of actual narrative prose, mixed draft statuses, filed under fixtures, read by nobody but the test runner.
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