Subject: Proposal for a Revision Pass & Storyboard System in Sudowrite

Hello Sudowrite Team,

I’d like to propose a feature direction that would significantly expand Sudowrite’s usefulness beyond drafting and into the full novel revision process. Specifically, I’m suggesting a structured Revision Pass system paired with a customizable Storyboard/Board view, designed to mirror how novels are actually edited in professional workflows.

At present, Sudowrite excels at generation and localized revision, but many authors leave the platform when they reach developmental, structural, and continuity editing. These stages are typically handled in external tools such as Dabble, Scrivener, Notion, or spreadsheets. A built-in system for tracking story structure and running guided editing passes would keep writers inside Sudowrite from first draft through final polish.

The first component would be a customizable storyboard (or board) view. In this view, chapters or scenes would appear as rows, while columns would be fully user-defined fields rather than presets. For example, an author might create columns such as: Scene Function, Key Beats, POV & Knowledge, Timeline Marker, Irreversible Consequence, Future Collision Setup, or Chapter Developmental Lock. Each scene card would link directly to the manuscript text. Columns could be reordered, hidden, filtered, or exported (CSV), allowing writers to track revision progress and identify structural weaknesses at a glance.

The second component would be a Revision Pass framework. Instead of one-off prompts, Sudowrite would offer guided editing passes that analyze a selected scene, chapter, or manuscript and output structured results into a consistent schema. For example, a Developmental Pass could generate:
• A one-sentence Scene Function
• Key Beats (bullet points)
• POV and knowledge boundaries
• An Irreversible Consequence (what changes permanently)
• A Future Collision Setup
• A Chapter-level Developmental Lock

These outputs would automatically populate the storyboard fields, giving writers concrete, reusable revision data rather than general advice.

Additional passes could be modular and optional, such as:
– Structural Pass (redundant scenes, missing escalation, scenes doing too many or too few jobs)
– Character Agency Pass (who acts vs. reacts, where agency is lost)
– Continuity & Canon Pass (timeline conflicts, knowledge leaks, worldbuilding contradictions)
– Stakes & Tension Pass (what is at risk in each scene and whether it escalates)
– Pacing Pass (overwritten vs. underwritten beats)
– Prose & Line-Level Pass (repetition, tone drift, dialogue sharpness), ideally run last

Each pass would be guided, writer-controlled, and non-destructive. The goal would not be automatic editing, but structured insight that helps authors revise intentionally and consistently.

What makes this approach different from existing tools is the combination of structured outputs, visual tracking, and pass-based revision. Scrivener and Dabble organize text but do not analyze it. Grammar tools edit sentences but not stories. A Revision Pass system would position Sudowrite as the only platform that supports the entire lifecycle of a novel: drafting, structural revision, deep editing, and polish.

From a product perspective, this would increase time-in-app, reduce reliance on external tools, and give Sudowrite a defensible feature set focused on finishing books, not just generating them. Even a limited initial version (for example, a Developmental Pass plus a basic customizable board) would already add significant value.

I’d be happy to share example schemas, screenshots of current external workflows, or detailed pass definitions if that would be useful. Thank you for considering the idea, and for continuing to build tools that take writers seriously as craftspeople.

Best regards,
Marlene Jo Matta