For technical writers who ship alone
Your lede is in paragraph nine. I can prove it.
Friction reads your draft for structure and story, then predicts, paragraph by paragraph, exactly where readers will quit.
Your first draft is free. No account, no card.
Drop-off map
Predicted readers left, para 1–10. The cliff is at para 9.
Draft, round 1
Notes
“Your lede is in paragraph 9. Start there — it's a great line.”
“Paragraphs 3 to 5 repeat the setup. Cut two of them.”
A sample draft with 9 paragraphs. Friction predicts 100% of readers start the draft, and that share falls gradually through paragraph 8, where 58% remain, then drops sharply at paragraph 9 to 22%, the predicted cliff. Two margin notes appear: one says the real lede is in paragraph 9 and should open the draft, the other says paragraphs 3 through 5 repeat the setup and two of them should be cut.
None of the usual tools read for the drop-off.
Sentence-level tools
They bless a perfectly punctuated draft that nobody finishes reading.
General AI
It will write the whole thing for you, in a voice a reader now spots on sight.
A generous colleague
They catch the real problem, but they're busy, and gone the moment you need them again.
How it reads
One reading pass, then a second opinion of itself.
I predict where readers quit, paragraph by paragraph.
Round 1 checks your draft against reader research, story craft and genre discipline, then names the exact paragraph where it breaks.
Illustrative sample drop-off map: of 100 predicted readers, 100 are still here at paragraph 1, 92 at paragraph 2, 84 at paragraph 3, 74 at paragraph 4, 58 at paragraph 5, and 22 at paragraph 9 — the cliff. Not a real reader's data.
Voiceprint
I read three of your published posts first, so I never flag your own voice as a mistake.
House rules
Upload your employer's style guide and I won't suggest a line your reviewer will reject.
Take
Ask, and I'll rewrite the buried paragraph myself, in your voice, not mine.
Reader proof
Then I check my own guess.
Paste one line into your blog. Seven days after you publish, I'll show you where readers really quit, and grade my own prediction first.
“I said readers would quit at paragraph 6. Half of them left at paragraph 3. I was wrong, and here's what I've changed about how I read you.”
Predicted
Measured
Readers remaining, para 1–8. Illustrative sample, not a real reader's data.
Predicted readers remaining by paragraph one through eight: 100, 95, 90, 86, 80, 74, 40, 36 percent, showing a predicted drop after paragraph 6. Measured readers remaining: 100, 88, 50, 46, 43, 40, 37, 34 percent, showing the real drop after paragraph 3, earlier than predicted.
Pricing
Your first draft is free.
After that, a Draft Pass is $9 and covers one draft: every round, every take, 14 days. No subscription, no rationed rounds.
- Every critique round, unlimited
- Every rewrite take, in your voice
- Reader proof, measured after you publish
- 14 days on this draft, then $9 for the next one
First draft free. No account, no card.