Like any good work...

We're off to a great start in 2009. Our developers are busy forming the submission engine for accepting novels and scripts into the Arc Angel analysis engine. We're very close. The basic registration system is working - so if you're so inclined, you can visit zirdland.com and sign-up as a charter member for free. We'll let you know when the Arc Angel is ready for submissions. 

Our novel competition winner's page is almost ready as well. We're creating "Z-pages" for the top-ten finalists in the contest and will be promoting their works to our industry members. 

Congratulations to E.C. Ayres whose novel "Cry of the Heron" was recently signed by a publisher after the Arc Angel ranked it 10th in the competition with a Z-score of  263808. The Arc Angel is calibrated to the current bestseller market and ranked Cry of the Heron well above average. We'll be looking to see this title on next year's bestseller lists.

Our Screenplay Competition has been delayed. We're working on the submission engine to make it easier to enter. Those who entered the Novel Competition commented that the character definition effort was confusing - so we're having Arc Angel produce the character list automatically so all the writer must do is verify that it is complete and correct. That should speed things along and make it easier to enter the competition and easier to submit for a marketplace analysis.

Every day a little closer. Thanks for all the comments and e-mails.

Novel Competition top-10

We were very impressed with the extraordinary novels that were selected by the Arc Angel in the recent Zirdland Novel Competition. We'll be posting Z-pages for each on the site soon, which will provide a quick-look at the scoring details and an overview of each work. We are constantly amazed with the level of creativity out there that remains unpublished. Hopefully that will change for our contest entrants and members.

Registration will begin on the heels of our Screenplay Competition - which opens on November 15th and is free to enter.

And so it begins...

After 4 years of researching, inventing, and re-inventing, I think we've done it. The patents are filed, the software is in beta test, and things are beginning to get pretty exciting. A lot of people said it couldn't be done...that it shouldn't be done, perhaps...but it's done. 

Zirdland.com is ready.

We're going to launch with a party - a competition. Dual competitions, actually. One for novelists, one for screenwriters. It starts on 08/08/08 - and will be sort of a Literary Olympic event. This may be the only writing contest that is judged solely by a machine. 

The Arc Angel program scans a literary work, establishes character significance, tracks emotional conflict, story arcs, dramatic resonance, and provides a synopsis and editorial advice. It highlights flat spots in the plot-line, points out sentence groups, paragraphs or whole pages that fall short of advancing the story, and then scores the work against published works - classic and popular - comparing writing styles with established authors.  

The Arc Angel can accurately pick a bestseller from the crowd. Writers will get to see a visual representation of their story structure, and publishers will be able to process their slush pile through the program and sift out properties with market potential.

It's a fascinating adventure. Writers who attended our focus group last month agreed that the Arc Angel is a powerful tool to get a look at the sub-text of a manuscript - to "x-ray" the plot structure and character development, and display the underlying genetic code - the literary-DNA in a novel or script. It's a lot of fun to use, and we can't wait to start processing some manuscripts through it. Thus, the dual competitions...

Basically, the prize is $1,000 for the best novel and $1,000 for the best screenplay - again, judged solely by the Arc Angel. We'll post competition standings on ZirdNEWS.com, as well as excerpts from the winning manuscript.

We hope this will be a fun way to introduce the Zirdland Arc Angel writer's tool, as well as other useful tools that we'll roll-out toward the end of the year.

We're just a few days away...so, keep watching:  zirdland.com