Sounder - Feasibility study to evaluate a novel writing support tool

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PinTale is motivated by the need to support the millions of would-be authors each year in the complex task of planning their novels. A staggeringly small 3% of those who set out to write a novel ever finish writing, often due to the challenge of managing the vast quantities of information required to construct their characters and worlds, and the complexity of tracking overarching narratives, timelines, and intertwining plots and subplots.PinTale was founded by three budding novelists upon realising that, despite there being an abundance of software solutions to support writers (Scrivener, LivingWriter, etc.), none offer anything more advanced than digitised versions of old, paper-based tools: notebooks, scrapbooks, ring-binders and filing cabinets. Accordingly, we set out to work with leading AI and NLP experts to equip authors with the power of machine learning and data visualisation to transform their experience and enjoyment of the writing process and to improve the quality of their output.PinTale is a unique story structuring platform with a suite of functions enabling writers to structure their thoughts, plan plot/sub-plot arcs, and effectively manage and seamlessly access the vast quantities of information that they generate as they develop and write their novels, e.g., via intelligent tagging, novel interactive plotting features and dynamic visualisations.This project will enable a technical feasibility study and market research for a highly innovative new user-demanded component of PinTale: our curious chatbot companion, Sounder. Sounder will use natural language processing (NLP) to converse with the author, mining them for further information. Critically Sounder will not invent anything, but will allow the writer to guide the conversation, with Sounder fulfilling a writing coach or peer-group listener role. The information extracted from the author by Sounder will automatically populate PinTale, with automated tagging of information, powering PinTale's wider features.This project offers PinTale a timely opportunity to develop the innovative and ambitious idea for Sounder, in collaboration with AI/NLP experts at the University of Bath and design expertise from Optima, alongside stakeholder engagement via Bath Spa University Research Centre in Creative Writing and local writing groups. Successful completion will put PinTale on the pathway to meet a significant growth opportunity, with Sounder projected to increase revenue potential by 250-500%.We plan for project launch to coincide with National Novel Writing Month 2024, when half a million aspiring novelists will embark upon the task of writing a novel in 30 days.