Professional-grade craft analysis. On every entry. For every writer.
The Craft Engine™ is Inkladder's proprietary craft analysis system — a suite of purpose-built analytical protocols, each one engineered against a specific, named writing theory. It's a developmental tool, entirely separate from competition judging. It doesn't give you opinions. It gives you a structured diagnostic of your narrative architecture, character mechanics, voice, subtext, pacing, and more. The same analytical process a professional script editor or dramaturge uses — built into a system that delivers it at scale. It uses AI to power the analysis. It never uses AI to write for you.
What you actually receive
When you submit a competition entry, The Craft Engine analyses your work and returns a structured craft report. Here's what's in it.
Framework selection
You choose which analytical lens to apply — or let The Craft Engine recommend one based on your format and genre. Short story entered to FRESH? Yorke's dramatic architecture might be the best fit. Flash fiction entered to NODU? The Story Circle could reveal where your 300 words lose momentum.
Diagnostic analysis
The protocol examines your work against its specific detection patterns. It identifies what's functioning (active fractures, working subtext, earned character change) and what isn't (single-trait characters, on-the-nose dialogue, missing structural beats). Each finding references the theoretical principle behind it — so you're not just told 'this doesn't work,' you're told WHY it doesn't work according to a named, published framework.
Questions, not rewrites
The output gives you the questions you need to answer to strengthen your work. Not new sentences. Not suggested scenes. Not AI-generated alternatives. Questions. Because the answer has to come from you — it's your story. The Craft Engine sharpens your thinking. It never replaces it.
See it in action.
Competition #1 opens soon. Every entry receives a full Craft Engine™ analysis — not just the winners. Join the waitlist and be the first to experience professional-grade craft feedback on your writing.