Literary Conversion Service

Transform your entire manuscript (DOCX, EPUB, HTML, Markdown) into a polished draft in your chosen format—no API keys, no hand-stitching chapters, no manual clean-up marathons. Upload, pick a medium, get a fully formatted script.

1. How It Works

Upload your manuscript file.
Select a target medium (e.g., Screenplay, TV Script, Play Script, Comic Book Script).
We run a conversion pass that restructures your prose into the selected template.
A built-in heuristic QA validates structure and markup, auto-fixes trivial issues, and re-runs any sections that hard-fail validation.
(Optional) Advanced QA performs a second LLM review with pass/fail/patch loops to raise conformance and coherence.
Download your formatted draft as DOCX, HTML, or Markdown.

2. Supported Mediums (Initial Offering)

Medium	Description
Screenplay	Scenes, action lines, dialogue, SFX, transitions.
TV Script	Cold opens, acts, scene headings, act-end bumpers.
Play Script	Acts, scenes, characters, stage directions.
Comic Book Script	Panels, captions, character speech, SFX.

Need another format? We support additional templates (e.g., Radio Drama, Poem, etc.). Tell us what you need and we’ll advise.

3. Template Reference

Skeletons below show the HTML structure we target so you know exactly how the output is shaped.

Screenplay

<h1>Screenplay Title</h1>
<p><strong>By:</strong> Author Name</p>

<p class="scene-heading">EXT. SIGNATURE LOCATION – DAY</p>
<p class="action">What the camera sees. Active verbs in present tense.</p>

<p class="character">CHARACTER NAME</p>
<p class="parenthetical">(whispering)</p>
<p class="dialogue">Line of dialogue…</p>

<p class="transition">CUT TO:</p>

TV Script

<h1>Series Title</h1>
<p><strong>Episode:</strong> "Pilot"</p>
<p><strong>Written by:</strong> Writer Name</p>

<h2>TEASER</h2>
<p class="scene-heading">INT. SET NAME – NIGHT</p>
<p class="action">Hook the audience in 1–2 lines.</p>

<h2>ACT ONE</h2>
<p class="scene-heading">EXT. STREET – DAY</p>
<p class="action">Beat-driven action.</p>

<p class="character">LEAD</p>
<p class="dialogue">First line…</p>

<p class="transition">END OF ACT ONE</p>

Play Script

<h1>Play Title</h1>
<p><strong>By:</strong> Playwright Name</p>

<h2>ACT I</h2>
<h3>Scene 1</h3>
<p class="stage-dir"><em>Lights up on…</em></p>

<p class="character">CHARACTER</p>
<p class="dialogue">Spoken line…</p>

<p class="stage-dir"><em>Blackout.</em></p>

Comic Book Script

<h1>Comic Title</h1>
<p><strong>By:</strong> Writer & Artist</p>

<h3>Page 1</h3>
<p><strong>Panel 1:</strong> Wide shot, setting, time-of-day.</p>
<p><strong>CAPTION 1:</strong> Narration text.</p>

<p class="character">HERO</p>
<p class="dialogue">Dialogue…</p>

<p><strong>Panel 2:</strong> Medium on action detail.</p>
<p class="sfx">SFX: BOOM!</p>

4. How Strict Is Screenplay Formatting?

Our conversion engine and Advanced QA understand standard screenplay conventions (scene headings, action lines, dialogue, etc.), but they are optimized for story fidelity first and format correctness second.

That means:

We always aim to:
Preserve all major beats, events, and character actions from your manuscript.
Produce a script that’s clearly recognizable as a screenplay-style document.
We do not try to behave like a film-school grader:
We won’t fail your draft just because every micro-location doesn’t have its own slugline.
If the story is faithful and easy to follow, minor format imperfections are treated as “polish later” issues.

What we guarantee (for Screenplay / Script outputs)

A clear opening scene heading (slugline) for each sequence.
Standard screenplay building blocks:
Scene headings (INT./EXT. LOCATION – TIME)
Action lines (present tense, camera-facing description)
Character cues + dialogue
Internal consistency: no random POV switches or mangled scenes that contradict the source.

Where we are intentionally lenient

We may not:

Add a new scene heading for every small location shift (elevator → hallway → skybridge → mall → alley → taxi → storage).
Perfectly match the preferences of any specific software (Final Draft, Celtx, etc.).
Match a studio/union style guide (e.g., BBC, WGA) out of the box.

Instead, we aim to give you a faithful, structurally sane first draft that a human writer (you, your co-writer, or a Bookcicle editor) can then bring up to the strictest professional conventions.

5. Your Job After Conversion (Especially For Screenplays)

Think of Bookcicle’s Literary Convert as a draft generator + structure stabilizer. After conversion, your job is to do a craft pass:

A. Script-Specific Clean-Up

Check scene headings (sluglines).

Add or refine sluglines where the location/time changes in a meaningful way.
Example: split a long “escape” sequence into INT. OFFICE, INT. ELEVATOR, INT. MALL SKYBRIDGE, EXT. ALLEY, INT. TAXI, INT. STORAGE UNIT, etc.

Tighten action lines.

Trim overly long paragraphs into visual beats.
Keep sentences camera-facing: what can we see and hear?

Verify character cues & dialogue.

Ensure each spoken line is under the correct character.
Trim inner-monologue prose that doesn’t belong in a production script.

B. Story & Continuity Checks

Spot-check key beats.

Open, midpoint, climax, resolution: all present and true to your book?

Confirm no invented scenes.

Conversion should not introduce new plot events. If you see one, decide whether to:
Keep it (if you like it),
Or revert to your original prose.

C. Optional: Bring It Up To “Film-School Strict”

If you want industry-standard formatting, we recommend:

Studying professional guides on scene headings and sluglines:
StudioBinder’s guide on how to write sluglines and scene headings.
BBC Writersroom script format PDFs for film/TV (via the BBC Writersroom resources).
Articles on proper scene headings from sites like Arc Studio and Backstage, which explain that every change in location/time should normally use a new slugline.
Loading your converted draft into screenwriting software (Final Draft, Highland, Fade In, WriterDuet, etc.) and doing:
A pass for page length and pacing.
A pass for strict sluglines and transitions.
A pass for production details (VFX notes, camera notes, etc.) if needed.

Bottom line: Bookcicle gets you a faithful, structured script draft. Your job is to polish it into the exact format and style demanded by your agent, competition, or production partner.

6. Quality Review — Tiers & What We Actually Check (Conversion)

Our conversion pipeline (e.g., manuscript → DOCX/HTML/MD) includes built-in heuristic verification and an optional Advanced QA layer. The Basic tier covers structural integrity and core safety guards with automatic retries on hard failures. The Advanced QA add-on adds a second, prompted LLM pass to pass/fail/patch sections and provide an LLM originality signal.

Quality Review Tiers (What to Expect)

Tier	Goal	Price	How it works	Target fidelity†	What our Heuristic QA actually checks (per section)	Deliverables	Choose this if…
Basic Conversion (Single Pass + Heuristic QA)	Fast, faithful structure & formatting with a safety net	Included	1× GenAI conversion pass → automatic heuristic QA per section with up to 2 retries on hard failures.	~70%+	• Structure validity (source & result): if either side is malformed → retry. • Duplicate-paragraph detection (content repeats): if detected → retry. • Auto-fix trivial structure (benign balancing) with safe write-back when appropriate. • Clean conversion output with `keep_dialogue_blocks` and `keep_img`; safe write-back if cleaning changes the file. • Best-effort redline (block-diff) to visualize changes.	Converted draft (preview + .docx/.html/.md), per-section QA status, notes where retries occurred, redline artifact (best-effort).	You want clean structure quickly and will refine voice/nuance later (self-edit or separate editorial pass).
Advanced QA Add-on (Double Pass)	Stricter format conformance & continuity checks	$34.99	Runs after Basic: a prompted LLM pass evaluates each section to preserve consistency, voice, pace, and tone while enforcing target format rules and returns PASS / FAIL / PATCH: • FAIL ⇒ targeted re-edit. • PATCH ⇒ minimal diffs applied. • PASS ⇒ no change. Only problematic sections are re-run. Plus: an LLM originality signal that flags passages the model perceives as potentially memorized/borrowed; warn on low confidence; hard-fail + regenerate/patch on high confidence.‡	~75%+	Everything in Basic plus model-guided pass/fail/patch for consistency/voice/pace/tone and stricter template conformance (e.g., scene headings/sluglines, parentheticals, SFX tags) where applicable, with guided re-runs for near-misses; LLM originality scan with high-confidence flags triggering hard-fail and regenerate/patch.	Polished draft (DOCX/HTML/MD) with a QA summary of PASS/FAIL/PATCH decisions and an originality flags report; updated sections included.	Screenplays/TV/Plays/Comics and long/complex manuscripts where you want a more turn-key, production-ready result with extra guardrails.

†Fidelity ranges are directional, not guarantees; source quality and chosen format influence outcomes. ‡ The originality signal is model-based and heuristic, not a legal determination of copyright.

Hard-fail auto-retry (both tiers): If a section fails critical checks (e.g., malformed HTML on source/result or duplicate paragraphs), our QA automatically requests a re-run (up to 2 times). Persistent issues are marked “completed_with_issues.”

7. Quality & Retry Pipeline (Details)

Both tiers include an automated heuristic QA stage with retries:

Auto-fix pass: Balances HTML tags, preserves dialogue/action wrappers, normalizes headings, removes consecutive duplicates where obviously machine-introduced.
Hard-fail detection: If a section is empty, contains fenced code, has broken HTML, or exhibits an extreme length mismatch, we mark it qc_check_rerun and automatically re-run the section (up to 2 attempts). Persistent failures are marked completed_with_issues and highlighted in the task feed.
Advanced QA (add-on): After the Basic pipeline succeeds (or flags issues), a second LLM “validator” performs format-specific checks (e.g., screenplay slugline patterns, dialogue/parenthetical placement, SFX brackets, act/scene counts, basic character continuity). It can surgically re-prompt only failing sections and will finalize with either analytics_completed/completed or completed_with_issues plus a findings summary.

8. Before / After Snapshot

Original (Novel Excerpt)

“The old cottage stood at the edge of the meadow… she wondered if the next chapter of her life would unfold like the stories she so carefully wrote.”

Converted (Screenplay)

<p class="scene-heading">EXT. MEADOW – LATE AFTERNOON</p>
<p class="action">A small, weathered cottage stands at the meadow’s edge beneath a violet sky.</p>

<p class="scene-heading">INT. COTTAGE – CONTINUOUS</p>
<p class="action">A WOMAN (30s), thoughtful, sits at a desk strewn with pages and pens.</p>
<p class="character">WOMAN</p>
<p class="dialogue">Every new chapter... I’m still chasing the feeling.</p>

9. FAQs

Does the Basic tier really retry failed sections? Yes. The Basic heuristic QA will automatically request a re-run on hard failures (e.g., empty output, malformed HTML, fenced code blocks, drastic length mismatches), up to two attempts per section. If issues persist, we flag the section as completed_with_issues so you can review or opt into Advanced QA.

What’s the difference between Basic and Advanced QA? Basic = single conversion pass + heuristic QA + hard-fail retries. Advanced = second LLM pass that checks strict formatting/continuity rules and can re-run only the problem sections to repair them, aiming for higher final fidelity.

How long does it take? Most conversions complete within an hour; complex manuscripts or Advanced QA may take longer during peak periods.

What file formats can I export? .docx, pdf, .html, and .md.

Do you change my story? We preserve content and intent. Conversion focuses on structure and formatting. (If you want stylistic rewriting, see our Editorial service, which also supports a two-tier QA flow.)

What if my manuscript is very long? We support up to ~200,000 words. For larger works, contact us about splitting or batching.

Policy & safety? Content that violates our safety guidelines will be returned unmodified with an explanation. You may then revise and re-submit.

Ready to convert? Start with Basic for a fast, structured draft. Add Advanced QA when you want studio-grade polish and extra confidence.

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🧠 Generative AI and Originality Policy

Bookcicle’s services — including Editorial, Translation, Conversion, and Ghostwriting — integrate advanced generative AI systems to enhance writing, editing, and localization. While these tools accelerate creativity, all AI-generated output is provided "as-is" and may include factual inaccuracies or material that resembles existing works.

You are responsible for reviewing, editing, and verifying any AI-assisted deliverable before publication or commercial use. Bookcicle does not guarantee originality or non-infringement of AI-generated content.

For more details, please see the full AI-Generated Content, Ghostwriting & Originality section of our Terms of Service.

1. How It Works​

2. Supported Mediums (Initial Offering)​

3. Template Reference​

4. How Strict Is Screenplay Formatting?​

What we guarantee (for Screenplay / Script outputs)​

Where we are intentionally lenient​

5. Your Job After Conversion (Especially For Screenplays)​

A. Script-Specific Clean-Up​

B. Story & Continuity Checks​

C. Optional: Bring It Up To “Film-School Strict”​

6. Quality Review — Tiers & What We Actually Check (Conversion)​

Quality Review Tiers (What to Expect)​

7. Quality & Retry Pipeline (Details)​

8. Before / After Snapshot​

9. FAQs​

🧠 Generative AI and Originality Policy​