How One More Draft Became an Idea

Where It Started

That became the starting point for One More Draft.

My original idea was basically Zoetrope 2026, with a screenplay editor built into it. Writers could actually write their scripts on the site, submit them for peer review, review other people’s work, and be part of a writing community without bouncing between several different programs and websites.

That was pretty much it.

The Idea Gets Bigger

Then my brother John came to town.

John is my usual partner in almost every business endeavor I somehow manage to get myself into, and he happens to be a web developer. We started talking about the idea, what Zoetrope did well, what we thought was missing today, and what else we could build around it.

As usually happens when John and I start talking, the idea got considerably bigger.

Why stop at screenwriters? Novelists and prose writers need many of the same things. Why not let people collaborate? Why not build tools for developing characters, worlds, themes, and structure? Why not have a Workshop, professional-style coverage, a community, and a Marketplace where writers can connect with industry professionals?

Pretty soon, “Zoetrope with a screenplay editor” had turned into something much closer to what OneMoreDraft.com is now: a one-stop shop for writers.

A Different Kind of Writing Assistant

Then we started talking about AI.

This part was important to me because I’m a writer, and I had no interest in building something that was going to write somebody’s screenplay, novel, scene, or dialogue for them. There are already plenty of places doing that.

We started asking a different question: Could we use AI to help writers without having it become the writer?

Could it understand your story, characters, structure, and themes? Could it point out what was working and what wasn’t? Could it notice things you might have missed and, more importantly, explain why it thought something was a problem?

Meet Quill

The answer to that question eventually took the form of Quill, our digital assistant.

Quill guides and steers. He gives feedback, asks questions, points things out, and occasionally tells you something you probably don’t want to hear about your second act.

But he doesn’t write for you.

Where We Draw the Line

We felt strongly enough about that distinction that we created an Ethical AI Mission Statement.

This excerpt sums it up pretty well:

“Quill never writes your words. Not a chapter, not a scene, not a line of dialogue, not a logline, not a query letter, not a synopsis. Nothing Quill produces is designed to be pasted into your draft, and nothing it says is presented as your writing.”

That’s the line for us.

Quill might tell you that your character’s motivation isn’t clear, that something you set up thirty pages ago never gets paid off, or that two of your characters are starting to sound suspiciously alike. He’ll tell you what he sees and why he sees it.

Then you decide what to do about it.

Because you’re the writer.

Quill guides. Never writes.

And yes, Quill is also our cute-as-a-button mascot, because apparently building an entire writing platform wasn’t enough and we also needed an adorable little guy with quills. Expect videos, animations, and probably more Quill merchandise than any reasonable person needs in the near future.

Actually Building the Thing

Then came the part that takes considerably longer than sitting around talking about cool ideas: actually building everything.

We spent a long time testing One More Draft. We gave early access to friends, writers, filmmakers, and colleagues and basically asked them to beat the hell out of it. Try everything. Break things. Tell us what doesn’t make sense. Tell us what sucks. Tell us what you wish worked differently.

They did.

We fixed things, changed things, added things, and occasionally fixed one thing only to discover that we had somehow broken three completely unrelated things in the process. Apparently that’s software development.

Those early testers helped make One More Draft much better than what John and I originally imagined, and we genuinely can’t thank them enough.

We’re also nowhere near finished.

I’m not sure something like this ever really is. We already have more features and improvements planned, and once more writers get inside the site, I’m sure they’ll find things we never considered. That’s exactly what we want.

Now It’s Your Turn

So what am I asking you to do?

Try it.

Go to OneMoreDraft.com, create a project, and start writing. If you already have something, bring it in. Give Quill a task and see what he notices. Then poke around. Check out the Workshop, Community, Marketplace, development tools, and everything else we somehow managed to cram into this thing.

Or ignore all of that and just write.

I think once you spend some time with One More Draft, you’ll see that it’s much more than a screenplay editor, an AI tool, or another writing website.

We built it for screenwriters, novelists, prose writers, and other storytellers, along with the industry professionals who work with them. More than anything, I hope we can capture at least a little of what I loved about Zoetrope all those years ago: writers helping writers, making connections, getting better, and dreaming big together.

That’s where this whole thing started.

John and I are incredibly proud of what it has become, and we’re grateful to everybody who has helped us get this far.

Thanks for reading, and thanks for checking out OneMoreDraft.com.

Chris Niespodzianski Co-Founder, OneMoreDraft.com