Ship Dock

What it does

Finishing the manuscript is only half the job. To get a book in front of agents, editors, or readers, an author has to write a second, smaller set of documents about the book: a query letter that earns a reply, a synopsis that lays out the whole plot to the length the submission guidelines ask for, a logline that fits in one sentence, a short list of comparable titles, and a sober read on how the book sits against others in its category. This is a different craft from the novel, and it rewards different instincts: where the manuscript wants depth, the pitch wants compression. Most authors write these documents in a rush at the end, alone, with no reference, after the part of the brain that loves the book has stopped being able to summarize it.

The Ship Dock is the workspace in StoryHelm where you build those materials. It draws on what the analysis already knows about your manuscript, the cast, the central conflict, the genre signals, the pacing, so the pitch you draft starts from the real shape of your book rather than a blank page.

The Ship Dock covers five things in particular:

• Query letter: the one-page pitch to an agent or editor: the hook, a short paragraph on the book, your housekeeping (word count, genre, comps), and a brief bio.
• Synopsis: the full-plot summary, ending included, that shows the story holds together from first page to last.
• Logline: the single sentence that names the protagonist, the want, the obstacle, and the stakes.
• Comp titles: two or three recent, comparable books that tell a reader where yours sits on the shelf.
• Bestseller benchmark: a read on where your manuscript sits against the concrete conventions of its category, the expected word-count band, how quickly the opening establishes its hook, and where comparable titles tend to land, so you can see the specific places your book runs short or long before an agent does.

It draws on the analysis, it does not replace it

The Ship Dock sits at the end of the line. By the time you reach it, the Plot DNA and the rest of the analysis have already mapped your scenes, your threads, and your genre signals. The Ship Dock reads from that map, so your logline reflects the actual central conflict and your comps reflect the book you actually wrote rather than the book you meant to write. For a series, it reads from the Series Atlas, so a pitch for Book Four can speak honestly to where the series stands by then.

An example

The hardest job in a pitch is the logline: one sentence that names the real stakes. Almost every first draft hedges, naming a situation instead of a choice. Here is the kind of move the Ship Dock is built to make, shown on an invented book.