Why does my edit look stuck, or seem to restart itself?

It's almost always still working!

Long manuscripts (especially anything over 100,000 words) take longer to process, and the progress bar isn't a perfectly smooth countdown.

We'll talk about what's actually happening below, but if it's been longer than an hour and you're getting worried, you can always email us by replying to your receipt or sending us a note at [email protected]. We're happy to check out what's going on for you!

Why the progress bar can pause near the end

Your edit runs as a series of steps (Editorial Letter, Revision Plan, Chapter Notes, and so on). The progress bar tracks how many steps are complete, not how far through the manuscript we are.

Chapter Notes is usually the last and biggest step to finish, and for a long book it takes a while to write feedback for every chapter. That's usually what's behind a progress bar that looks stuck around 97-98%: it's still writing, just thinking really hard!

Why it can look like it "starts over"

For a long manuscript, Chapter Notes can take multiple passes to fully write. We've recently (September 2026) fixed an issue where an interrupted pass could visually reset the document back to the beginning, even though no progress was actually lost.

Now, an interrupted pass picks up exactly where it left off, chapter by chapter, instead of appearing to restart.

How long should I expect to wait?

Most edits finish in well under an hour. Very long manuscripts, or ones that hit a hiccup with our AI provider mid-stream, can take longer while the system automatically retries and resumes, occasionally up to a few hours.

When to reach out

If your edit has been sitting for longer than an hour with no progress, or you'd just like us to take a look, email [email protected] with your project link.