Grammar and spelling are two things I really struggle with. I've put my story up on critique boards and I keep hearing "Lots of misspellings and grammar errors." I've run my story through five different spell checks, and they haven't picked up the "numerous" spelling errors. (Not sure what to make of that) but for the grammar, I was wondering if anyone could recommend a fairly good program.
The two market leaders are ProWriting aid and Grammarly. Neither are a guarantee of error-free writing but they can help. Both have free options where you can paste sections of (word count limited) text into an online portal to check it.
Do you know if you are mis-spelling words or using the wrong word; eg new or knew? Spell checkers wouldn't say there was an error as both are correct, but may be used incorrectly. I find grammarly is a good basic program although sometimes it highlights a possible problem and you need to know what is correct, it doesn't always correct for you.
That's a knew one on me... ETA: To the OP, I've just re-read your prologue, Kalisto ...only one spelling mistake struck me; and greaves isn't that commonplace a word. So, I'm struggling with the "numerous spelling mistakes" notion. As far as the grammar goes, the problem with any program is that it may not understand what you mean well enough to suggest a grammatically correct alternative that means what you want it to, so learning it yourself is, really, the best way.
Someone has to say it. But if you're going to write, then grammar is something you have to learn. No program or ap is going to be an adequate substitute. As someone who struggles myself, I get why people want the easy option. But in the end, you have to be able to do it yourself.
You should utilize other writers to peer-edit your works for you, considering the possibility that programs misinterpret your correct grammar. Otherwise, I strongly suggest Microsoft Word; it directly highlights what it thinks to be incorrect and offers you alternative forms to correct the error.
In my early days, I used the grammar-checker in Lotus WorPro because I had to. Coming from a scientific background where my reports were all written in 3rd person, past tense, imperfect. My writing was poor reading. Throw in other issues I had at the time and it's easy to see I was in big trouble. The GC helped coach me to better writing. I fine-tuned it with the settings. Then a time came when I was confident enough and skilled enough to move away from everyday use, and just turn it on for a final once-over. Currently, LibreOffice has a couple of GCs, and the OP may want to try them for fit, but use any GC as a guide, not a final arbiter. And of course, the more a writer studies and exercises their craft, the more quickly skills in this area will develop.
in addition to which, a really good beta reader or two will help you pick up mistakes that you've missed
I use Grammarly, but as pointed out, it can be wrong. I use it primarily to 'highlight' what it thinks I've done wrong, and then I will reevaluate myself. Sometimes I agree, sometimes I don't. I guess, ultimately, you just need to know grammar yourself to make such a judgement. Grammarly is particuarly handy for those typo's, however, when you've written thee in stead of the for example, but Word hasnt highlighted it as an incorrectly spelt word because its actually a correctly spelt word. Grammarly is good at pointing out 'hey mate, is that what you actually mean, because it doesn't make sense'.
Personally, I go into total and complete lock-down when I'm writing, which means that I cut the internet off. That being the case, I needed proof-reading/editing software that I could install, as opposed to having to copy and paste a lump of text into a bloody webpage. I recently discovered a little piece of software called "Hemingway editor". I'm not going to swear by it and give it 10 gold stars, as I've only used it a couple of times, but so-far-so-good. "Hemingway is a writing assistance tool. It keeps an eye on one’s phrasing and sentence structure, and suggests fixes. Typical fixes include shorter sentences, active instead of passive voice, and fewer adverbs. The app is also coupled with a built-in spellchecker for several English dialects."
