1. bluescorpion

    bluescorpion New Member

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    Self Editing

    Discussion in 'Self-Publishing' started by bluescorpion, Mar 31, 2022.

    I'm working on my manuscript and had a question for other writers out there. What program do you recommend to edit your work? I've heard of programs such as Grammarly and Prowritingaid, but I wanted to see which program would really give me the best bang for the buck.

    Thanks
     
    Seven Crowns likes this.
  2. Lili.A.Pemberton

    Lili.A.Pemberton Active Member

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    I use both Grammarly and ProWritingAid and Hemingwayapp. If you were to ask me to choose just one, I'd say ProWritingAid. I got the lifetime license on a sale though, so I'm kind of bias on that point. I don't think it'll be worth it if I had to pay for the monthly subscription.
     
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  3. SapereAude

    SapereAude Contributor Contributor

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    I tried Grammarly and I was very unhappy with the results. Won't do it again.

    I have never tried ProWritingAid. There are some mentions of it in other discussions on this site. Personally, I'm generally satisfied with my ability to write correctly. My approach to self-editing is to write, edit, and set aside. Come back to it a couple of weeks later and re-read, and it's astonishing how many things will jump off the page/screen that can use a bit of fine tuning.
     
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  4. Seven Crowns

    Seven Crowns Moderator Staff Supporter Contributor Contest Winner 2022

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    Yeah, that's the problem. How do you do a single payment on these? $20 a month for ProWritingAid? hahaha! Not a chance. That's smart to buy the lifetime, but even that is really steep when you think about it. (That was a genius move buying the sale price up above!) Maybe I'm old, but I remember buying MS Office for hundreds. $300? No monthly fee. I miss those days.

    I do see a lot of these can just be added to Chrome for free. I've got Grammarly on Chrome (or I did, I might have formatted it off my machine since then) and it was fine. It worked. I don't write in Chrome though, so I was just testing it out. I was always pretty impressed with Whitesmoke Grammar. Same problem there though. I don't know why all these companies think they should rent a basic product to customers. Adobe, Microsoft, and all of them do this now. You wind up paying a fortune. It's deceptive and makes me not trust the product.

    I think these are fine for catching slip-ups, but always keep in mind that they are for basic reports. They don't understand the looseness of fiction and will overcorrect everything. You should be ignoring most of their suggestions.
     
  5. bluescorpion

    bluescorpion New Member

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    Thanks for the replies gang. If I just wanted to bypass paying for one of these programs and just pay a good editor, where is a good place to find one?
     
  6. J.T. Woody

    J.T. Woody Book Witch Contributor

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    Someone on here told me about https://hemingwayapp.com/
    I screen grabbed what it does below, but to summarize it, it grades your work on readability, and highlights "problem" sentences (the below isn't my 133 words but an example paragraph. I've never pasted an entire manuscript into it, but I have cut and pasted a chapter in to it).
    upload_2022-4-1_9-6-47.png
     
  7. NWilliams

    NWilliams Active Member

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    @J.T.,

    Does this app let you test it before you buy it? The site your link goes to seems to indicate that it does.
     
  8. Lili.A.Pemberton

    Lili.A.Pemberton Active Member

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    Not who you were asking, but Hemingwayapp is completely free on browser. I don't think there are any big differences between the desktop or browser versions besides the ability to save and load files on the desktop version.
     
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  9. J.T. Woody

    J.T. Woody Book Witch Contributor

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    sorry i was away from the computer, but what @Lili.A.Pemberton is correct!
     
  10. J.T. Woody

    J.T. Woody Book Witch Contributor

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    also, i totally didnt see this :D
    another person on this site mentioned it in a PM

    I guess i should read before I post.....
     
  11. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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    be careful with these things - they all work to hard and fast preprogrammed 'rules' and will destroy the voice of your piece if you let them. There's nothing wrong with choosing to use adverbs, there's nothing wrong with choosing to use passive voice, simpler phrasing is not always better and so on.

    they can be a useful editing tool but don't let them tell you how to write

    I've used autocrit and pro writing aid and in both cases wound up giving up on them, personally my preference is for a simple spell and grammar checker and a self edit with the human brain followed by an actual editor
     
  12. Cephus

    Cephus Contributor Contributor

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    Honestly, software isn't going to get you anywhere fast. The way to have good grammar is to learn how to use grammar correctly. No software will ever replace native skill.
     
  13. J.T. Woody

    J.T. Woody Book Witch Contributor

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    Thats like saying the only way to stay in shape is to BE in shape from the get-go.
    Thats not realistic and not a very helpful thing to say, to be honest.

    There are tools for a reason. No one is perfect.
    Tools arent there to do the work for you, but the guide you so you'll know what to look for/pay attention to going forward
     
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  14. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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    yeah but the issue is that people use them as a substitute for learning... you can learn good grammar from a book (or many resources on line) you don't learn anything by software telling you what to put, especially when the software is wrong (autocrit had about a 10% failure rate when i trialed it)

    also a lot of what these programs do isn't grammatical but the implementation of rather dodgy rules like adverbs=bad , passive voice=bad.

    My take on it is that I only want a spell and grammar checker that works... ie to pick up the occasions i missed a full stop or made a typo... that's useful, highlighting that some programmer who'd probably never written a novel thinks I have too many adverbs is not.

    An interesting exercise is to take an excerpt from a best seller or classic and plug it into hemmingway app or autocrit or whatever and see how it butchers it
     
  15. Cephus

    Cephus Contributor Contributor

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    No, the tools are there so you don't have to learn the skill. They're not there to teach you how to do it right.
     
  16. J.T. Woody

    J.T. Woody Book Witch Contributor

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    i didnt say "teach you".... i said "guide you"

    as in, if you notice its pointing out passive voice or wonky sentence structure by highlighting it... it means "ok, this is something i need to pay attention to" or "looks like i need more work in this area."

    tools are there to help you. not do the work for you. if you see tools as the opposite, then you've been taught wrong or have been using them wrong.
     
  17. J.T. Woody

    J.T. Woody Book Witch Contributor

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    do you know how many people write because it feels good to just do so? do you know how many people dont have access to GOOD quality schooling and teachers? or even afford extra schooling/tutors?
    sometimes you have to make it work however you can, even if it means relying on tools a little too much OR using tools to help you learn what you need to learn.

    if you're not going to be helpful, then respectfully just dont respond....
     
  18. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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    If its pointing out numerous instances in a short excerpt this may be the case but generally it means "i should ignore this inflexible application of stupid rules by a piece of software programmed by a non author."

    On the wider issue I think Cephus has a point - the way most people use these applications is to do the work for them...which is the opposite of learning to do it yourself.

    in the fitness analogy you used earlier they are the equivalent of photoshopping your pictures to have a drop dead physique instead of learning how to train.

    If people want to learn to write with better grammar or a better appreciation of the guidelines around style, these editing packages are not the solution - in the same way that using an autopilot doesn't teach you to fly

    You don't need teachers or expensive tuition.. a copy of Eats Shoots and Leaves will tell you what you need to know about basic grammar, while Strunk and White is the go to reference for style.. the former is currently £3.99 on Kindle while the latter is 77p - or hell you can probably get both in a library
     
    Last edited: Apr 3, 2022
  19. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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    Hemingway app does the first two paras of pride and prejudice

    Screenshot 2022-04-03 at 20-32-44 Hemingway Editor.png

    Apparently Austen should have omitted the use of universally, replaced However with but (Which wouldn't make any sense in that sentence) not written 'is considered' in passive voice, and simplified the second paragraph as it is 'extremely complex''
     
  20. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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    The hemingway app does the sun also rises, by um Hemmingway

    Screenshot 2022-04-03 at 20-43-19 Hemingway Editor.png

    Hemingway apparently uses too many adverbs where he should have aimed for 1 or fewer and used powerful verbs instead, uses passive voice in 'being treated', and the rest of the highlighted text is either hard or very hard to read.

    that's the point at which i walk away shaking my head
     
  21. J.T. Woody

    J.T. Woody Book Witch Contributor

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    Ive only ran one of my chapters through that app. I looked at the highlights with a "why'd it do that?" Sort of lense and then read what it suggests, google as needed to make sure i understand why it suggested what it did, then decide "nah, i like mine more" (or "ok, makes sense.")

    Im a "why" person. My fault is assuming everyone asks "why" before jumping....
    Versus just going with it because it said to.
     
  22. SapereAude

    SapereAude Contributor Contributor

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    Being a simple-minded sort of chap, as my shining examples of readable fiction I tend to look toward Edgar Rice Burroughs, and Anne McCaffrey. They wrote roughly 75 years apart and the styles show that, yet both are (IMHO) eminently readable. I often re-read various of their books simply to recondition my brain to their way(s) of constructing sentences.

    There's a funny thing about best-selling authors: they don't follow the rules, and neither do their editors. For example, the king of the pulp fiction western novels (and short stories) was the late Louis L'Amour. Being somewhat of a comma fanatic myself, I find it jarring when the use of commas fails to observe the simple rule that if two commas are used to set off a phrase, the rest of the sentence should read coherently if that entire phrase is removed. I can't even estimate how many times Louis L'Amour's books violate that basic rule. Unfortunately (for me), every one of those lapses jumps off the page at me and tends to take me out of the flow of the story momentarily. Most people probably don't even notice.

    I keep the grammar checker in Word turned off, because I find it to be so brain dead. I use the spell checker, because I'm a poor typist, but I can't stand the grammar checker. I know that I have a tendency to write in the passive voice so I do my best to be aware of and to avoid that particular vice when writing fiction. Beyond that, I have no use for the AI (Artificial Intelligence) style checkers. I tried Grammarly, and I couldn't get it off my computer fast enough.
     
  23. Iceni

    Iceni Member

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    I sometimes run a paragraph or two through the free version of Grammarly, often when I have had enough of writing and want something different to do. I struggle with a few things, including passive voice, and will use it to help identify issues in certain parts of my draft. I can then consider them at my leisure, and hopefully, I will be able to spot more quickly those items as I go through and edit.

    I don't mind AI. It is useful and can be used to support a human. I just ensure I remember that AI can be programmed with human bias, and for AI like Grammarly, it uses rules, omitting feeling and the voice of the author. But I still find it useful.
     
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  24. Idiosyncratic

    Idiosyncratic Active Member

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    Currently Reading::
    Six of Crows
    I've always found A.I. tools helpful in a ‘hey, look over here’ sort of way, as J.T. suggests. Here are two very complicated sentences. The first one flows and builds nicely. I click ‘ignore suggestion’. The second one has too many separate ideas crammed together. I split it up. I end up ignoring some suggestions to preserve my voice. Occasionally, the suggestions is flat out wrong. My attention is also drawn to legitimate problems though, and on the whole I find it worthwhile.
     
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  25. bluescorpion

    bluescorpion New Member

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    Let's say I just wanted to go with my own editing skills and then looked for a good editor to edit my work to a point that I can take the final edited copy to press myself, where would I look to find such an editor? I have been looking into the pricing of some of these programs and each seems to have their own highlights but you do have to pay for those highlights. I would rather work with a good editor who can preserve my voice as well as help me to bring out the best in my writing.

    Where would I begin to find an editor like this? Is there an online marketplace for editors?
     

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