Automatic prose analysis tool
This morning I tried using an online prose analysis tool. Most of them you have to pay for, but I tested a free one called ProwritingAid. My only previous experience with this kind of thing was the so-called grammar corrections in Microsoft Word, which are pretty much 100% wrong. This online tool turned out to be a bit more advanced!
The tool wasn't perfect, but it was useful. You paste in some text and it runs an analysis. Unfortunately you have to sign up for a free account to see the results. Here's a screenshot of what the output looks like (click for bigger image).
Then you have to wade through a lot of junk to get to the good stuff.
Some of it is just a case of the computer getting it wrong because sentence grammar is too complex for it. It flags sentences that are perfectly fine.
Some of it is stuff that could be useful, but isn't. For instance, yeah, sure, overloading your text with 5 and 6 syllable words will make it difficult to read. That doesn't mean I want to replace the word Yugoslavian or Napoleonic by a synonym with less syllables. Or another example: seen the light is a cliché you might want to avoid, but not in the sentence He had seen the light through the window.
Once you've managed to plough through all that, you get to the useful bits. Like highlighting overlong sentences, repeated or overused words, and even better, repeated phrases.
I never realized this before, but every time someone knocks at a door, I invariably write "There came a knock at the door."
It also points out if you're using a mixture of US and UK spelling, always a big problem for me!
Here are a few more screenshots to give you an idea. Click on them for a full-size image.
I have mixed feelings about this kind of tool. You have to take everything it says with a grain of salt. You don't write great prose just by following a few arbitrary rules like avoid adverbs! This afternoon I was reading on Alistair MacLean novel. He and Raymond Chandler are probably the two writers whose prose style I admire the most, and yet this prose analysis tool would litter their text with red highlighting and so-called corrections and improvements.
So yeah, I don't think it could ever replace a good beta reader, or your own careful rereading. Still, it was certainly worth using at least once, just out of curiosity, and I'll probably be using it again.
The tool wasn't perfect, but it was useful. You paste in some text and it runs an analysis. Unfortunately you have to sign up for a free account to see the results. Here's a screenshot of what the output looks like (click for bigger image).
Then you have to wade through a lot of junk to get to the good stuff.
Some of it is just a case of the computer getting it wrong because sentence grammar is too complex for it. It flags sentences that are perfectly fine.
Some of it is stuff that could be useful, but isn't. For instance, yeah, sure, overloading your text with 5 and 6 syllable words will make it difficult to read. That doesn't mean I want to replace the word Yugoslavian or Napoleonic by a synonym with less syllables. Or another example: seen the light is a cliché you might want to avoid, but not in the sentence He had seen the light through the window.
Once you've managed to plough through all that, you get to the useful bits. Like highlighting overlong sentences, repeated or overused words, and even better, repeated phrases.
I never realized this before, but every time someone knocks at a door, I invariably write "There came a knock at the door."
It also points out if you're using a mixture of US and UK spelling, always a big problem for me!
Here are a few more screenshots to give you an idea. Click on them for a full-size image.
I have mixed feelings about this kind of tool. You have to take everything it says with a grain of salt. You don't write great prose just by following a few arbitrary rules like avoid adverbs! This afternoon I was reading on Alistair MacLean novel. He and Raymond Chandler are probably the two writers whose prose style I admire the most, and yet this prose analysis tool would litter their text with red highlighting and so-called corrections and improvements.
So yeah, I don't think it could ever replace a good beta reader, or your own careful rereading. Still, it was certainly worth using at least once, just out of curiosity, and I'll probably be using it again.