PRO WRITING AID

LUNABLUE

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Oct 22, 2007
Messages
68
Reaction score
5
Hi there,
Does anyone use Pro writing aid?
I just came across it today....thoughts
Tia
Lunablue.
 

Lady MacBeth

Out, damn'd spot! out, I say.
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jul 31, 2011
Messages
2,476
Reaction score
289
Location
Canada
I use it. You can't rely on it entirely, but I've found it helpful. Another writer recommended it.
 

cool pop

It's Cool, Miss Pop if You're Nasty
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Oct 20, 2009
Messages
660
Reaction score
131
Location
Texas
I use it. I love it. I've been using it about three years. I bought the lifetime option and I use the Word plugin. I admit I wish they hadn't changed it but despite that it's the best editing software in my opinion.
 

rgroberts

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Aug 1, 2018
Messages
135
Reaction score
14
Location
New England, USA
I also used it and bought a year on it. The plugin is great, and while ProWritingAid won't do everything for you, it's a great editing tool. I really like it's ability to check cliches and catch when I use the wrong pronoun for a character. The ability to find words and phrases used too often is also fantastic.
 

Winfred

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 7, 2010
Messages
297
Reaction score
26
Location
Minnesota
Hi Cool Pop, or Anyone Here! Did you use the PWA free version first? I like PWA a lot, but problem is now I bought a membership I can't get the chapters of my novel over from when I worked on them with the free version of PWA into it being included with the whole novel now I've joined. It only erases the whole novel and leaves it like I were creating a file for just one chapter. A tech help person said use the chapter bar, which I will find, but didn't say actually what I do when I use the bar. He said even though I can load all my novel into the system, that the system works best if you keep it at 10,000 words at a time. He said if you load it all in you'll get a "summary report" to review okay but he said it would be overwhelming and just stick to the about 10K rule. If you have any ideas let me know, PM or wherever it's most convenient, here too. No one's leaving a post at my thread so I thought I'd ask someone with experience. Meanwhile I don't want to work on my novel until I can merge my 3 chapters I spent about 6 or 8 hrs on in the free version. I also went to FAQ's, did Help searches, also under the technical area at the PWA blog, but no luck.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Woollybear

Woollybear

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Nov 27, 2017
Messages
9,720
Reaction score
9,697
Location
USA
I'm now trying the free week of Pro Writing Aid. I've spent a few hours going through 40,000 words to get an overview of where my personal weaknesses are. It looks like grammar and style are areas I'll need to fiddle the most with. I should reduce glue words and try to bump up sentence length as well.

I love the 'consistency' tool. English vs American usage, and quote marks that don't convert to smart quotes are caught here. As well as my occasional serial comma usage.

I also like the 'pacing' tool because of the visual--It seems that the program can identify backstory and introspection, both of which are considered slow, and the graph shows where you might need to break stuff up. My pacing tends to be OK by this measure, and I suspect AW's advice about sprinkling and weaving back story (as well as reading books with an eye for tricks) has helped make that happen.

My main concern is the idea that if you apply an AI to ten different voices, you will end up with ten outputs that are more similar than they had been. Cookie cutter, as it were. I plan to go through and make corrections now, but I do worry that some voice will be lost.

I'd love to find other prowriting aid users to bounce ideas off of.
 

Carrie

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Sep 16, 2019
Messages
239
Reaction score
299
I bought the lifetime membership when there was a deal last spring and I run everything through it but have found it less helpful than I hoped. It's good on punctuation, as I tend to underuse commas, and knew that. But its style suggestions just suck the life out of whatever I'm writing and I almost never take them. That's about all I get from it. It's a comma-adding program. Oh well!
 
  • Like
Reactions: Woollybear

Woollybear

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Nov 27, 2017
Messages
9,720
Reaction score
9,697
Location
USA
Hmmm. I am two chapters in (14 total) in the free week-long trial.

Definitely the comma advice is helpful. But my sentence length average is consistently low and yet trying to increase that feels odd. Not writing, but gaming some algorithm. Worse is the glue-word feature.

I think I like the program overall but am certainly hoping to finish this project within the week-long free trial period.
 

Lakey

professional dilettante
Staff member
Super Moderator
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Apr 20, 2017
Messages
2,714
Reaction score
3,965
Location
New England
What does that mean, your sentence-length average is low? Low compared to what corpus? What are you doing to try to increase it?

Sentence length is a stylistic tool. Varying sentence length affects tone, pacing, mood, voice, etc. I’m sure you know this!* You can look at pieces with vastly different average sentence lengths to get a feeling for how this works (for instance, compare Hemingway‘s “Hills Like White Elephants” with an excerpt from Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day). And the effect can operate within a single work as well—short, choppy sentences for fast-paced moments, lengthier, more complex sentences for more contemplative ones.

So I’m very curious to know what you think this software is telling you and what you are trying to do to address it. Your worry that following its advice will smooth out differences in voice is entirely valid.

:e2coffee:

* If you don’t feel you have a good theoretical grasp on why sentence length matters, than I recommend reading Stanley Fish’s How to Write a Sentence (and How to Read One), or the chapter on sentences in Constance Hale‘s Sin and Syntax.
 
  • Love
Reactions: AW Admin

Woollybear

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Nov 27, 2017
Messages
9,720
Reaction score
9,697
Location
USA
I suppose I don't know what I mean by the sentence-length average being low. :) Yes, they compare to a body of work and to individual authors.

Mathematically, my sentences average out to around 9 - 10 words per sentence over the entire piece. I have very, very few sentences with more than thirty words, in the entire novel. Most novels have occasional sentences that are 40 or 50 words. The opening sentence in The Fault in our Stars is 42 words, for example.

The program states that in fiction, on average, sentence length averages often fall between 11 and 17 words. (Again, as an average--length variability is a different analysis.) So, the program points out that my average falls short of what 'the industry' more typically publishes.

The graphical output on this analysis is useful -- the program provides a bar chart of sentence length, in order by sentence, so a person can spot areas where prose threatens to get choppy. (Which might be intentional, or might not be intentional.) It's not uncomoon for me to spot areas where I have a run of five-word sentences, for example.

In contrast to average sentence length, my length variability (and structure variability), appear to be great. It's just the average length is low. So, I've been targeting areas with runs of low sentence lengths and asking if there are obvious re-wordings that might increase the complexity and average length without losing clarity and flow. Here's an example of such a run from the chapter I'm working on:

Ethyl’s brow wrinkled in thought. “Is that your concern?”

Celeste gave a half-hearted shrug. That and a dozen other things.

“If it’s that, why don’t we build a residence behind the inn? The property’s big enough. We’ll put a cottage there. A caretaker’s cottage.”

Horrified, Celeste whispered, “No. Then I’d be leaving my home each night, while strangers run loose. Don’t you see?

Average sentence length there is 6. The prose is clear enough, but the program is right--most of those are under ten, and it could get choppy real quick.
 

Woollybear

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Nov 27, 2017
Messages
9,720
Reaction score
9,697
Location
USA
(continued)

Simple fixes (not best fixes, but simple fixes) could be any of the following, each of which brings in a new issue:

Ethyl’s brow wrinkled in thought, and she said, “Is that your concern?” (extra dialog tag)

Celeste gave a half-hearted shrug, because while the answer was 'yes,' a dozen other things bothered her at least as much. (extra 'glue words.')

“If it’s that, why don’t we build a residence behind the inn? The property’s big enough for us to put a caretaker's cottage there.” (this dialog feels less natural to me.)

Horrified, Celeste whispered, “No, then I’d be leaving my home each night, while strangers run loose. (I believe this one treads close to comma-splice territory.) Don't you see?

^^ The average sentence length in that slap-dash repair job is 14. I don't like those edits, but I might consider playing with the dialog snatch about the caretaker's cottage.

So, to your question, that's how I'm handling it.

The other issue the program flags which I'm hugely unsure of is the amount of glue words I use. It recommends 40% or fewer such words, and each of my chapters is closer to 45%. But even after scrutinizing each sentence it calls out as overly sticky, I'm only able to get the overall number down to about 42%. Think, think, think.

When all is said and done I'll print out the whole thing again and read on hard copy for flow, and very likely re-introduce some of the 'errors' I'm editing out now. :)

But despite the hair-pulling exercise that is de-stickifying and lengthening (which re-stickifies), I must say, the grammar and style tools on this program are a godsend. So are lots of other options and buttons. There are so many analysis tools. !!! Like, dozens.

Is it worth a subscription? I don't think so, but overall, this free trial is worth the time and attention.
 

Cindyt

Gettin wiggy wit it
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Aug 14, 2016
Messages
4,826
Reaction score
1,954
Location
The Sticks
Website
growingupwolf.blogspot.com
I bought a yearly premium. Not long after I started getting prompts to go premium. :Shrug: Then, it started warning me about its 500-word limit on the free plan. :scared: I still use PWA 500-words at a time. :rolleyes:
 
  • Like
Reactions: Woollybear

Woollybear

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Nov 27, 2017
Messages
9,720
Reaction score
9,697
Location
USA
Oh... I didn't realize there was a 500 word free plan. I'll have to look into that.

I'm analyzing about 3K at a go, at the moment.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Cindyt

AW Admin

Administrator
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Apr 19, 2008
Messages
18,772
Reaction score
6,285
Keep in mind that grammar and style checking software is designed for use in non-fiction, and more specifically, academic student writing and business writing. Not fiction, and absolutely not dialog.

ETA: I say this as someone who uses software and Perl scripts to process linguistic corpora.


This is not software that writers of fiction should be relying on.
 

Woollybear

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Nov 27, 2017
Messages
9,720
Reaction score
9,697
Location
USA
A great point--ProWritingAid claims to be geared toward fiction. It claims that Grammarly is better for non-fiction.

Certainly none of my numerous (and intended) sentence fragments are being flagged, so I suspect the algorithms are designed with fiction in mind. There also seems to be a decent set of tools dedicated to dialog.
 

Cindyt

Gettin wiggy wit it
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Aug 14, 2016
Messages
4,826
Reaction score
1,954
Location
The Sticks
Website
growingupwolf.blogspot.com
Keep in mind that grammar and style checking software is designed for use in non-fiction, and more specifically, academic student writing and business writing. Not fiction, and absolutely not dialog.

ETA: I say this as someone who uses software and Perl scripts to process linguistic corpora.


This is not software that writers of fiction should be relying on
Thanks for the head's up. This is why it likely flags my prose. I ran an experiment with a few lines of published material and it flagged them too. Lol.
 

Woollybear

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Nov 27, 2017
Messages
9,720
Reaction score
9,697
Location
USA
Hmmm. Now I'm insanely curious, Cindy, although yeah, I'd bet a lot of fiction would get flags. (Teehee and I just ran a short sample through from a best-selling author and you are correct.)

The things I've spotted that are clearly wrong in the analysis are things like counting "Mr. Smith." as two 'sentences,' and occasional rewording suggestions that are flat out wrong. (the program wants to change "She was paid in loaves of bread." to "She was paid for loaves of bread." Hehhehehee. I unerstand the basis for the recommendation, but it's wrong.)

But anyway, my comma usage has always been abysmal, and I'll take whatever help I can get! :)
 

Woollybear

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Nov 27, 2017
Messages
9,720
Reaction score
9,697
Location
USA
Having now reached the end of the 40K novella (three solid days of work in Pro Writing Aid) the metrics look acceptable to my goal. Overall: A 95% score on grammar, 80% score on style, and average sentence length across the document is 11 words.

This program is remarkable. It spotted some cliches for me, did a great echo-word highlighting pass (I only used a few of these suggestions), identified when I used UK or US spelling, serial commas, quote usage, and so on. I think I lost about 5% of the length, since the program highlights redundancies (and some of those were not needed.)

A thousand buttons to play with. I did not use the alliteration button, the homonym button, and a bunch of others because that looked to be too far into the weeds, to me.

Apparently, my novella is estimated to require 2 hours and 45 minutes to read. Reading level is grade 5.

I learned (reinforced) multiple comma rules as I worked through it. Those clauses! Those clauses!

Next, I'll print and read through hard copy of the whole thing again and double check the current, post-ProWritingAid voice against my natural ear, with my ear getting the final word.

Thank you for the camaraderie during this little endeavor.