Grammarly is amazing. Change my mind.

[dadadadiox]

I just went through a series of maddening Grammarly moments where it red flags something, you fix it, but it doesn't apply, over, and over again. Then there's the scrolling up it does when you correct and then the page zooms back 1500 words. Right now, Grammarly is telling me to replace maddening with annoying... as if maddening is not a word. I know there have been Grammarly trashing threads before... and I enjoyed them. So, here's one more for entertainment.

Grammarly is amazing. Change my mind.

 

[gordo12]

Grammarly is amazing. Change my mind.

Why? It's not perfect, but I think it's great too!

 

[Euphony]

Grammarly is rarely Far from the Madding Crowd.

 

[Euphony]

Most tools have a proficiency level sweet spot.

You need to have enough knowledge to know when you can push back but not so much the frequent "err on the side of caution" (or flat out incorrect assumptions) feels like unending questioning of your abilities.

It's like meshing with a good editor but tools are REALLY good at a narrow focus but shit at whole spectrum or grey areas.

Best use is bulk "duh" moment fixes but overall I don't know if that paired with its downsides isn't a net negative.

 

[Rob_Royale]

It's useful and free.

 

[alohadave]

Right now, Grammarly is telling me to replace maddening with annoying... as if maddening is not a word.

Grammarly is oriented to business communications, not fiction or prose. That suggestion makes perfect sense in that context.

I use it more to find punctuation errors, but sometimes the word suggestions are useful.

 

[gordo12]

I use it more to find punctuation errors, but sometimes the word suggestions are useful.

Bingo! That's exactly why I use it. The business type of communication suggests a lot of truncated sentences. Not good for
fiction at all.

 

[SyleusSnow]

Grammarly is oriented to business communications, not fiction or prose. That suggestion makes perfect sense in that context.

Exactly. Hearing writers using Grammarly for fiction is infuriating. But they advertise so heavily. It's for business writing. Same for the new editor built into MS Word.

ProWritingAid is the tool for fiction and is used by many successful authors. Too bad the free version doesn't have the fiction mode, though. After years of paying yearly for the pro version, I finally got a lifetime license. Well worth it, and much cheaper than Grammarly. I set mine to compare my writing to Nora Roberts, though I might change it to Ludlum or Suzanne Collins .

 

[ElectricBlue]

Exactly. Hearing writers using Grammarly for fiction is infuriating. But they advertise so heavily. It's for business writing. Same for the new editor built into MS Word.

Yes, this. I used it for about five minutes, and decided I was a good enough business writer already. For fiction, it's... best avoided.

 

[KachinaDoll]

I don't use Grammarly to help me write a better story, I use it to check for typos and punctuation. For that, it's fine.