Seeking recs on editing software

[j267]

Hi,

As a science major in college, I use to laugh at those that spend time in writing classes. Now, in my stories, I struggle with grammar, passive/active phrasing, sentence structure, etc.

I'm currently using the free version of Grammarly as an add-on to Word, which has helped. I'm thinking about getting the full subscription, but before I do, I thought I would see if anyone had a suggestion.

Human editors have not worked well for me.

Thanks...

 

[Rustyoznail]

Grammarly free is fine for looking for blunders or college essays. It struggles with "real" dialogue that most stories have. I use it with Google Docs, and probably reject 50% of it's suggestions.

It's still a good tool though.

 

[RejectReality]

One thing that is of tremendous help is text to speech software. I personally use Natural Reader, and ended up upgrading to the paid version, but the free version does the trick well enough.

For me, upgrading meant I could tweak the pronunciations of my weird fantasy names and have them come out approximately the way I want them. Hearing the free version pronounce "Celes" as "Seals" seriously grated on my nerves LOL

You'll hear some of those mistakes that your eyes will drift right over the top of, and that some grammar checkers will miss because they're legitimate words, but not the one you meant.

I tend to catch repetitions that I've otherwise missed when listening to the story read back as well. The program I use highlights the text as it reads, meaning you can follow along in small chunks, which also seems to cause errors to jump out at you.

 

[HeyAll]

I also use the grammarly.com / google docs combo. They both find typos that neither can catch. So it's best to use both, though none of them are 100%

Honestly, the best way to learn grammar is by reading. Find a book you like and read it. If you pay close attention, you'll become a better writer because of it.

If you want a recommendation, try Anne Rice's The Wolf Gift.

Amazing read and it's so well written.

 

[8letters]

My experience with grammar checkers is that they all are inadequate to the job of editing writing. "Style: Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace" by Joseph Williams was a revelation for me, because it taught me about the importance of structuring my writing so it's easy to understand. And that involves moving the things around so the story is presented in a logical order. For example:

It hurt to even move. I was in a lot of pain. I slowly smeared the cold aloe vera on my skin. Yesterday, I went to the beach and got sunburned.

Is not nearly as clear as:

Yesterday, I went to the beach and got sunburned. Now, I was in a lot of pain. It hurt to even move. I slowly smeared the cold aloe vera on my skin.

But that's not the type of changes grammar checks recommend.

 

[Vix_Giovanni]

I agree completely with 8letters. The mechanics of writing are an analytical skill set, and no program understands language well enough to solve grammar, syntax and construction problems for you. The benchmark study materials for writing are The Elements is Style by Strunk & White and The Chicago Manual of Style. Many people recommend the online subscription to CMS if you intend to do a lot of writing. Hope this is helpful!

 

[NotWise]

I agree completely with 8letters. The mechanics of writing are an analytical skill set, and no program understands language well enough to solve grammar, syntax and construction problems for you. The benchmark study materials for writing are The Elements is Style by Strunk & White and The Chicago Manual of Style. Many people recommend the online subscription to CMS if you intend to do a lot of writing. Hope this is helpful!

I've also found Purdue University's Online Writing Lab to be useful, and it's free.

 

[TornConflict]

I highly recommend Grammarly, especially the free edition. I currently use the pay for pro edition. Even with pro it was brought to my attention errors both Grammarly missed and both caused. You do need to proof read again after running through Grammarly Pro. I will be the first to admit I miss commas, sometimes use the wrong their or type so fast I miss a "a" or "the". Grammarly helped me catch those as well as change some wording so my story flows better. I now catch a bunch of this stuff as I write. Recently however, some readers have pointed out some incorrect wordings, tenses, and other issues I know either were not there before or that I fixed prior to running through Grammarly. My wife and I share the Grammarly account and she has had similar problems too. It was breaking some sentences up weird or using inappropriate tenses or wordings. I was worried it was just me. It's an awesome tool just not as awesome as I hoped. Just don't be like me and proof read after as well as before.

 

[SyleusSnow]

I find ProWritingAid better than Grammarly for creative writing (you can tell it you're doing creative writing, not business, and it has tools like a dialog checker specific to story writing). It's also much cheaper. Insert the usual caveats about automatic tools missing stuff and should only be one part of your editing and skill set.

I second the recommendation of using text-to-speech software. Extremely helpful in catching errors and judging the story's pacing. I use one called Balbolka but there are many others, including one built into the current version of MS Word.

 

[j267]

Thanks for the info everyone. Exactly what I was looking for, and much appreciated.

All the best,

 

[MindsMirror]

LibreOffice 3.3x and LanguageTool 4.7

We recommend LibreOffice and LanguageTool. LibreOffice is open source and the LanguageTool extension is free.

-MM

 

[jehoram]

There's an interesting (and rather scary) article in a recent New Yorker magazine about how artificial intelligence software is going beyond simply catching spelling and grammar errors and is on the verge of writing from scratch, so to speak. As yet, it can't go far without falling off the rails and becoming incoherent, but it's unsettling to see how far it's progressed. Good news for you: it's better at writing non-fiction than fiction.

 

[UsuallyPresent]

Neat! More toys to fiddle with, thanks people!

Re: AI/Machine Learning/Expert systems/phrase du jour - it’s a useful tool but until critical problems like data poisoning, overfitting & the rest are solved don’t count it a winner. Those are hard problems that many very bright minds have spent decades working on with limited success. It’ll hit the Easier-for-a-machine 50% quick, tho, and since that’s not the same as the easy-for-a-human 50% it still has nontrivial value today. Replacing humans, well, we shall see, but creative jobs (vice rotework) should be good as long as what they create remains in vogue. IMO, course.

 

[Maeven_quinn]

I find ProWritingAid better than Grammarly for creative writing (you can tell it you're doing creative writing, not business, and it has tools like a dialog checker specific to story writing).

I second ProWritingAid. It helps me catch typos and awkward phrases. It provides an objective metric on varying sentence structures and such. Good tool... no it doesn't catch everything..

I second the recommendation of using text-to-speech software. Extremely helpful in catching errors and judging the story's pacing. I use one called Balbolka but there are many others, including one built into the current version of MS Word.

Text-to-speech is the only method I've found to help me catch typos efficiently. Even with that, I'll still miss a few in a 15k manuscript. Such is life...

 

[BelleCanzuto]

I second ProWritingAid. It helps me catch typos and awkward phrases. It provides an objective metric on varying sentence structures and such. Good tool... no it doesn't catch everything..

Text-to-speech is the only method I've found to help me catch typos efficiently. Even with that, I'll still miss a few in a 15k manuscript. Such is life...

I may try some of these out as well. Especially the text to speech. I've heard of the "read the story out loud" idea a few times. But when I've tried reading my own work out loud I get all caught up in the sound of my own voice, and whether I'm reading it in an entertaining way. And then it just seems to take longer than reading silently. And then I quit... Text to speech would solve most of those problems.

 

[thomasaquino]

LibreGrammar

There is a new LanguageTool fork I have been using because it has a ton of extra style suggestions, and according to the author many more grammar rules. He has called it LibreGrammar.
Truth is,I find it an upgrade, so I am sticking to it.

 

[RejectReality]

Now that I'm back on my feet financially, I may have to go back to ProWritingAid. The free online version just got too cumbersome when they cut down the maximum word count.

I was really fond of the repeated words and phrases section of ProWritingAid's analysis. It just lost most of its effectiveness when you could only put in tiny chunks of a story.

I second ProWritingAid. It helps me catch typos and awkward phrases. It provides an objective metric on varying sentence structures and such. Good tool... no it doesn't catch everything..

 

[SimonDoom]

I think Grammarly is fine, but for anyone who struggles with grammar, spelling, or punctuation I strongly recommend taking a little time to bone up on the basics rather than relying on software, which isn't going to teach you anything. There are some "how to" essays here that are quite helpful. It's worth the time to read them.

 

[DryLips]

Grammarly free is fine for looking for blunders or college essays. It struggles with "real" dialogue that most stories have. I use it with Google Docs, and probably reject 50% of it's suggestions.

It's still a good tool though.

One thing that is of tremendous help is text to speech software. I personally use Natural Reader, and ended up upgrading to the paid version, but the free version does the trick well enough.

I too use both Grammarly (paid subscription) and Google Docs. Between the two, it catches about 30-40% of the problems (I have a tendency to leave out commas in compound sentences). I do reject a lot of suggestions from both (like Grammarly likes to suggest the word "office" to replace "bedroom" and it likes people to speak or talk "to" each other instead of "with" them).

Word comes with text-to-speech and you can select for a few different voices. TTS is very helpful!

 

[KeithD]

If you're not going to enlist an editor or a second pair of eyes for an independent check, the software I suggest is your trained brain. Take some editing and/or basic grammar and composition courses and, if you're writing in the American system, have your software acquire and become familiar with using The Chicago Manual of Style and Webster's Collegiate Dictionary. Software augmentation resources such as William Zinsser's On Writing Well, Theodore Bernstein's The Careful Writer, Sharpe and Gunther's Editing Fact and Fiction, and the American Heritage English Usage would give your software good support too.

I have a couple of essays here that your software might find helpful for Literotica submissions as well:

"Self-Review for Literotica" (https://www.literotica.com/s/self-review-for-literotica)

"Dictionary Smarts Can Up Ratings" (https://www.literotica.com/s/dictionary-smarts-can-up-ratings)

 

[Handley_Page]

Hi,

As a science major in college, I use to laugh at those that spend time in writing classes. Now, in my stories, I struggle with grammar, passive/active phrasing, sentence structure, etc.

I'm currently using the free version of Grammarly as an add-on to Word, which has helped. I'm thinking about getting the full subscription, but before I do, I thought I would see if anyone had a suggestion.

Human editors have not worked well for me.

Thanks...

I doubt that there is one single piece of software to do any more than a first brush at it.
Personally, I find that Word (I use v2003) and it's variations is generally sufficient.

 

[RejectReality]

Just went and looked. They've cut the free word count down to 500 now. Jayzus.

And those prices? Nope. I can get along without it.

Now that I'm back on my feet financially, I may have to go back to ProWritingAid. The free online version just got too cumbersome when they cut down the maximum word count.

I was really fond of the repeated words and phrases section of ProWritingAid's analysis. It just lost most of its effectiveness when you could only put in tiny chunks of a story.

 

[SyleusSnow]

Er, for ProWritingAid? Sucks that they've lowered the free tool's word limit, but it's US$100 for a two year subscription to the unlimited version. That includes the plugins for Word, Scrivener, Google Docs etc. Not bad IMHO since it's priced per user, not per device. You can use it/install it on every machine you have. Grammarly I think is $140/year for a single install of their Word add-on.

 

[RejectReality]

The only thing I ever used it for was the repeated words and phrases report. By the time I plugged it into PWA, I'd already gone through every step of the editing process except for text-to-speech and second set of eyes, when available.

Not worth it for that single report, no matter how useful I found it to be.

Er, for ProWritingAid? Sucks that they've lowered the free tool's word limit, but it's US$100 for a two year subscription to the unlimited version. That includes the plugins for Word, Scrivener, Google Docs etc. Not bad IMHO since it's priced per user, not per device. You can use it/install it on every machine you have. Grammarly I think is $140/year for a single install of their Word add-on.

 

[Alex De Kok]

Libre Office and Language Tool extension

I'm a big fan of Open Source and free software, particularly since I'm no longer in paid employment - retirement, not unemployment - so I've just installed the Language Tool extension in my Libre Office Writer. I'll give this a try to see how I get on with it.That said, I'm fairly confident with my writing and grammar skills.

I haven't been around much for the past couple of years because of health issues, but the writing bug has bitten again, so who knows what might follow. It will take longer than it used to, that's for sure!