I’m blessed with a fabulous writing group which covers both fiction and non-fiction. People bring work for critique, and group members provide friendly and constructive feedback. It’s great fun.
Or it would be, if one member of the group didn’t harp on about automatic editing tools.
Ok, it’s me doing the harping on. A friend recommended the tools; I tried them and got addicted. I’ve set down my thinking here, which should mean less rabbiting from me about the tools.
I use ‘ProWritingAid’. Other tools exist, such as Grammarly, AutoCrit and Hemmingway Editor. Hunt down a review and make a choice.
9 Manuscript Editing Software Programs Reviewed
The best software is the one you know, so I’ll avoid recommendations. Most offer a free tester version or a short subscription, so try them out.
The tools are easy to use. Write your piece, click a button to analyse your words, cry at the red ink, and revise. ‘ProWritingAid’ offers a range of reports from grammar checkers, to ease of writing scores, and a check of repeated phrases. Each tool spews out enough numbers to fill a telephone directory, but turning numbers into better writing needs thought.
This blog post covers the thinking required.
The pandemic shunted our feedback sessions online, and links to Google Docs have replaced photocopied sheets. I’ve sneakily run the editing tools on people’s work, and one issue keeps rearing up. Our contributors write well, but the compositions are often stuffed with what the tools call ‘glue words’. These are filler words, or scaffolding words, like ‘and’, ‘or’, ‘was’, ‘that’. They’re essential, but can be overused.
I’m as guilty as anyone. The first draft of my first novel ‘Lightmaker’ was 52% glue words, and you’re recommended not to exceed 40%. The writing tool diagnosed the problem well, but what was the treatment? I could highlight the glue words, but cutting them out left the sentence meaningless. How could I improve?
I scrawled the most common glue words on a card and highlighted each miscreant in my writing. Cutting the glue words only left nonsense behind, but progress was possible.
‘The leaves that were falling,’
became
‘The falling leaves.’
Some words were troublemakers. ‘Was, able, get and just’ often meant better choices existed.
‘There was something dripping onto her face,’
became
‘Something dripped onto her face.’
Plurals also attracted glue words.
‘For each of these experiences,’
became
‘For each experience.’
Weeding out glue words like this helped. I learnt to look again whenever glue words reached the manuscript, but too many remained.
I stepped back. Some of my sentences did three or four jobs, and the joins between jobs needed scaffolding, which meant glue words. Rewriting gave each sentence one job, and I ditched even more glue.
‘As Paul was running to try to catch the train that would take him to his new home in Bristol, he remembered that he had forgotten to say goodbye to Jenny and he knew that her feelings would be very hurt,’
becomes
‘Paul sprinted for the Bristol train to start his new life. Jenny flashed into his mind. He’d forgotten to say goodbye, and she would never forgive him.’
I’ve lost ‘he remembered that’, and ‘he knew that’. To be honest, I’ve lost nothing. It’s clear who is doing the remembering and the knowing. My other cuts help too – the phrase ‘her feelings would be very hurt’, means the same as ‘she would never forgive him.’ – but the second phrase is 16% shorter. It also replaces a vague ‘hurt’ with talk of ‘forgiving’. These two lines have identical meanings, but the second has fewer words, so those words work harder.
The guideline about a sentence having one job is just a guideline – and below I’ll explain when to swerve around that idea.
Avoiding the passive voice also helped. There are exceptions, but the active voice usually means fewer sticky words. The boy should pick the lock – don’t have the lock picked by the boy.
Don’t pester readers with trivia. A character’s opinion might be crucial, but details of shopping trips may bore readers. Unless your character needs to spout trivialities, avoid phrases like ‘I picked up this book in the Oxford branch of Waterstones, and read it while…’
My thesaurus would be dog-eared if it wasn’t virtual. I never stop hunting for strong verbs – the right verb brings extra meaning. ‘Look over’ is vague. ‘Stare’ suggests hostility, ‘gaze’ suggests calm, ‘scan’ suggests analysis.
Aim to replace adverbs. They might work in dialogue, and they can’t always be avoided – I can’t think of a replacement for ‘whispered seductively’ – but most automatic editing tools flag adverbs as errors. Don’t slavishly follow the tool’s recommendations, but search for a stronger verb.
There’s no silver bullet, but the above techniques dish out some lead bullets.
I stepped back again.
The first professional feedback I received on ‘Lightmaker’ described my writing as competent, but lacking the strength to grab an agent’s attention. Understanding what strength meant took time, but reading published novels revealed new techniques. Good writing never wastes a word; even the spaces between words go to work.
Here’s a demonstration. The sentence:
‘I grew up in rural Somerset, but had the peculiar goal of wanting to be an astronaut.’
might be better voiced as
‘I dreamt of becoming an astronaut, strange for a Somerset boy.’
Here’s my journey.
I listed the essential points:
- I wanted to be an astronaut as a boy.
- I grew up in Somerset.
- Astronaut is an unusual career choice for someone growing up in Somerset.
It’s best to start with the key point, and that’s my distinctive ambition. ‘Dreamt of becoming’ is shorter than ‘I wanted to be an astronaut’ and suggests an emotional goal. It also sheds glue words. My new sentence starts ‘I dreamt of becoming an astronaut’.
Starting sentences with the main point usually reduces glue word scaffolding.
The second point deals with origins. I can replace the original ‘I grew up in rural Somerset’ with ‘Somerset boy’, and this also handles the ‘as a boy’ section of the first point. Readers are bright – give them two plus two and they’ll make four and even enjoy the task.
The word ‘rural’ has vanished. It could be added without harm, but the key point is the ambition’s strangeness.
The third point covers the unusual career goal with ‘peculiar choice’. This isn’t bad, but I need glue words to gum the phrase onto the sentence’s start. The second version starts with the boy’s goal – he’s making a choice – so I don’t need the word ‘choice’ again. Strange is a simpler word than ‘peculiar’, so may be more vivid.
Some glue can’t be avoided, and I need a ‘for a’ to link the strangeness with the boy’s situation, but the second sentence’s glue ratio is 36.4% against the first’s 52.9%.
There’s another reason to prefer the second sentence. A narrator describes the dreaming youth as a ‘Somerset boy’, his thoughts as ‘strange’, and these opinionated descriptions hint at the narrator’s personality. I’d argue there’s voice in the second sentence – that combination of personality and distinctiveness sought by literary agents. These techniques helped me reach that voice, but I also needed creativity. The phrase ‘Somerset boy’ strengthens the sentence and clarifies the meaning: the situation becomes vivid. The first sentence has 17 words, the second version 11. Equal amounts of drama are concentrated in fewer words.
Try these techniques and watch the improvements roll in. Don’t be ruled by the glue word percentage – great writing is sometimes stuffed with glue – but examine each word carefully. Can you improve?
You might know of my admiration for George Orwell’s writing. He developed six questions and six guidelines for writers, and here’s a link.
George Orwell 6 questions and 6 rules
These guidelines inspired this article, and perhaps I can end by quoting his last point.
‘Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.’
That’s how I’d treat the automatic editors. Stay in charge. Treat automatic editing tools like a wonky sat-nav. If the editor flags up phrases, scrutinise those phrases, but if you’re sure those words work, keep them in.