Prisimpad: A Guide to Wattpad, Writing, and Whatever

ON WHATEVER: ProWritingAid

So you're broke, like me, and can't afford a real editor. There are several sites which can help. ProWritingAid, Grammarly, AutoCrit, Hemmingway, and many others. Out of all of them, the only one I've used with any resemblance of regularity is ProWritingAid. Because of that, it will be the only one I discuss in detail within this guide.

Before I begin to talk about PWA, I have to make one thing very clear. This is not a replacement for a real human editor. You'll still need to hire a real editor prior to publishing. There is no way around that, even if you have a lot of great editing skills hire a real editor to give it at least one pass before you publish. You can miss something, even they can, but you have a better shot at catching as much as you can catch if you have more than one eye to look it over. PWA is an assistant, but it really pales in comparison to something a real human can do. In many ways, it might even be more work than saving up and hiring an editor because you can't exactly ask it questions. You're left deciphering what its suggestions mean and how to fix them, rather than having someone explain to you why it's suggested to be changed. So again expect to still hire a real editor even after you've used an editing assist software.

That being said, I love PWA. It has helped me immensely. I still consider myself a crap writer with terrible grammar, but this puppy helps find a lot of my issues. I will fully admit, I don't understand why I can't end a sentence with on and other such prepositions, but this baby will point them out to me. This gives me a chance to study the sentence and rewrite it if I need to. Some of my abused words will be pointed out to me as well as how many it suggests being deleted. If something is passive, yup, PWA tells me. Sticky sentences, adverbs, vague bits, and so much more.

When I first started using PWA it was 100% free. They had a premium version, but I was able to edit whole chapters, online, without issue. But a few years ago they unfortunately changed it so that you could only do a small sample of words for free. Which, given that my chapters range from 4-6K words, is very inconvenient. Thus when I finished the rewrite of Freelander and began to edit it, I purchased a year of the Word Add in for PWA. While I didn't re-up it after I was done editing Freelander, if I ever do start to publish with regularity I'll probably pay for the lifetime license.

What it does is scan your document or selected text sample and gives a list of several categories. Under each category is another list of things they suggest are incorrect. At that time, you can go through each suggestion and correct them or ignore them. Do you write in primarily UK English? It'll let you know if you've screwed up and made a US English mistake. I'm primarily a US writer (for obvious reasons) but the first time I used it, it found several words that are a UK English spelling. Because I'm primarily a US writer, those are words I had to change to keep it consistent. I think the only one I ignored was Ax vs Axe because Ax is just weird even to this Yankee doodle.

It's not perfect. The add in crashes if I try to do the entire 100K document at once, but for me that isn't a big deal. I simply cut and paste one chapter into a new document and edit within the new document, then paste it back into my master document when I'm done. In some ways this is perfect because I don't risk royally screwing up my master. Plus it limits me to working on one chapter at a time and not moving on until that chapter is perfect!

The hardest part of PWA is sorting through the suggested edits and figuring out how to fix them. The adverbs are easy, I simply read the sentence without it. If it makes sense, I delete it. If I can think of a non adverb to replace it, I use it. If I can't do either of those, I'll leave it and ignore what PWA says. I'll go through one section at a time. My overused words were probably the best thing to be pointed out. Since then, that report hasn't been nearly as loaded red as it was that first time. I still struggle with the sticky sentences and the vague/abstract words, but I truly feel I've improved because of the assistance of PWA.

Once I've fixed what I feel is everything I can fix, I'll run the chapter through the add in again and see what it says. I'll keep doing that however many times I feel I need to do it until I simply can't figure out how to fix what is left.

If you decided to give the trial of the Word add in a go, here's a tip. Once the trial expires, if you think there's a chance you'll buy a license of the add in, don't do it right away. I didn't think I wanted to spend money for the year so I didn't. A week later they gave me 25% off.

My favorite part of the add in is the fact I can do it all in word. I don't have to keep jumping from word to the browser window. I can see the edits on the screen and fix it right then if I choose to. Though I do occasionally have a problem with the color highlighting that PWA does, not erasing even when I click clear. Something like that, however, is very minor. It's easy enough to retype the words to get rid of that color. It's probably a glitch within the add in.

Now, if you have the latest version of word with the full grammar tools turned on, a lot of these things are pointed out via that. With the last round of edits on Freelander, I used a hybrid of both PWA and Word's in-house grammar help. The thing is, if you're editing without the help of a real human, there's no such thing as having too many editing programs. You still have to use your head, ask a friend, google, etc, when things are suggested to be fixed that you might not agree on. Don't just take their word for it, because there are things that both PWA and Word said was wrong that wasn't wrong in my MS.

If you're in need of editing help, give PWA a shot. Again, it won't replace a human, but it's a damn good aid. Now if only it could point out plot holes and character flaws....