Autocrit

[Warren_Paul]

I was looking around at different software packages as alternatives to Word that might provide a better respect for prose in writing and came across this:

Autocrit

Looks rather interesting. Does anyone have any previous experience with it? Is it worth paying membership for? The price is possibly a bit steep, but if it helps perfect your manuscript... might be worth it.

[Abernovo]

I wouldn't trust a programme to critique my work. Sorry. I think that needs people with emotions and opinions.

There's been a few threads like this, though - about alternatives to Word. I use yWriter, from Spacejock, along with Open Office. Both free.

[Mouse]

I'm with Aber. Wouldn't want a non-human critting my stuff!

Anywho, you do know you can adjust Word's grammar settings, right? I have mine set to pick up duplicate words and passive sentences and that's about it.

[Warren_Paul]

Originally Posted by Mouse

Anywho, you do know you can adjust Word's grammar settings, right? I have mine set to pick up duplicate words and passive sentences and that's about it.

Yeah, I've had a look through the settings, some things it still just gets plain wrong, and misses lots. overused words are something I wish it would pick up on. Word appears to be more confused about semicolons than I am.

[Dozmonic]

I had a quick go with the wizard on there and it looks quite interesting. It's not something I would want to pay for because I don't feel it offers enough value for money. If it were built into another package like Scrivener, or as a plugin for yWriter, I think it'd achieve more success. The problem it has is that it's not able to critique plot or characters in any way. If it had an AI aspect to it that'd be fed "good" books and "bad" books it could learn whether you're writing in a similar technical style to the "good" books or not, and feed that back. As it is, it can only feedback on specific rules programmed into it, which seems to focus on proportional repetition of words.

The sample I posted for its critique was past tense, so it told me to remove 50% of the occurrences of the word "had", which wouldn't work :-)

[alchemist]

I gave it a sample too.

It told me that it was "awesome" that I had no had/have.

But I should remove 3 of my 4 coulds.

This did prompt me to find the coulds, and I felt that I could (ha!) have (ha!) removed two of them. I suppose it's only a tool -- it may help but you have to choose what you believe, and you can't rely on it.

[Mouse]

Cool, I didn't know it had a tester thing. My was all 'its' and 'theres' but to be fair, 90% of those were in dialogue.

[Dozmonic]

Some casual googling on the subject of "premise" revealed that there's more to autocrit's website than is immediately obvious: https://www.autocrit.com/websitepubl...ft-of-Writing/ Some interesting reading on there

[Warren_Paul]

Wow, didn't see that section. Maybe this should be moved to writing resources?

A lot of information in there that could be quite useful.

[The Judge]

Wafting this to Writing Resources.

[HareBrain]

Originally Posted by alchemist

I gave it a sample too.

It told me that it was "awesome" that I had no had/have.

But I should remove 3 of my 4 coulds.

This did prompt me to find the coulds, and I felt that I could (ha!) have (ha!) removed two of them. I suppose it's only a tool -- it may help but you have to choose what you believe, and you can't rely on it.

I tried a sample too, and felt the same -- it might be useful for a final brush-up, to pick up a few things you've gone too WIP-blind to notice yourself, but not much else.

Although, if you were relatively new to writing, it might help instil some good habits.

[Ursa major]

I do use Word's grammar checker. Sometimes it finds spelling mistakes that the spelling checker can't, because I've used the wrong (but otherwise valid) word. As someone who's proofreading of their own text is a bit hit and miss, the grammar checker can be of some help.