SPAG, the Culprit of Lost Marks and Other Assorted Writer Woes

Editing Tools

ProWritingAid. This is the editing tool I use, and it allows you to choose your English usage, so don't disregard it just because you're not from the US. It's a browser extension that adds MORE of the colorful lines! Yay! I know, those lines can get annoying. When I first started using ProWritingAid, I turned them off so they wouldn't bother me until I finished writing a chapter. Then, I'd turn them on and check them on my first read-through. If you hover over the underlined words, a pop-up tells you what the tool thinks is wrong, and what it thinks you should do to fix it. You can also open a full editor that looks kind of like a Word document with different scales and scores on the right and toolbars on the top, so just play around with it to see what you like. Don't accept the recommendations blindly, though. AI isn't always right. You need to use your head, too! Now, I've trained my brain to write in such a way as to avoid the colorful lines completely, and when I do see them, I can usually go back and fix them right away without even hovering over them for the suggestion.

Depending on how advanced you want to be, you can also go into the settings and create your own style guide, turning certain things off and certain things on, adjusting what you want the reference point to be, that kind of thing. I've discovered certain things I specifically want to work on, so I've gone in and done that. My thought process is that I'll focus on this one thing, and then, when I've fairly well mastered that, work on something else. But I didn't even go this direction until I'd used ProWritingAid for over a year and become really comfortable with it.

Disclaimer: ProWritingAid is the only editing tool I've tried, and I've only used the free version, so I can't comment on its premium tools or compare it to other tools.

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Grammarly. I have no personal experience with this tool, but I've found errors in other people's writings that I know ProWritingAid would have caught, and those people told me Grammarly didn't catch them. That leads me to believe ProWritingAid is better than Grammarly, but, again, I haven't used Grammarly, so I can't say for sure. Several of my favorite authors here on Wattpad use Grammarly and love it, and I love what they write, so maybe it's just an issue of user ability. Every tool is only as good as its user, of course, and some writers have a better grasp of SPAG than others. And that's okay. That's how we learn.

Disclaimer: Works written with Grammarly may flag as AI-generated. I assume this isn't an issue unless an author over-uses the rephrasing options to alter their original work significantly, and I assume this can happen with any other editing tool, too, since they're all AI. But that just illustrates my point above. You need to use your head, too. An editing tool is supposed to help you find errors in your writing and coach you on how to write better, not rewrite the story you plug into it and pop out an award-winning piece. If the suggested edits and suggestions are too overwhelming, and you don't even know what to do with all the information you're getting, go into the settings and turn some things off. You don't have to worry about split infinitives if you're not comfortable with something more basic, like comma usage. Focus on one or two areas. Then, when you're feeling more comfortable with those, go into the settings and turn another one or two things on.

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Got anything you want to share? A different editing tool, general thoughts about editing tools, cool uses, bizarre and funny suggestions an editing tool made? Post them in the comments.

My favorite incorrect suggestion is that I should change "stroking her cheek lightly" to "striking her cheek." I'm still getting that suggestion whenever I type that phrase, actually. 😅