Lou Paduano | Urban Fantasy Novels | Sci-Fi Crime Series

Self-Editing Tools – AutoCrit

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I mentioned AutoCrit during my last post so I wanted to go into it a bit further. I became a member earlier this year after test driving the program. They offer a 14 day money back guarantee to give some time to work through the huge helping of reports offered to assist in improving your writing. Or at the very least, a second set of eyes on your manuscript that really fleshes out where you need to focus when it comes to self-editing.

I loved it. My pride though, thought of it as a cheat. It’s not. Pride was shown the door. Quickly.

What is AutoCrit?

AutoCrit is a critiquing software able to point out the inherent flaws of your manuscript while also giving you tons of positive feedback for the few things you’ve managed to kick ass on during the drafting process. It has a ton of functionality so you can view the manuscript as a whole or broken down by chapter with the ability to shift from chapter to chapter with the touch of a button instead of scrolling through pages and pages of text.

To get started with the program all you have to do is upload your text. There are two options for this that include cutting and pasting your work from a Word document into the editor or you can upload it.

autocrit menus

The menu is broken up into tiers. The top tier are categories and the bottom runs specific reports within the main topic. The Home tab offers a summary look at your work, but where AutoCrit really gets into the nitty gritty of your manuscript is the other categories.

 

Pacing & Momentumautocrit pacing

This category is great at figuring out where your manuscript slows to a crawl or if it is plagued with verbose sentences that need to be cut down and repositioned so the overall piece reads better. I tend to look at the Pacing report first to see if there are inherent weaknesses in the structure of my work. AutoCrit highlights paragraphs of text that could slow down a reader. This might be the intention of the author for a specific beat but more often than not there is something breaking the flow of the chapter and needs to be looked at.

A chapter with a lot of exposition has a tendency to weigh the rest of the manuscript down if not paced well and this report helps point out blocks of text that could potentially slow down the momentum of your tale.

Dialogue

The reports in this area help clean up conversation pieces within your manuscript. How many times did you write that someone asked a question instead of leaving it with a simple question mark? Did Loren reply to the question sharply, curtly, aggressively, sleepily or dumbly? Is the adverb necessary to the scene or does the dialogue itself carry the message across to the reader? These reports are great to assist in cleaning up unnecessary and overused tags and adverbs.

Word Choice

I only use two reports under this category (so far). Sentence starters is something I’ve ignored in the past but ran it out of curiosity on my last project. Very glad I did. Especially after getting an earful from my wife about my use of And at the start of my sentences. Here I thought I was being dramatic. Oh well.

Generic Descriptions is a fun little report as well to help beef up your prose. It calls me out on my use of the words Great and Looked and forces me to remember there is an entire English language of colorful descriptors to utilize.

Strong Writing

autocrit passive voice

Strong writing is where I tend to spend many hours during this part of the self-editing process. Every report under this category is crucial to making your writing pop off the page for the reader. Tightening up the language through the Adverb, Redundancies and Unnecessary Filler Words reports are my first stop at this point. From simple things like writing Loren stood instead of Loren stood up. (Maybe he stood down? Idiot!) My favorite part is that I have already made a pass of the work at this point and still missed things like this…

Where I typically spend a full day is with Passive Voice and Showing vs. Telling. If these reports are showing anything then there is work to be done. I love these two reports because they call me out on my own laziness and push me to rework my sentence structure in ways I never would have imagined before signing up for this service. Making my work more active and more vibrant, which I hope shows in the final product.

A great weapon for your writing arsenal.

AutoCrit really is a fantastic tool to add to your writing arsenal. A second set of eyes that, while not as nuanced as a beta reader, will give you things no reader can give you as thoroughly. A complete look at your manuscript with detailed reports on where you rocked it and where you need to improve.

Invaluable.

And priced as such.

Now, full disclosure. When I signed up for the service AutoCrit’s monthly plan was only $12 per month and they were offering a discount on an annual membership for $97. I almost walked away at that point. However, AutoCrit offered the use of a free sample through their homepage to test drive their service and a 14 day money back guarantee so that won me over in the end.

Unfortunately, prices have increased since April so once again I will have to question the money issue and the importance of the product when renewal time comes up next year. Plans now start at $29.97 per month with an annual membership going for $359.64. That’s quite the price hike and something to consider when weighing your own membership.

Take a closer look at the service and all of the details here.

Thanks for reading.

Self-Editing – Treating Your Writing Like a Professional

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Everyone writes. Don’t deny it. Even the weekly grocery list counts in this regard. Seriously. You make your grocery list and what do you do with it before you go to the store? You look it over. Double checking every item. (Or triple checking it if you’re like me. Then leave it at home like an idiot.) You remember something you need. You realize three tubs of ice cream probably aren’t necessary and make it a more advisable two. That is self-editing at its core and it is the most crucial part of the writing process.

I’ve shared my feelings on self-editing previously. It’s no secret I find it extremely painful as a process. But a completely necessary one. Self-editing is the true first step to turning your favorite Buffy fan-fiction into a dynamite draft ready to be seen by others. Not publication (HECK NO) but a step closer. And it’s because self-editing forces you to look at your work like a professional.

Those that can see the flaws and find solutions to them are the ones ready for primetime. Defending your first draft, riddled with typos and logic problems will not help you succeed. It will hold you back. It did for me for a long time.

How did I learn to cope with self-editing?

I developed a system. The same way every writer should. For EVERYTHING. Plotting. Drafting. And especially Editing.

With a first draft I do a cursory spell check, cursing at Word for wasting my time. Then I print the bugger off and tuck it in a three-ring binder. I used to just paper clip sections of the behemoth – not a smart way to go – so I have to thank Joanna Penn for the binder idea. From there I start my first readthrough.

First readthroughs are scary. You’ve spent months putting your draft together and aren’t quite ready to pull it apart yet. You gloss over grating details and choppy sentences because you KNOW they work. Except they don’t and you hover over them for a full minute (more like ten) trying to figure out what the hell you were talking about.

Highlight it. Underline it. Question it.

self-editing
My favorite is when a minor character’s name changes halfway through the story…

Question Everything.

That’s the key. Question everything. Setting. Staging. Movement. Motivation. Dialogue. Dialogue tags even. If questions come up for you, even small ones, they will definitely come up for your readers.

Note funky sentences, poor transitions, generic descriptions of locations and characters you probably haven’t thought enough about yet. Most importantly take your time with it.

Once the first readthrough is done I go through everything and make my changes. Easy ones first. Changes that require a major overhaul or solving a logic problem I typically highlight for a second pass. It gives me time to think about the best approach depending on the situation and doesn’t hold me up from other corrections.

Circle back to your highlights when the answers are clear. You may have broken more than you fixed but solving the fundamentals of your draft, the logic of your story is critical to moving forward with the next pass (or three).

Save constantly and under a new filename. For every draft. And keep the physical copy of that first draft. You will not regret this.

A second set of eyes

For a second full pass through the manuscript I use AutoCrit, a handy tool I will be talking about in detail on Monday. I upload the revised draft into their system and run every report imaginable to clean up my prose. I would be lost without this tool and it really helps me catch overused words and other silly things I should be able to realize on my own. (I’m getting better at it, dammit.) It also keeps me from passing it off to my wife to clean up. I’m sure she appreciates the reprieve.

Three is a magic number.

The third readthrough occurs on the computer. Sometimes I print it out and work it the same as the first. It depends on how confident I am about the draft. Sometimes it takes four or five or twelve passes but by this time I’ve typically hacked the crap out of myself and am working on the nitpicky (yet still incredibly important) parts of the narrative.

Was Soriya injured on her right side or left? Did Loren shave today? Who is holding a gun and who has the ice cream cone? (Two ice cream references? I should probably eat before I write these posts…)

Once again, it all comes down to questions. Never be afraid to ask them and never back away from every potential answer. If something is holding you back from passing the draft off to your beta readers there is a reason behind it. You may destroy that “perfect” first draft, that heavenly vision you held in your mind for your book but it will make it stronger in the end.

That’s how you take your writing to the next level.

Thanks for reading.

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