Nel, I love that you’ve been to two editing workshops now. Gosh, I wish they’d had those, or I had known about them in my younger years!
When I was in the writing program at Southern Methodist University here in Dallas a few years ago, this was mentioned. But I have never read in reverse.
What would be nice is if these new reading functions would also do this. Maybe they are and I've not seen yet. Do you know any that do? Word, for example?
Over the years, I’ve lived under the red pen of some scrupulous editors. Once an editor makes what you wrote look like a murder took place on the page took place, you learn what to write and what to cut.
What I use these days for posts is a three-AI check system. I will write a post in Word, either on an old MacBook Pro that has the good keys before Apple ruined laptop keys forever.
Or I will use one of my three primary typewriters—two Royals, one Smith-Corona.
The Hemingway App
Then I will put the draft into the Hemingway app. This ensures I get rid of 100 percent of my adverbs. I also edit my sentences to make them more understandable.
From Hem, one also gets word count and comprehension level. I shoot for sixth grade on most everything.
ProWritingAid
From Hem, I copy the text and then drop it into ProWritingAid.com. I pay whatever it is for a year’s subscription.
This catches a surprising number of things that Hemingway missed. The edits amaze me.
Loading into Medium or Substack
After ProWritingAid, I then drop the text into a loading page for either Medium or Substack.
Grammarly takes over the page. I promise on a stack of Bibles, I’m even more surprised. Grammarly finds stuff ProWritingAid missed.
I assume you're using these apps by default and I showed what everyone in the world already knows, but one never knows anymore.
I've worked with writers before who were too insecure to have another set of eyes look at their writing before it was released or published.
And too many times, to ease my OCD mind, I take a red pen to their materials afterward.
Sometimes I return it to the writer and leave a note that says, "this was avoidable." But they also tend to be the types who don't care.
