Publishing agents and editors expect to see flawless, polished writing when an author submits a manuscript. For this reason, many writers meet together in critique groups and beta reading groups. There are pros and cons to writing critique groups. One advantage is when members read the manuscript they can offer book writing help and personal suggestions.
The downside of this system is it can sometimes take several days to complete a critique. Many times writers may feel the criticism is too harsh or unjustified. This is all part of the process. Professional author Nina Davies thought there might be a faster way to help writers critique their manuscripts.
Developing the AutoCrit Writing Software
Her background in computational linguistics gave Nina Davies the skills to develop software for writers that gives them immediate feedback about weaknesses in a manuscript. She noticed that writers repeatedly make the same mistakes. She developed AutoCrit to analyze the writing for overused phrases, repeated words, clichés, sentence length variation, and slow pacing. These are areas writers, both freelance and creative, published as well as unpublished, strive to improve with every draft.
The AutoCrit Editing Wizard is Simple to Use
The novel editing software is not downloaded to the user’s computer. Instead, the author cuts and pastes a portion of the manuscript into a text window and chooses which report to view. The editing wizard shows a detailed analysis of the writing on screen with any questionable areas highlighted in different colors.
Authors may then edit the manuscript in their own word processing programs. The choice is up to the individual what should be changed and what can be kept as originally written. By using the AutoCrit Editing Wizard on a regular basis, writers may improve their writing and avoid making the same mistakes over and over again.
As an additional help, and in order to give back to the writing community, Nina Davies included a writing advice center on the AutoCrit website. It’s a collection of articles by published writers on the craft, motivation, and creativity. This innovative product and site was awarded the Writers Digest 101 Best Websites for Writers.
Use AutoCrit Editing Software Free or Pay for Premium Services
The editing wizard may be used free up to five times per day. If a user decides to purchase a membership, there are three levels from which to choose. Each level offers more reports and accepts longer manuscripts. Paid users have no limitation on how many times per day they edit a manuscript. Unlike a freelance editing service or novel editor, this writing software gives the author complete control of the process.
According to Nina Davies, the Platinum membership is the most popular, offering access to all the reports on up to 8,000 words at a time. This is a reasonable level to edit entire chapters and scenes of a work in progress.
AutoCrit also offers a 100% money back guarantee, so there is no risk to try one of the paid memberships. Over the past two years, the number of writers using the software has doubled. Testimonials from pleased customers are available on the website.
Software can never replace the judgement of a writer, however, it can slash the time spent editing and revising a manuscript for routine writing mistakes. It can become a useful weapon in a writer’s armory, helping to polish and refine before submitting a manuscript to a fiction book publisher.
Nina Davies is the author of two novels and founder of the AutoCrit Writing Center, home of the AutoCrit Editing Wizard. She may be found giving writing advice on Twitter as @editingwizard and offering discounts at AutoCrit’s Facebook page.
In full disclosure, this reviewer used the free service for more than one year and recently decided to purchase the product. Nina Davies offered an additional thirty day extension of the membership when she learned of this review. The AutoCrit Wizard was used to analyze this article before publication.
Suzanne Pitner - Suzanne Pitner is a teacher and published writer. A member of RWA and YARWA, she writes fiction as Suzanne Lilly.
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