Don’t you just hate it when editors inadvertently change the voice of your work?
(Or maybe some of them do it on purpose, eh?!)
After all, your voice is the core of what makes your writing yours. There’s little more painful than reading through your latest draft and feeling like the tiny quirks and sprinkles of flair that gave your story its own personality have been slaughtered at the altar of grammar or some other “rule.”
And the result is battle lines drawn, debates had and the publishing experience rendered much more stressful than it necessarily needs to be.
This is actually one of the most common complaints we at AutoCrit hear about other self-editing tools for writers.
Spellcheckers are all well and good – but when it comes to automatic editing (especially for grammar), in just a few clicks you can find the soul of your writing being ripped away.
Thankfully, with AutoCrit that is most definitely not the case!
For today’s AutoCrit Tips & Tricks entry, here’s a quick guide to exercising your control within AutoCrit, and making use of the Personal Words function to add a little zest…
Whilst still making sure your writing is 100% yours.
Using AutoCrit to Protect Your Creative Voice
It’s really very simple – throughout each of AutoCrit’s numerous real-time reports, you have complete control over which words and phrases you want the software to bring to your attention.
Whether you’re analyzing for Adverbs, Clichés, Redundancies, Repetition or even Uncommon Words in Fiction, you can choose whether or not you want to pay attention to each and every item that AutoCrit suggests.
Let’s look at the Uncommon Words in Fiction report for this piece, for example:
Okay, so it isn’t entirely relevant (given this isn’t a fiction piece) – but you can see exactly how you can control your approach to AutoCrit’s recommendations. Simply toggle flagged items on and off, and the highlight in your manuscript will appear or disappear.
This way, you’re free to focus only on the things you choose.
Have a character who has a fondness for spouting the same old cliché line? Fine! If AutoCrit detects the cliché, simply uncheck it – you know it’s there for a reason, so go ahead and focus on the others that slipped through without your intent.
This functionality is available across the board – so if you have a healthy dollop of made up words throughout your manuscript (hey, if it’s good enough for Shakespeare, it’s good enough for us!), with AutoCrit you don’t have to deal with constant flagging of those words.
Just tell it you don’t want to hear about them, and get on with editing the rest.
Simple.
But there’s another thing…
Keep Yourself in Check Using Personal Words
We all have the odd word we’re fond (to a fault) of using in our writing. Ones that seem to slip through subconsciously and cover our stories before we even know it.
This is generally a bad thing for the reading experience unless you’re doing it for a very specific reason (comedy, for example, can come from repetition).
If you have a word or phrase you know you’re a sucker for repeating or abusing, but that isn’t found in the standard AutoCrit analysis categories, no problem! AutoCrit will highlight and find any word or group of words you choose from a customizable Personal List.
Here’s how to use it:
- Click on the Manage Personal Words and Phrases link located below the heading in the analysis sidebar.
- Click on Add Word. Insert the desired words or word group into the field. Click on the Submit button to complete update.
Presto! Your personal word list is now ready to use – and it’ll stay saved in your account for use in every single one of your manuscripts.
This is what AutoCrit is all about – empowerment. It gives you the power to make your writing shine, whilst also leaving the control in your hands.
You make the judgment based on the results of analyses that draw data from thousands of real, published books – so you know that not only are you polishing your work so it meets the exceptional standard demanded of the industry… but you’re also preserving your individual personality, style and verbiage.
Can’t get a better deal than that!
If you haven’t tried AutoCrit yet… what are you waiting for? Create your Free Forever account right here. You’ll be astounded not just by the results, but by how easy it makes producing a professional manuscript you can still proudly call your own.
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