Hemingway Editor

http://www.hemingwayapp.com/

The Hemingway Editor is a text editor that you can paste stuff into and it provides real-time automated criticism.

I discovered it recently and felt like sharing it with you guys, perhaps some of you will find it useful. I tend to find myself rambling a lot and this does help cut down on that while preserving my intended message.

i've heard of this thing before, but totally forgot about it. i tried pasting in a giant wall of text i wrote some months ago, and, well...

https://dl.dropbox.com/s/xwn9cj9nlwy0jv6/what.PNG?dl=0

Let's all write like an American marketer! It's like the grammar checker in MS Word on steroids. Ugh!

I would like to see a Bukowski editor. Now that shit would be the motherfucking ass.

And FIY this post gets a "grade 2". That's how boss it is.

Demon of the Well's posts in DWmegawad Club are all red.

Wow this thing doesn't like my reviews. Too many adverbs? Apparently it hates words that end in LY, really, comically, partially.

I like the editor, but it does have an issue here and there. When you edit something sometimes the highlighted words just appear overlapping other words.

Apparently, (adberb) I have a lot of complex sentences that I was able to break up into two sentences or cut down to a list.

edit: Post gets a grade 7!

Pasted a bunch of stupid shit from some of my posts in the DWMC threads. The impression I get from this app is along the lines of "stop typing like that, you're confusing kids and stupid people".

After trying this out with a school essay, I concluded this is not going to help to make it any better.

BaronOfStuff said:

Pasted a bunch of stupid shit from some of my posts in the DWMC threads. The impression I get from this app is along the lines of "stop typing like that, you're confusing kids and stupid people".

I agree. I've been dropping stuff from grade 9 to grade 7. So my reviews are now for middle school kids and not just high school kids.

Fuck the macho-hipster cult of Hemmingway and fuck this prescriptive bullshit. If I want to write adverby prose, in the passive voice, that employs baroque synonyms and long, windy sentences that seem to go on forever, then I will, and I don't want the software I'm using to nag me about it. Writing should be fun. It should be about expressing yourself in your own style, not in someone else's.

I like stuff like this because you'll often see people mixing their clauses, using passive voice, and (usually incorrectly) $5 words to try and sound sophisticated. If you're having trouble envisioning this, think Sarah Palin; she's the queen of trying to sound smarter than you really are. "We will send the troops to be doing what they are told they are needed to do for freedom and hegemony in the region that they are going to". (not a real quote... but maybe it is...?)

Jonathan said:

Fuck the macho-hipster cult of Hemmingway and fuck this prescriptive bullshit. If I want to write adverby prose, in the passive voice, that employs baroque synonyms and long, windy sentences that seem to go on forever, then I will, and I don't want the software I'm using to nag me about it. Writing should be fun. It should be about expressing yourself in your own style, not in someone else's.

This. Also fuck putting an arbitrary "reading level" on your writing. If I'm writing for myself and I apparently read at a post-college level, I don't give a shit if my writing is hard to read for a 7th grader.

Ladna said:

"We will send the troops to be doing what they are told they are needed to do for freedom and hegemony in the region that they are going to".

Sounds like something from Full-Life Consequences. "It's a good day to do what has to be done by me and help my brother to defeat the enemys!"

BaronOfStuff said:

Sounds like something from Full-Life Consequences.

Or the way the Kraang speak in TMNT O_O

To that which we call Krang Speak.

Hmm... I'm a hopeless writing/language antitalent myself, reconciled with the fact. I doubt that I'd indeed manage to improve myself much, using this thing. But it seems nice, pretty cool, that such a thing exists and that I can use it for free. [<--grade 6]

hemingwayapp.com said:
The Grade Level is the lowest education level needed to understand your text.

Maes said:
I would like to see a Bukowski editor. Now that shit would be the motherfucking ass.

And FIY this post gets a "grade 2". That's how boss it is.

Heh. Now read this. [<--grade 0]

Heh again.

Have fun guys

Here's something that I found hilarious. I used Amazon's random page finder to find me a random page from the Doom 1 novel. Then I typed out the page and entered it into Hemmingway and it gave me a 5th grade level!

If anyone wants to try, here's the page:

"I found a cupboard and hid out," she continued. "I could hear them moving just beyond the door. Sometimes hearding is worse than seeing."

I nodded at at the truth of that observation. "Like this ugly demo," I said, kicking the brown hide of the creature she'd dispatched. "They hiss like giant serpents. Scares the piss out of you in the dark."

She laughed. "I wouldn't call that a demon! I've seen some others that more deserve the name."

"Yeah," I agreed, remembering the minotaurs. "I guess those hell-princes you warned me about with your skull and crossbones are a more traditional demon design."

"I wouldn't know," she said. "I never saw them. You're talking about the pentagram room?"

"You didn't see them?"

"I put one foot into that room and heard one of 'em scream. I guess it saw me, but I didn't stick around to see it! What do they look like?"

"Eight feet tall, bright, flaming red, with goat legs and huge horns. They fire some sort of electrical-ball lightning from wrist-launchers."

She shook her dead. "Nasty. But the thing I call a demon is a huge, bloated, pink thing with tusks. Maybe we should call it a pinkie?"

"Does your pink demon make a pig sound?"

The way she shuddered answered the question before she nodded. She wasn't kidding about what you hear being worse than what you see. I didn't press hear for further details. I had a sinking feeling that no description was necessary. Before this was over, I imagined we'd be seeing lots worse nightmares, a full menagerie from the lowest pits of hell.

"So what happened after you left me the warning?"

She smiled, happy to oblige. "I ran like the devil." She interrupted herself, uncomfortable with the expression. The way things were going, there was no telling who we might meet next. "I ran," she said, "about found the crack."

BaronOfStuff said:

Sounds like something from Full-Life Consequences. "It's a good day to do what has to be done by me and help my brother to defeat the enemys!"

Repercussions Of Evil gets a "Grade 2 - good" rating.

It's something that can help you make sure your text is simple and easy to understand; but it's not something that can tell you whether writing is good or not.

I'd like to paste Joyce's Ulysses in it.

I just put an actual Hemingway excerpt in and it only got a Grade 17. Go figure.

Gez said:

It's something that can help you make sure your text is simple and easy to understand; but it's not something that can tell you whether writing is good or not.

I'd like to paste Joyce's Ulysses in it.

Not Finnegan's Wake?

geo said:

Here's something that I found hilarious. I used Amazon's random page finder to find me a random page from the Doom 1 novel. Then I typed out the page and entered it into Hemmingway and it gave me a 5th grade level!

theres a lot of dialogue on that page which might be why. You might want to take something out of the prologue or something where the author narrates what's happening and describes the setting.

thank you everyone who posted in the usual always/never form. Yes its a problem if you always use it, no its not a problem if you never use it. It can be very useful if you use it in certain circumstances, like for example if you were emailing someone who is not a native English speaker.

Angelina Jolie had her manager or agent put in a bid to buy Brad Pitt a typewriter used by Hemingway to type out 'For Whom the Bell Tolls.' There are 7 Hemingway typewriters in the world. The others are owned by a private collector.

White Out was invented by the mother in law of Mike Nesmith from the Monkees.

I'm using the editor again. Wow I use a lot of adverbs. I'm not sure if that's a good or a bad thing. I understand that its just an extra word, but that's how I speak and these adverbs are descriptive. I constantly use adverbs. Instead of saying I use adverbs.

When I speak I feel like it adds emphasis. However, Steven King feels only the weak writer uses passive things >> http://www.brainpickings.org/2013/03/13/stephen-king-on-adverbs/

A few words in every review can be simplified. Such as accelerate = speed up. I'm not sure if that's a good thing. I'd hope everyone would know the meaning of accelerate and other standardized big words. Things like require can be simplified to need.

I once had an editor tell me editing is done when nothing more can be taken out.

Time for another necro bump. They have a new version out that seems even tougher on long sentences.

I'm still using it for my stuff. Not just that, but I've started using it on professional game reviewers. Seems like you need a college reading level for most of the written reviews that I've checked. Mostly for extremely long 'very hard to read' sentences and excessive adverbs.

The ones that I've had the app analyze all seem to focus on story. Even games with a bare bones story. Not just the game story, but their own personal story. So that way you know where they're coming from or maybe its to make a 4,000 character review into a 6,000. None of them seem to break more than 6,000 characters, but good editing is when there is nothing left to take out.

They compare their subject to other games rather than telling you about the games. Telling you where a game is coming from, what a game is trying to be. Rather than telling you about the specifics of the game and why you should play or avoid it.