Tuesday, January 18, 2011

EditMinion

I don't remember where I saw this earlier*, but someone had a link to EditMinion (from the same people who brought you Write or Die).  So, I tried it - you know, just to see what kinds of things it had to say about my writing.

I gave it 819 words to slash to ribbons.  And you know what?  If I'm reading it right, it gave me a green for Good in all five categories: Adverbs, Weak Words, Passive Voice, Said and Ending With Prepositions.  In the details, it caught some things I totally agree with - which is fine because I haven't even edited this WIP yet.  And it made two mistakes, both of which were thinking that where I used the word 'began' I was substituting it for 'said'.  (I wasn't.  But I do need to tighten those up.)  I had one 'weak word' and end two sentences with prepositions.

My worst crime was passive voice.  Of course.  I always need to watch myself for that and it's something I generally need to fix in the edits.

All in all, it was a very encouraging experiment.  I haven't even finished this book yet and the EditMinion is telling me I'm doing good.  So yay.

Have you ever tried EditMinion?  If so, let me know how it worked for you.  If not, give it a whirl.  It's kinda fun.

* I was just about to update this saying it was Christine Fonseca when she commented saying it was her.  Time flies in the blogosphere.

10 comments:

  1. HA! I shared that link this morning too. Glad it yielded interesting results.

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  2. Ooh, interesting. I'll play on my work break - in the middle of 5 spreadsheets right now. Blog checking is my first 'reward' for getting through 100 entries. Now I have something to look forward to after I cross reference the next 100 :)

    Have I mentioned how much I hate my job :(

    Oh, and congrats on having great writing - passive voice is a problem for many of us.

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  3. I've never heard of this link! Thanks for sharing! I'm going over there to check it out now, although I'm terrified to find out what it will say about my passive voice...

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  4. Just tried it and got the green on the opening for Blood Rights. I'm sure my editor would be happy to hear that. lol

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  5. Oh fun! Going to try it! Congrats on your good results!!

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  6. Huh, thats so interesting. I wonder how they programmed it to do that. Anyway... I got all green too! No passive at all (it's also my weakness)!

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  7. I have never heard this link either. Thank you.

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  8. Oh my gosh, I have GOT to try this! I saved it in my favorites. After I visit some blogs I'll put my writing to the test. Thanks for letting us know about it. Christine is the one who turned me on to Write or Die and I love it.

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  9. I haven't tried it but you can bet I'll be running my novel through one chapter at a time. Thanks for the share!

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  10. This is crazy rad! I am checking it out in a moment...

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