Style checks

A second pair of eyes for revision: the words you lean on, the phrases you repeat, and the sentences that could work harder. Worked out on your own computer, with no AI.

Ten checks, in three kinds:

• Repetition: words you use far more than usual in this book (looked, nodded, smiled), the same uncommon word again within a few sentences, and phrases of three to five words that keep coming back
• Wording: filter words that put the reader at one remove (saw, heard, felt, realised), weak words (very, really, just, began to), adverbs, especially on dialogue tags, and tags other than said and asked (hissed, retorted)
• Sentences: sentences of more than forty words, runs of sentences of the same length or that begin the same way, and the passive voice

The page

Statistics → Style Checks covers the whole book or one chapter. It counts each check’s findings, lists the book’s overused words and repeated phrases, and lists every finding scene by scene, with the words around it. Click a check’s name to see only its findings, and a finding to open it in the scene, selected. What you’ve written but not yet saved is included.

In the editor

View → Show Style Checks underlines the findings in the scene you’re writing: repetition in amber, wording in blue, and whole sentences tinted violet. Point at one to see which check found it, and why. The marks follow your typing.

Prompts, not rules

Every check can be turned off for the book, and words you mean to repeat (a character’s catchphrase, “the lamp room”) can be ignored. Story Bible names, and other names, are left out of the repetition checks without asking. The settings are kept with the book. The checks are prompts to look again: keep what you meant.