: Re: Knowing when to disobey the advice of grammar software When writing I try to be my own editor in order to improve the quality of what I write. When I feel happy I use Hemingway to further

@Deb2945533

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Caveats: I don't use it. I'm not a professional fiction writer.

Do I unconditionally follow all of the suggestions that Hemingway
suggests or not?

Answer: No.

For two reasons.

If everyone used Hemingway our work would all start to 'feel' similar. Imagine a bookshelf full of books that all went through the same writing apps. They will begin to lose their unique voices. Just a bit, but it will be there. My guess is Hemingway would flag a lot of word usage in poetry, for example, but a poetic turn of phrase in prose is lovely. When I read, I also love falling into a long sentence, when done well it caresses the reader. Hemingway doesn't like them.
Balance and artistry. Please don't remove all your adverbs. If you use too many, that may well be off-putting too. 16 in 1100 sounds not too bad. (I just counted and I have ~500 in 95,000 words; slightly lower than you but same ball park.)

Additional thoughts: I had avoided 'said bookisms' in my work originally, and adhering to this rule led to !'s. When I removed the !'s I found that the said bookisms crept back in. (She cried, he called, they yelled, etc). Adverbs fall in this category too (I say forcefully).

She said, "Come here."
She yelled, "Come here."
She said, "Come here!"
She said loudly, "Come here."

You will need to balance it, not rely on one or another too much, and trust your instincts over the software.

Hemingway Editor: Cons
As with the paragraph demonstrated above, Hemingway editor is great at making writing short and sweet. However, in the style of Hemingway, it removes the feeling of you owning your work; It becomes simple and detached. It will cause problems for writers like me who prefer to put emphasis on certain points, but then have that emphasis removed in a futile attempt to receive a grade 9 score. Overall, Hemingway Editor is a great program; But its ease of use cannot overrule that feeling of ownership of your work.

It may depend on your target audience. You say it is a review, and your example is swimming. If it is e.g. journalism or a journal article, you might receive more specific feedback by including that detail in your question. The rules vary by writing type.

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