Writing involves creativity. So, when I was introduced to some advanced writing tools a few years back, I was shocked beyond words. I felt like the need for human skills is decreasing significantly in this world where computers have become tough competitors in our jobs.
Still, I was quite satisfied that automated tools and apps prove their worth only to a certain degree beyond which in-depth human intervention is required to sustain the feel, passion, and warmth of our writings.
While writing your draft is one of the very early steps in completing a book, getting to publish a book is a mammoth task that repeatedly involves unscrupulous editing.
You might have a grammar checker or try to engage an editor to do it for you. Still, your prospective agents catch the minutest of the errors with an eagle’s eye.
Get rid of your editing worries now with AutoCrit!
So, what I’m going to cover in this AutoCrit review:
What is AutoCrit? Is It For You?
Don’t underestimate AutoCrit to be another writing tool, grammar checker, or anything that helps you with auto-complete functionality.
It will only justify AutoCrit’s brilliance if I say it is an online book editing platform that substitutes the need for an actual editor.
The software is designed with the utmost clarity to bring about a technological edge to your creative skills. AutoCrit assists you with editing and proofreading processes focusing on more than 25 key areas, including pacing, reading, word choice, repetition, and likewise.
In short, AutoCrit is your personal editor counterpart who mentors you through your book writing process, helps you fine-tune your understanding of the craft, and comes up with exciting ways to improve your manuscript.
All these are possible in a single platform as the product was unleashed in the market after relentless research and rich inputs from agents, authors, and publishers.
Hence, it is only justifiable that AutoCrit calls itself the “writer’s new secret weapon.”
The true conceptualizers of this program have provided you with an impeccable writing tool that gives motivating criticism and unbiased judgment that’s least expected even from pro editors. This is only possible because millions of books have been scanned into AutoCrit’s programming that the platform comes up with rapid reviews after going through the algorithm.
AutoCrit Features
It is easier to understand the worthiness of a software only when we look into its features. So, I would quickly take you through the essential features that AutoCrit has to offer.
The highlight features of AutoCrit include:
- Check Pacing and Momentum
- Improve Dialogue Delivery
- Strengthen Your Writing
- Improve Choice of Words
- Check Repetition of Words
- Compare Your Writing to Specific Genres
- Compare Your Writing to A Specific Fiction
Let’s go through them one by one in detail.
1. Check Pacing and Momentum
Movies are interesting only when they move at a fast pace. How different could it be when we read a book? Not much.
We read books for different reasons—it could be a hobby, a means to gain knowledge, or for anything else too. Whatever it could be for, the book is expected to be engaging, fast-paced, and resourceful.
When we read our own write-up, it could be biased, and we rarely find some room for improvements. But, to another pair of eyes, the same book could be loaded with errors.
AutoCrit could be your virtual pair of eyes!
The Pacing and Momentum section delves into how varied your sentences and paragraphs are.
Does your language and writing flow in a way that impresses the readers? AutoCrit answers all of this.
The software analyzes your sentence construction and gives you meticulous details such as the number of slow-paced paragraphs present in your writing, % of slow-paced sections, and so on.
This way, it helps you replace these texts with something more grippy. Change sentences and make your book fast-paced to read.
2. Improve Dialogue Delivery
Dialogue is a vital part of every manuscript. The story becomes interesting when all your characters start communicating with each other, but the monotony of the ‘He tells,’ ‘She tells,’ structuring ruins everything.
Mastering the art of compelling dialogue writing is not every author’s cup of tea, and hence, there is scope for tremendous improvement in this area.
The Dialogue tab is one of the most useful features provided by AutoCrit.
Try reading the dialogue exchanges between characters and analyze it. Are they natural or forced? Are there numerous times where your characters use adverbs, wave hands, or give away exclamations?
Remove all such redundancies using the Dialogue editor.
AutoCrit diligently goes through every line of the conversation and gives you feedback right to the small detail of how many times each character says something.
Polish your prose by chopping off unnecessary tags and include certain other tags prompted by the software.
3. Strengthen Your Writing
This tab could be confusing or even overwhelming initially. But you start enjoying its usefulness once you get the hang of it.
This tab does exactly what it tells you—makes your writing stronger.
Use the Strong Writing tab to master the craft of skilled writing by crushing excessive adverbs use, filtering out filler words, and weeding out clichés.
You get all the details in the report form, which is easy to go through and make changes.
The adverbs report tab gives you a detailed list of the number of adverbs used, the list of the names, and the overuse of specific words. Also, AutoCrit gives you details about passive voice indicators.
As we know, it is always better to use active voice instead of passive voice to make the text more readable. Though the tool doesn’t come up with every single instance of passive voice, it notifies the words that come along with passive voice usage.
The software also identifies similar phrases/sentences in other books and prompts you to change them so that your prose remains fresh. All the “that” and “this” in sentences—basically filler words—that clutter your text could be filtered out to make the text simple to read.
4. Improve Choice of Words
Isn’t the thesaurus one of the constantly opened tabs in your browser?
You might be a pro writer; still, you don’t fail to search for better words and synonyms to enhance your text’s appeal and feel.
So, what happens when you are a novice to book writing?
It goes without saying that you always struggle with the proper choice of words. Every author has a writing style, but beyond this, he/she also uses certain words and phrases repetitively, stamping their presence all over the article.
Are you one of them? If so, the word choice tab is especially for you.
You can use it to overcome the constant problems faced with pronouns, homonyms, and sentence starters.
I am a fan of the “sentence starter” tab as it gives the breakdown of all your starting words. For instance, it shows the number of times the word “So” is used to start a sentence and even asks you to cut it down by a certain number.
Another unique feature of this tab is that you can add some of your own phrases/words that you are sure about overusing in the book and match them as well.
5. Check Repetition of Words
Variety is the spice of life, and reading a book too becomes redundant and boring when the same words are used repeatedly. Instead, when you use different words, blend expressions, and add more punch by introducing unique descriptors, the text becomes engaging.
The repetition tab exactly does this.
The software comes up with your favorite list of words that you love using often and used too frequently.
Get recommendations on how to replace them and how many to remove to add clarity and freshness to text.
6. Compare Your Writing to Specific Genres
You could be writing in any specific genre, and AutoCrit stays supportive by providing you with a list of genres to choose from.
It could be romance, science fiction, business, spirituality, health & wellness, fantasy, mystery & suspense, young adult, or biography.
So, be it fiction writing or other genres, the AutoCrit platform helps you compare it with specific genres, but only if you have a Professional subscription plan.
7. Compare Your Writing to A Specific Fiction
Last but not least, the “Compare to Fiction” tab is my personal favorite and a unique feature of AutoCrit that makes the platform stand tall above other tools.
Just like you had imagined, you could be personally mentored by renowned authors such as Rick Riordan, Michael Crichton, Tony Robbins, Suzanne Collins, Deepak Chopra, Daniel Steel, and more!
Isn’t it fabulous?
Make use of this tab to compare your writing with the millions of fiction works input into the database and know where you stand. You get a detailed report, including passive voice usage, generic descriptors, and more.
Besides comparing your writing style with the style of these authors, you also get the exclusive guidance of how your chosen mentor would handle editing your manuscript.
AutoCrit Pros & Cons
Every tool has its set of advantages and disadvantages and AutoCrit is no different. I’ve listed the major pros and cons of the tool right here.
AutoCrit Review – Pros
Better Prose and Grammar
The most commendable feature of the AutoCrit tool is its in-depth analysis of grammar, prose, and sentence structure.
The Summary Report generated by the tool gives you a crisp insight into your performance as a writer. You get an overall score with the number of indicators in each category.
Depending on the issues present, you can make use of the specific tools to rectify the problems. The higher the score on your summary report, the fewer revisions you would be required to make.
As you edit and make revisions, your score climbs up steadily, bringing a smile on your face and improving your writing’s readability pace too.
Analysis Based on Specific Genres
The genre-based analysis is an outstanding feature provided by AutoCrit, which makes it unique and worthy.
You know the difference that exists in every genre as a reader, but as a writer, you get to detect the most subtle differences that exist between genres.
Recommending suggestions and changes based on the “Genre Selection” option selected keeps your writing flow interesting.
Edit Chapter by Chapter
Editing manuscript chapter by chapter is a relief to many authors as you don’t have to sit down and analyze the entire draft in one go. But, for the platform to detect something as a separate Chapter, the headline should start with the keyword “Chapter.”
Export Word or Rich Text File with Integral Issues
AutoCrit is a web-based app, and hence, you can save documents only with an active Internet connection. But, if you are like many others who wish to work offline, don’t worry.
You can export and download the doc file with the highlights from your latest report. Then, when you open it in Microsoft Word or any other word processor, you can still edit based on the AI-guided prompting from AutoCrit.
The words, phrases, and sentences are highlighted in red, which is visible throughout the document.
Store Up to 50 Revisions Online
Anytime you edit and save your document, you are asked to name the revised file. You can save up to 50 revisions of any of your work, including novels, ebooks, or screenplay online.
Open your choice of revision file from the open file menu, present in the default home screen. When you save successive files beyond the maximum 50 files, it will lead to the loss of your oldest file for every new file you save. To prevent this, you can use the export command and keep a copy of your revised file.
Autosaves
Your flow of thoughts and creativity occur in the spur of the moment, and it is always difficult to recreate the magic of a sentence.
I don’t mean that you cannot phrase a beautiful write up again, but it is almost impossible to bring up the same sentence you just entered in your doc.
So, if there is some technical malfunction or you fail to save manually, you needn’t worry the least about it as AutoCrit saves your file automatically from time to time. Whatever happens, your file is safely stored in the server and can be retrieved any time you want.
Availability of a Free Plan
We love to go for a trial before deciding upon anything, and AutoCrit fulfills your desires by extending a free trial plan that’s available forever. So, don’t hesitate to test it and don’t complain if you become a huge fan of this editing platform forever.
But also understand that the free plan includes only the basic features that are also available in a couple of other editing software. For instance, you can try playing with tools such as filler words, pacing, tenses, and more. But you don’t get to enjoy genre-based guidance and likewise.
Wonderful Support
Enjoy instant feedback on your drafts 24/7 on all 365 days of the year.
If you are stuck somewhere and need support, the answer is simple. Most of your general questions are answered in the AutoCrit Support Center. If you have unanswered questions, you can always shoot an email to the support team, which is efficient and quick in responding.
AutoCrit Review – Cons
While feedback on your writing is a spectacular feature of AutoCrit, there are a couple of disadvantages in the editing department.
Compatible File Formatting Changes
One bothersome feature of AutoCrit is that it changes the formatting of the word document many a while. For instance, if you use double-line spacing or format paragraphs leaving an empty space, you would be required to edit your doc once again after copying and pasting all the necessary changes.
English-only Platform
Though AutoCrit supports various types of the English language for checking spellings and correcting grammar, it doesn’t support multilingual editing. You can still enjoy checking American, British, Australian, Canadian, and South African English using this tool.
Not Mobile-Compatible
Whoa! In an era where everything is available on your smartphone, it is indeed disappointing that the web app’s layout is not responsive to your mobile device.
So, mobile or tablet, the screen size remains the same, making it undesirable for use with either of these devices. Don’t expect to finish your pending editing stuff during travel or waiting somewhere by accessing AutoCrit from your smartphone, as this would only result in a waste of time.
Multiple Tools Almost Perform Similarly
For instance, the Redundancy tool works similarly to the Unnecessary Filler Words tool but picks different words while including repetitive phrases. Similarly, like the Repetition tool, we have also got similar other tools (Repeated words, Phrase frequency, Repeated Phrases, etc.), making the tool’s functioning redundant.
Tense Consistency
This is a problem that many of us face, and if you are excited about using this tool from the dashboard, you could be quite disappointed. Though a great thought from the design team, the tool’s execution is not up to the mark.
Each of the tenses (red for past, orange for the present, and green for future) are highlighted in different colors. Firstly, the colors start dancing all around you in a matter of minutes, and secondly, some of the sentences seem perfectly ok.
You need to be aware of the fact that AutoCrit is not an SEO tool, a trivial grammar checker software, a basic spell checker to correct your spelling mistakes, or a plagiarism checker. The platform’s main functionality is to support you in editing your book manuscript.
AutoCrit Pricing
There are three simple plans offered by AutoCrit, which include the Free Forever, Professional, and Annual Professional.
The Professional plan is priced at $30/month, and the Annual Professional plan is priced at $297/year. Compare the features between the plans, pick your right plan, and stay in peace knowing that your manuscript is in safe hands.
The beauty of this platform is that it cares for the needs of the students and educators as well as editors and writing groups. If you run a writing group or a club that has a number of writers, you get bulk discounts. Students get discounts on both the Professional and Annual Professional plans. Educational institutions can request for heavy concessions based on their requirements.
AutoCrit Review: The Verdict
If you are worried about spending money over an editing software, my recommendation is to try using AutoCrit as it is worth your money, time, and efforts. The only concern is that there are a few downsides too that must be handled carefully.
Though the platform boasts of being the perfect guide to write your fiction or non-fiction books, I highly recommend you to use AutoCrit if you are mainly into fiction writing, maybe novels or short stories. Also, the reports are optimized for fiction.
So, if you are a technical writer, blogger, or copywriter, you might always feel better using Grammarly or ProWritingAid as these help you check your grammar and spellings in a much better way comparatively.
But, if your goal is writing fiction, don’t look beyond AutoCrit that serves as an exceptional tool for fiction writers.
If you plan to purchase the software, wait until you are finished with the entire manuscript failing which you could waste a month’s membership fee without making any use of it. This is very much important as the pricing is pretty expensive.
Using AutoCrit enhances your thinking capabilities and aids you in understanding your writing areas that need improvements. Once you run your draft through AutoCrit, you get an overall perspective about your book. Set the emotional tone of your writing, keep the readers engaged with your pacing and momentum, eliminate unnecessary fillers, adverbs, clichés, repeated words, and more using AutoCrit augmenting your creativity.
Build your perfect manuscript using this editing platform that keeps your needs and target audience in mind, which is not available in any other editing platform.