Two Great Tools for Writers

Perhaps there are writers craving competition with the intensity of a mixed martial arts superstar. And maybe pigs will fly to the moon and eat cheese. The sad reality is that more books are published now than any time in history, but there is good news. Tools exist to help authors stand out from the crowd.

Nothing exists to replaced imagination or a skilled editor. The editing tools I am about to describe require time, effort, and don’t replaced professional eyes and the red pen that follows. Serenity Software: Editor and Pro Writing Aid can help deliver a superior product to a paid editor that should spend less time on the manuscript and thus reduce the overall fee.

With luck, a writer can pull ahead of the crowd by concentrating on craft and evocative storytelling. Marketing can sell anything, but readers won’t purchase a second mediocre book.

First impressions count.

Why I like Pro Writing Aid

This tool works online. It highlights targeted writing issues and offers suggestions. The writing style check will show adverbs in bright colors making it easy to spot problem areas in a manuscript. 

The cliches and redundancies check is nice. There is a passive word index and repeated word program just to name a few features.

Pro Writing Aid also has an affiliate marketing program, which I have elected not to pursue. Some authors advocate affiliate marketing as a way to bolster total income, but my brief experiment with it seemed a waste of time that could have been spent writing.

Smartphone Tip

I discovered a neat trick that allows me to review documents on my smart phone.

Simply run Pro Writing Aid on a PC in Google Docs, then pull the file up on a smartphone when you can’t be at your computer. The highlighted words will remain visible for consideration. 

For my current work-in-progress, the Son of Orlan (book two in the Chronicles of Kin Roland) I’ve used both Serenity and Pro Writing Aid. Soon it will be ready for the eyes of Samantha LaFantasie, the editor of Enemy of Man.

In future blogs I will discuss these tools in greater detail. Please share your experiences with these and other productivity tools in the comments section. I know I can use all the help I can get.

Let’s write great stories and represent the growing ranks of professional indie authors.