Sites for Readers: Series and Recommendations

Welcome to Summer Reading! In July, I plan to highlight some great apps for readers. As a writer, we need to be familiar with these apps. Stay tuned for Goodreads, Book Bub, The Fussy Librarian, and Book+Main.

Here are a few sites to help you find books for your own reading. As writers, we need to read widely in our genre and outside of it too. If you’ve read On Writing by Stephen King, you know his day comprises half writing and half reading. I strive for that. (Maybe once the kids are out, and I win the lottery.)

Try out these sites to find your next read.

• Book Series in Order I use this site constantly. It lists all the titles in order for thousands of series. Which is the next In Death book? They have it. Type the series in the search box and a list of possible series generates. Then click on the series desired and voila, the list appears in order. Enter character names, or author names too, and still get the data needed. For a quick suggestion, click on Top Lists and see what’s popular. The list will contain links for hardcover, paperback, and Kindle copies. Yes, they all go to Amazon. But once you have the title, you can search your favorite bookseller. There’s also a blog with the books Graeme read last month with titles and reviews.

• What Should I Read Next This site recommends a new book by entering a “liked” title. The site displays a list of books similar to the first in genre, keywords, etc.. Clickable tags/keywords appear next to the title of the entered book that link to even more titles—a great way to follow a trope. The Info/Buy button sends the user to Amazon. The site also contains a Quote section to find literary sayings/phrases by category. Or you can enter your own. Also, there is an informative blog with authors, book clubs, and more. The site is free to browse but also has a premium membership for $9 a month. It includes an online community, book club, and personal recommendations.

• What’s Next? This site is a database run by Kent District Library of Comstock, Michigan. What? Just a library database? Come on, Ginny. Nope, it’s one of the most comprehensive series listing out there. It’s lovely. Thank you again, Trever Oakley, librarian, for showing me this site. Type in Author Name, Series, or Title. Add age range and/or genre (if desired), and the database will generate a list for you, in order. Depending on the data entered, multiple results will be at the top of the screen to click through and select the correct series. Each book is linked to the library’s catalog. Not useful if you don’t live in Michigan, but again, you have the title…

• Which Book? This site is another recommendation site with great interaction. On the main page, on the left column, a list of plot attributes appear. Each block has two opposite words, e.g. Happy Sad. Click on each block and move the slider to the desired place. Use up to four of the blocks, then hit the Go button. A list of books that match the criteria will appear. I put in Happy, Funny, Disturbing, and got, among others, John Dies at the End (absolutely expected) and The Eyre Affair. Nice! Each listing contains an Extract, Parallel Books, Profile (the slider attributes), and Find Similar. Beneath the book cover is Borrow and Buy. Unfortunately, you must be from the UK to borrow, but the site links to Amazon and Audible.

These are just a few of the sites to help readers find books. For July, we’ll look at some of the bigger book sites and mine them as authors.

Hemmingway

Comment: I should have changed the order of the blog posts. In an ideal world, I would’ve started with Hemmingway, moved to Grammarly, then wowed (overwhelmed?) with ProWritingAid. I say this because the program has underwhelmed me.

Hemmingway is an online grammar editing tool. You can purchase the software for desktop for a mere $20 for a full license. I’ve opted not to buy the software as I don’t think I will use the program for more than the blog. 

The app checks grammar and clarity issues. Cut and paste the text on to the web page and Hemmingway will go to work. 

•  Readability—The app uses a grade level to assess readability. (My work got Grade 3, “Good.” An article on Facebook got a Post-Graduate rating, with a “Poor, aim for 14.”)
• Word Count Plus—Word count is listed next, but if you click on the down arrow, you also get reading time, letters, characters, words, sentences, and paragraphs.

Highlighted Items
In this section, the program highlights each issue to differentiate problems.

• Adverbs—Blue. It counts adverbs with a percentage of the entire piece with a goal number for the word count. (E.g.: I had a 675-word piece and it advised no more than 10 adverbs.) The suggestion to fix it is usually Omit.
• Passive Voice—Green. Highlights all cases of passive voice with a target. (Again, for 675 words, the passive goal was 15 or fewer.) It does not suggest corrections.
• Easier Phrases—Purple. Highlights places where simpler terms could be used. The program will suggest a few word choices or Omit.
• Hard-to-Read Sentences—Yellow. The app highlights any sentences that are difficult to read. No suggestions given to fix the problem.
• Hard-to-Read Paragraphs—Red. Red coloring indicates paragraphs that are tough to read. (The The Facebook article was completely red.)

Hemmingway is also a word processor. You can write on the app with some simple formatting options like Bold, Italic, Headings, Making a Quotation, Bullets, Numbers, and Links. But there is no way to save your work. Cut and paste anything you’ve written to another app to save it.

And that’s it. Hemmingway is a quick, simple editor that will not do the work for you. It works great if you are looking for a straightforward scan of your doc to see where you are. If you need more complex editing, try a heftier grammar app.

ProWritingAid—Updated

ProWritingAid had a major update. This post is a revision of my original post from June 16, 2020. (Yep, if I had just waited a few weeks to write it up…anyway…)

ProWritingAid is a multipurpose program that checks style, grammar, and more. It is a free extension on browsers. At the premium level, it can be added to Word, Google Docs, and Scrivener. The app includes style, grammar, echoes, sticky sentences, and a wide variety of other features.

I’ll be upfront. I have the premium service for ProWritingAid. One of my fellow authors, Terry Graham, uses the program and her writing is pristine! I purchased it about a year ago with a great coupon. My membership is lifetime at a cost of about $100. Worth it to me at this point in my writing career.

I’ve installed ProWritingAid right into Word on my PC. (Unfortunately, Mac Word does not support it.) It’s another menu at the top of the screen. With the Premium license, I can install it on multiple machines. The program, under Premium, works with Google Docs, Scrivener, Final Draft, and Open Office as an add-on.

Again, I’ll focus on my version of Word, but the extension has many of these features.

I’m a nerd. I enjoyed school and loved getting good grades. It’s why I like the program because it grades your doc. The feature is called Summary and it checks several issues in the doc and gives you a lovely grade for it. Be sure to when setting up ProWritingAid to select your style of writing. There are slight changes based on business versus creative writing. (And you want that good grade, don’t you?)

Summary checks Style, Grammar, Spelling, Terminology, Key Actions (super helpful), Doc Stats, Vocabulary, etc. Basically, it summarizes all the features in ProWritingAid and gives a hint on how to fix them, all on one screen. It’s lovely. It contains the entire section all at a glance, easy to read, and check for problem issues. It sets you up for which features you need to explore in-depth.

Features such as:

• Realtime—Similar to Word’s continual grammar, style, and spelling check. The program will work as you write, suggesting corrections in an organized list.
• Summary—As mentioned above, a grade of your work with a list of everything it checks.
• Grammar & Style—Checks Spelling, Readability, Passive Verbs, Style Improvement, Repeated Sentence Starts, and Passive Index.
• Thesaurus—Same as word, highlight your word first before hitting the button
• Overused—Initial -ing, sensory words such as felt, smell, saw, and more
• Combo—Checks multiple reports at once. Click on Settings to choose which reports to combine. (Keep it down to a few regularly used ones. Too many can be overwhelming.)
• All Repeats—Checks repeated phrases and words.
• Echoes—Repeats of single words close together (like on my reading blog when I use the word “book” 60x)
• Structure—Analyzes sentences to see how they start and categorizes them. Great to make sure you have variety.
• Sentence—Analyzes sentence length
• Transitions—More useful in nonfiction
• Readability—Tells how fast the passage can be read with a time, highlights slightly difficult, difficult, and very difficult passages
• Sticky Sentences—Sentences with too many unneeded words
• Clichés—Picks out both clichés and redundancies
• Diction—Vague or abstract words and diction (great for my should/would/could problem)
• Pronouns—pronoun percentages, initial start of sentences with pronouns, and percentage for doc
• Alliteration—discovers alliteration in doc
• Homonym—checks for all homonyms (And I mean all. Extremely tedious)
• Consistency—checks spelling (American and Brit), punctuation, hyphenation, capitalization, quotes, ellipses, hyphens, en and em dashes, serial commas.
• Acronym—Checks use of acronyms for consistency, definition, and overuse.
• Style—Looks for Passive verbs, Hidden Verbs, Style Improvement (synonyms, mostly), Long Subordinate Clauses, Adverb use, Repeated Sentence Starts, Possible Emotional Tells, and a percentage of passive voice in the passage.
• Dialogue—finds all tags, analyzes how much of doc is dialogue
• Pacing—checks for slow paragraphs
• House—Create your own House style (oxford comma, no “they”, etc.)
• Plagiarism—analyzes your work vs the world to see if the doc is plagiarized.
• Word Cloud—Creates an adorable graphic of all your words. The bigger the word, the more it’s used in your doc. Great for writers who need to see if they overused a word or two.

Changes in the new version:

The big new feature besides the colors is the Realtime editing. Some find that having a check as you write a better system. Me, I like to write it all out, then edit.

Many of the buttons are in new locations with some combined. All my useful tools used to be right on the left side and now are all over. Guess I will use the Combo button.

Also, the highlighting is different to go with the new color scheme of mint and orange. Highlighted words are in softer colors with lines under them. I discovered when I edited, the highlights don’t exactly move with the words. I had to rerun reports to keep the highlights on the correct words. The new highlighting system feels a bit overwhelming right now as I was used to the blocks of bold colors.

There is no longer a solo grammar check. To check grammar, you must use the Grammar & Style tool.

The new version can be removed, and if the user refuses to update the file, the old system will stand. I assume new users will only have the new version as an option.

Restrictions:
The app can process a limited amount of text at once (like Grammarly). Keep checks under 10k or lower to ensure good editing. (I do about 50 pages at once.) The fewer words, the better the program works.

Phew, that’s a lot of stuff. I don’t use all the features. But some I use religiously. Every blog, every doc gets at least grammar & style, sticky, and echoes. On my books, I use even more. The Premium is a powerful tool and worth the cost if you can find the coupon for the lifetime license. But I must note, Grammarly finds things that ProWritingAid doesn’t (and vice versa).

Last, here’s some quick pricing info: Monthly $20 per, Yearly subscription $79 (nice discount), Lifetime $299 (includes all updates). There are also academic packages and bulk plans. Look for discount codes online.

Grammarly

Grammarly is an editing app that checks texts for common grammatical errors. But wait, there’s more. It’s also an added extension for Word (for Windows) and various browsers. Grammarly checks grammar on apps such as Facebook, Twitter, and Blogger. It has a free component and a paid subscription service. 

The Free Service:

It works on both desktop and mobile. I’ll focus on the desktop version. There is a Grammarly Keyboard app to use on mobile that spellchecks as you type on the phone.

Desktop: Grammarly can work as an extension added to your browser (Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and more, but only for Windows), an  Add-In for Word (both Mac and PC), or it can run as a standalone program. (Note: I do not have Grammarly added to Word on my PC. I have ProWriting Aid on my desktop and do not want the programs to fight to the death.)

Standalone: After opening the app, click on the Import button. The program will direct you to select a file. Be aware. Grammarly, unpaid, can only a limited amount of text at a time. I do about 50-60 pages at once. Cutting and pasting the text from a larger doc is also an option.  (Old school though, you must use CTRL+V to paste). Once the text is in, Grammarly will automatically scan.

On the right is the Assistant. In this window, the program gives an overall score for the doc. Below that is the list of discovered Alerts—the Correctness, Clarity, Engagement, and Delivery. By clicking on the Alerts, you can go through the document and find grammatical errors. (On the left side of the screen, open the menu. Under Editor Setting, choose Auto-Jump to Next Alert. It saves some clicks.)

Grammarly looks for several types of errors—spelling, grammar, punctuation, word choice, and style. Click through each suggestion to see if the program can correct the error. Ignore is always an option and Add to Dictionary. There is even an option to tell Grammarly that you think the suggestion is incorrect. (Like when it suggested I add an article to the word “novel,” when there was already a “the” in front of “novel.”) The overall score should go up as you edit.

When editing is complete, the document can be exported. Mine goes to a .docx for Word. Or if you are weird like me, you can edit on Grammarly and fix the doc in Word as you go. (It’s time-consuming, but it gives me on less “final final final copy” doc on my computer.)

The program is accurate to a point. Since Grammarly can’t actually understand English or that someone might be writing fiction (dialog especially), it does not always come up with the correct answer. But most of the time, you can rely on its accuracy. Grammarly finds more context errors than other programs I use. (I’m looking at you, English Spelling and Homophones.)

It also has a new tone meter. Using the browser extension, it analyzes the text and assigns an emoji to describe how the doc sounds. It works most of the time. And it’s nice when you don’t realize you are coming off like a know-it-all ass. Grammarly can give you a little mean face and set you straight.

With the free version, there are other limitations besides the size of the doc—100,000 characters with spaces. You can use the same account on only 5 devices. PDF is not supported. In a 30-day period, you can scan only 300 docs or 150,000 words. If you have a long book, it might be worth getting Premium. To use the app, you must have a live Internet connection.

Premium Service

The Premium version costs $30 per month for a monthly plan, $20 per month for the quarterly plan, and $140 for the year. It adds in Readability, Vocabulary enhancements, Genre Specific style checks, and a Plagiarism Detector. Personally, I don’t find value in many of these offerings. (Though when they say my finished doc has 230 more things we could check, it makes me nervous.) The Vocabulary Enhancements (on other grammar apps) seem to just whip out the thesaurus for any adjectives in the doc. And I use the Readability measure on my ProWriting Aid.

The website has a ton of great info about grammar and the like. There’s a blog, an FAQ (though they call it Common Questions), and a great tips and tricks section if you get stuck.

All in all, Grammarly is a good, reliable grammar check.

Let’s Talk Grammar

Please bear with me.
I know this isn’t everyone’s favorite topic.

My last formal grammar lesson was in seventh grade with Mrs. S. She marked my education in two ways. 1. She told my twelve-year-old self I could not read Agatha Christie yet because I could not possibly understand it. (Insert Rude Gesture here.) And 2. I was not “sophisticated” enough as a writer to use fragments. Today, I fragment all over just to Rude Gesture her. (The poor woman has passed by now, but perhaps my disobedience to her teaching is a loving memory of her existence. BTW, I’ve read at least seventy-four of Ms. Christie’s books.)

My point—Grammar is hard and not something highlighted in high school or college without a creative writing course. And even then…Personally, I haven’t taken any formal courses, but I assume they point out what’s wrong, but not teach the why. My journey into writing had many stumbling blocks on grammar. Commas are still hard after eight years of study. I also fall into the homophone trap way two too frequently.

Thank goodness someone out there realized we are all crap at grammar. (Sorry to throw you all in the boat with me. Maybe you are a pro. How much do you charge for lessons?)

There are many grammar apps out there for writers to grab and use to their heart’s delight. I’ll be honest. Even for this little blog, I use three different grammar checks. Seriously, three. I start with Word’s Editor (they just changed the name), ProWriting Aid, and then Grammarly. They find about 98% of my errors when used together.

The next three blogs will be about grammar apps. (Well, not Word’s. That’d be like doing a post on Internet Explorer as a useful browser. Shudder.)

     Stay tuned for ProWriting Aid, Grammarly, and Hemmingway.