Grammarly Isn't The Only Free Editor

Listen, before anyone comes at me for making this thread, I didn't go to school to learn how to write. I took the necessary English classes needed for my degree, and that's it.

I'm not a professional writer. I'm not even a good writer. I make a lot of spelling, grammatical, and punctuation mistakes, so to me, these tools are a way to help improve the quality of my writing and I want to share it with others who might be in the same boat.

Hopefully, it proves useful to someone!

Side note: this is not an ad. I wish I'd get paid, but alas, I won't. I'm just trying to be helpful.

I'm sure many of you are familiar with Grammarly. Maybe, like me, an instructor recommended it to you for your writing assignments. Maybe you learned about it through word of mouth or on your own. And maybe you even think it's great. But it's not the only free editor out there.

If you're already aware of the others, and don't like them, or even have them already, feel free to either share what you like/dislike or disregard this post entirely. If you want to know more about the others to see if you might like them, then keep reading. I'm going to give you a brief overview of three free editing tools that I use and think are worth trying out. (I'll include links to each editor's website, as well).

How did I find them? *Scoffs* Well, let me tell you!

One day, I was incredibly annoyed with Grammarly's lag, and decided to hunt for another editing tool on the internet, but struggled to find one. I resorted to asking an AI. (The AI is Pi, by the way. It's new and basically provides answers to almost any question you ask it.) I asked it for free editor recommendations like Grammarly, and it gave me a list of ten to choose from. Most of them you'd only get a free trial, and some you couldn't access from Google docs or other writing platforms, but two of them ended up working for me.

I'll share my favorite first because I'm not a gatekeeper.

It's called ✨ProWritingAid.✨🤤🤤

As stated in its catchphrase: "It goes beyond basic grammar checking."

It's hard to believe that I don't have to pay for all the incredible features it offers. It feels like I'm stealing with all the perks included!

Here's a checklist of the benefits in the free version:

spelling/grammar/punctuation checking (500 word limit) ✔️

readability ✔️

passive voice detection ✔️

plagiarism ✔️

style improvements (doesn't say it on the list on their website, but I still get them 🤷🏻‍♀️) ✔️

highlight a word for synonyms (my favorite aspect) ✔️

10 rephrases (if your sentence sounds wacky but your brain is too fried to figure out how to fix it; this will help) ✔️

app has extensions to Chrome, Microsoft Word, etc.

If you click the little do-dad at the bottom of your document, it tells you the story's pacing, the percentage of dialogue used, and if your adverbs are weak (that part calls me out a lot 😒). Also, everything resets after 24 hours, so if you use all your rephrases or spelling checks, it'll replenish the next day!

If you think that's impressive, the premium plan has more to offer! Like author comparison (yes, it compares your work to other authors, so you know how popular it'll be in that genre). It gives analysis reports, i.e. story structure, overuse of words, sensory details, etc. It also suggests substitute expressions for common analogies and gives a comprehensive critique of your chapter. Like how cool is that?

Eh-hem. Right. Now that I've said all that, let's move on.

My next favorite is Writer.com

The AI didn't suggest this one to me. I found it on my own and I'm surprised it's not as popular as it should be. The tool includes many of the same things as ProWritingAid, give or take.

It used to have a free version, but I'm not sure if it still does 🤔. I've had the "Team" version for almost 2 years, however, I've been using ProWritingAid more since finding it.

Before you discard it as an option, I still pay for it, and here's why:

claim detection (it fact checks me) ✔️

style guide (it recognizes your style for consistency) ✔️

snippets (saves links for referencing later) ✔️

great for businesses... I'm sure there's some business out there who could benefit from it ✔️

Another one of my favorite features about this tool is it tells me how complex my story is on a grading scale!

The scale always makes me giggle. But I find it helpful in case I'm using complex jargon, like in my dystopian book, as it's as heavy on the Sci as it is on the Fi. 🤓

The app also has an extension for Chrome, Microsoft Word, and other writing softwares. (I use Reedsy, and if anyone's interested, I can make a separate article about it!)

The last free editor on my list is Wordtune.

It's not as great as ProWritingAid, Writer.com or Grammarly, but it's still quite useful- at least for me.

It has fewer perks, but I like to have it there whenever I might need it. In addition to text corrections, it has:

Spice (gives various ways to get your point across- it even helps with jokes!) ✔️

AI prompts (if you're struggling with inspiration) ✔️

and fine-tunes your sentences with rewrites (limited to 10) ✔️

I mainly use it when I'm struggling to come up with something, like an encoded message. I just ask it to write me an example of one and it gives five options for me to work with as guidelines. I'm sure any AI can do that, but the perk is I don't have to open a new tab to another website just to ask the question.

Well, those are my favorite three. I hope at least one person finds this useful. I know what it's like struggling as a new writer and wasting my precious time researching tools to help me improve my scribbling. Or not having any tools at all and sounding like a complete fool. I cringe when I come across my old work, and while these apps won't make you an expert writer, they will help guide your hand to develop your skills.