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I started using Grammarly, https://www.grammarly.com , three years ago as a spelling checker for my Apple computer. It was cumbersome but effective. As time has passed, it has become streamlined and works everywhere I write.
Recently, it has incorporated several features using artificial intelligence, which I wanted to discuss. Its latest option is a paragraph rewrite offering. Sometimes, it shows alternatives to what I wrote, giving me a choice to incorporate and replace to improve clarity. It acts as an assistant. It is not composing stories for me.
It's even correcting my mistakes as I write in here.
I like this option. I don't pretend to be a professional writer—I'm a house painter who's gotten good enough to paint a wall—but Grammarly has made me feel more secure writing for others.
It is a tool that allows an editor to sit next to me and offer alternatives to my composition efforts.
I was just curious what others think of this
Comments
Strengths and weaknesses
I'll admit I haven't tried Grammerly or anything like it, and I'm not really tempted to. This isn't a matter of arrogance on my part; it's more an honest assessment of my strengths and weaknesses as a writer.
Writing for clarity and precision is something I spent decades doing; it's probably one of my strongest suits. I have lots of areas that fall into the "desperately needs improvement" category, like having dialogue that reads smoothly but still seems realistic for the people who are speaking. Finding a fresh metaphor to express a concept. Adding descriptive elements that bring the reader into a scene in a way that is vivid. By their nature, these aren't areas where a computer program, even with AI assistance, is likely to be helpful.
Just by way of an example, Iolanthe's latest chapter of Seconds and Irregulars had this amazing bit of prose:
That -- that! -- is how I would love to be able to write. But what makes this passage of writing so strong is its novelty -- the originality of both the idea and its expression. Computer programs can help formulate alternatives based on algorithms that extrapolate from things that have already been written, so they can't help me in the areas where I most want to improve.
Emma
as far
as i'm concerned, as soon as you go beyond spell checking, use of grammarly et al should be declared as written by AI, you didn't come up with the words, a computer did.
If that's what you want to do, fine but don't pass it off as your own worms (if you know, you know). I'd be the last to claim to be perfect at grammar and i often change sentence/paragraph construction, sometimes as i go, sometimes months/years down the line but they are my words not something produced by some algorithm in some server farm.
FWIW, all the AI generated 'writing' i've read has been very flat, lacking the very passion that writers hope to convey onto the page. Sometimes quirky syntax or spelling makes a story stand out from the pasteurised masses that AI use promotes, Shakespeare edited with AI would be a poor substitute.
So don't do yourself down, do a spell check, play with the flow of your sentences, do it yourself and (hopefully) you will learn what works for your style of writing, indeed you will develop a unique personal style rather than a robotic algorithmic mix up,
Madeline Anafrid Bell
Also a House Painter
One of my favorite writers was also a House Painter. When I think of who it was....
Gwen Brown