The Strong Writing report in AutoCrit has a lot of useful information to help you tighten up your manuscript. From adverb use to filler words, the tool will highlight a lot of problematic writing. Let’s go over the reports and why they’re important.
Keep in mind that you should never fully trust any automated system. Tools like AutoCrit, Grammarly, and Pro Writing Aid don’t take into consideration various nuances or the overall style of the author.
Always verify that changes make sense in the story and according to what you’re trying to convey.
What Are the Strong Writing Reports in AutoCrit?
There are a lot of reports in the AutoCrit system that are intended to help you produce the best novel you can write. Using an AI-based system, it will scan your entire manuscript and offer suggestions based on facts and evidence from previous authors’ successes.
So, let’s take a look at the Strong Writing reports that are available and why they matter.
Adverbs
Adverbs is probably one of the most talked-about elements in writing. The reason why experts say to stay away from them is because they are viewed as weak writing and tend to be less impactful.
That’s not to say that adverbs don’t have a place in writing, though. Using adverbs sparingly can help speed the pacing of a story when a quicker read is needed.
By removing the adverbs and adding detail, you bring more of the story to life.
Original:
Jack quietly stepped into the room.
Without the Adverb:
With the stealth of a black cat stepping into the shadows, Jack entered the room without making a sound.
The caveat, however, is that detailing also slows the pacing. You don’t want an overly slow read, but you do want to bring the reader into the story.
That’s why it’s important to find a logical balance for pacing in your book.
Passive Indicators
Active voice reads better than passive. In fact, you’ll find a lot of writing tools today that include some form of passive indicator function. Even the Yoast SEO plugin for WordPress has a gauge for using active voice.
In the Passive Indicators report under Strong Writing, AutoCrit will highlight words that are often used to denote passive voice. These include terms like was, had, wasn’t, and were…among many others.
So, what difference does active voice have over passive?
Original Passive Voice
The Colt Peacemaker was fired by Jack.
Using Active Voice
Jack fired the Colt Peacemaker.
Passive voice tends to make sentences longer, more difficult to read, and shifts the subject. Active voice is clearer and more concise, which is why it’s important when writing a book.
However, not all of these indicators are presenting passive voice. Sometimes, those words make sense in the way they are used in the sentence. Make sure you’re paying attention to the flow of the story before making changes.
Tense Consistency
When writing, there are three main types of tenses: past, present, and future. Most books are written in the past tense with conversations being in the present. This is normal.
However, it’s easy to shift from one tense to another without thinking about it. For instance, some people will use present tense words mixed with the past within the non-dialogue portions of the manuscript.
AutoCrit will scan for tense consistency throughout the novel and highlight all three tenses for you. Then, you can verify they are being used correctly depending on the layout of your story.
You’ll have to be a bit meticulous when going through this report as it will depend on how you’re writing your story. Try to avoid mixing tenses in certain scenes unless it is absolutely necessary.
Showing vs Telling
One of the most common mantras as an author is, “Show, don’t tell.” Showing is when you provide details to engross the reader in the story. Telling is when you tell what is happening with fewer details.
AutoCrit will scan through the manuscript looking for indicators of showing and telling. Then, it’ll provide a report that you can use to expand on your story if necessary.
Showing the story to a reader provides greater detail, but also slows its pace. You want to provide a balance of showing and telling to avoid long, drawn-out scenes or those that are too fast.
Like the other reports, there are some indicators that don’t need addressing. Remember, AutoCrit is using an AI that only looks for specific words and combinations. It’s a good idea to go over the list anyway, but you might not need to make adjustments.
Cliches
Part of the Strong Writing reports in AutoCrit include scanning for cliches. These are phrases that are often used excessively but are not needed for the story and are lacking an original idea.
Now, cliches in AutoCrit don’t necessarily have to be removed or addressed. It all depends on the scene and the description you’re using throughout your story. You might want to change some of them, but sometimes, it’s nothing more than part of the scene.
For example, AutoCrit is flagging “silver bullet” as being cliche. But in this particular book, the bullets the character uses are, indeed, silver. However, I might want to check how often I used “sigh of relief” in the story.
For the most part, cliches often happen in dialogue. And if that is how your character speaks, then so be it – that’s called a character trait. So, you probably don’t need to fret too much over the cliche report.
Still, it’s probably worth glancing at to make sure you’re not using too many of them as part of your descriptions in the book.
Redundancies
Redundancies are words that are used in a single sentence that already have representation or meaning to another. They can be removed from the sentence because it is already expressed by another term.
Original: Jack tossed the bag outside of the window.
Redundant: outside of
Instead: Jack tossed the bag outside the window.
Removing the redundancies in your manuscript will make the prose cleaner. This, in turn, improves readability.
Now, not every redundancy needs to be removed from AutoCrit. Like several of the reports above, you can have them in dialogue, as that is how a lot of people speak.
In the example image above, you can see I have three redundant phrases. I’m leaving them in as they are part of certain character dialogue.
So, make sure you’re taking a look at the phrases AutoCrit flags and consider whether they truly need to be removed.
Unnecessary Filler Words
Perhaps one of the biggest problems new authors have is the use of unnecessary filler words. There are a lot of terms we use day-to-day that are not necessary within a sentence. One of the words I use too often is “that.”
AutoCrit will find these unnecessary words and highlight which ones you might want to remove. They can either be deleted completely, or you can expand the story description to remove them to improve the flow of the writing.
Original: He had never fired the rounds that were loaded within the small firearm.
Unnecessary Filler Words: that were
New sentence: He had never fired the rounds loaded within the small firearm.
As I pointed out earlier, though, you want to go through each instance. Sometimes, those “filler words” are justified and make sense in context.
Although you can simply delete most filler words without affecting the meaning of the sentence, see if you can find a better way to describe what is going on. Always keep in the back of your mind that you want to show a story, not tell it.
That is unless you need to speed the pacing of a certain section of the scene.
Running a Summary Report
The Summary Report in AutoCrit is quite insightful, not to mention fun if you’re comparing yourself to the greatest writers in the world. In any case, the AI offers a summary of your manuscript as a whole while providing scores.
The higher the score, the better.
In the case of Strong Writing, you want to scroll to about the mid-point of the AutoCrit Summary Report. Here, the AI will show you a brief score on each of the seven reports in Strong Writing.
You’ll also have the opportunity to click, “Run Report” on any of the scores, which takes you back to the main writing app where you can make adjustments.
Another key point you’ll notice in the Summary Report is each section provides a bit of information on why it’s important. That way, you have a greater understanding of how the tool works and how you can write a better manuscript in the future.
Although the Summary Report is useful, keep in mind not everything the AI finds will need to be changed. Remember, no automated system is absolutely correct, and it will find things you’ll want to keep in your manuscript.
Even AutoCrit says you shouldn’t try to get a perfect score in every category. You could ultimately butcher an otherwise great book.
Can AutoCrit Really Help You with Strong Writing?
One of the things I like about AutoCrit is how much access you have to information. All of the reports come with tooltips to help you learn why certain things are vital to a manuscript. Not to mention the short breakdown of each report in the Summary.
Then by repetition of fixing those elements, you’ll find you make fewer mistakes down the road. This is from learning as you edit those trouble areas.
I know I am more conscientious about using the word “that” when writing sentences. During my first draft, I had 843 of them, most were fillers to be removed.
Don’t think of AutoCrit as merely an editing tool that highlights mistakes. It makes you think about whether changes are necessary before making them. You don’t want to follow any automated tool blindly, but adding scrutiny to the editing process will make you a much better writer.
AutoCrit Academy
The Academy section of AutoCrit has several courses that you can take to help improve your Strong Writing score. Each month, new courses are released (from what I’ve seen thus far) and most are free.
Some courses are quite small and won’t take long to complete.
The Academy doesn’t merely have courses you can take. Sometimes there will be challenges as well. These are highly interactive and will require that you spend some time interacting with others.
Community Forums
The Community Forums are another part of AutoCrit that can help you with strong writing. There are a variety of topics you can dive into ranging from planning your novel to finding proper critiques for your work.
You also have access to a variety of genre forums so you can connect with similar authors.
The one thing I can easily praise about the Community Forums in AutoCrit is the level of respect. Unlike Reddit, these forums are actually full of helpful people who want to share what they’ve learned with new folks.
In any case, the forums are a great place to learn a variety of things about publishing beyond using AutoCrit’s editor app.
AutoCrit is a Good Tool, But…
Remember, you don’t want to change everything AutoCrit highlights to improve strong writing. Some things are in a manuscript for reasons an AI will never understand.
A good example of this is when some authors purposely use repetition to accentuate a scene in the story. AutoCrit will flag that repetition despite the reason behind why it’s included in the scene.
When all is said and done, you have the last say in what you write. No automated system is 100% accurate, and you want to make sure those changes are necessary and justified according to your wants and needs.
Nonetheless, the Strong Writing reports in AutoCrit are based on fact and evidential success. Use them to help polish your manuscript before submitting it to a human editor or self-publishing. It can make a world of difference.
- An Evening with Gary Kidney on After Hours - April 7, 2025
- Fixing a Dead Blog: March 2025 – A Bit More Growth - April 5, 2025
- Master the Art of Writing: 19 Expert Tips to Help New Authors - March 31, 2025