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Hemingway App

borrowedtuneborrowedtune Member Posts: 138 Arc User
Editing can be hard. Especially self editing. A few months ago I found and bookmarked this link:

The Hemingway App

As I'm sure most Foundry authors know, Ernest Hemingway is primarily known for his minimalist writing style (the use of grade school-like grammar, austere word choices and short, declarative sentences). He also, of course, was a master of writing dialog. Now, I don't know what Hemingway would've thought of our modern world of sound bites. text speak and 140 characters but something tells me he would've felt right at home writing blogs and using twitter. Hemingway was once challenged to write a story using only 6 words. He wrote: “For sale: baby shoes, never used.”

To the point - a minimalist writing style is what you want when writing for the Foundry. And this app can be quite handy for self editing your prose and boiling it down to its essence.
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Comments

  • drogyn1701drogyn1701 Member Posts: 3,606 Media Corps
    edited March 2015
    Funny, I always had the opposite impression of Hemingway. Maybe that's cause I've only read "A Farewell to Arms" with its epic run-on sentences.

    In any case, I think you're right the Foundry does indeed lend itself to concise writing. A good approach is to save your longest blocks for optional dialogue. Perhaps this app can help.

    The example I'd use is Ayn Rand. Way back in high school we read "Anthem" (which incidentally has many Borg-like themes) and I came up with this joke.
    Ayn Rand and Charles Dickens are asked to describe a room with a man in it.

    Rand: There was a room with a man in it.

    Dickens: the first brick of the room was red, the kind of red you see when the sun sets on a dusty day. the second brick was like unto the first brick....

    Be like Rand, mostly :)
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  • isthisscienceisthisscience Member Posts: 863 Arc User
    edited March 2015
    You're not writing prose though, you're writing a script. It is closer to a screenplay than a book. I think keeping that in mind helps a lot. If you've written a reply that goes on for 3 paragraphs, imagine that on a page of a script and wonder whether it would work there or not.

    Regarding writing styles though, I've always liked Orwell. It's simplicity isn't about detail - for often you need vivid descriptions in order to create an immersive world, important for sci-fi - but rather simplicity of language. You want to be understood clearly by as many as possible. Where as some authors seem to have spent a lot of time hunting down synonyms. That does not mean in engaging is cliches though. Originality in phrases is another Orwell trademark.
  • helixfungushelixfungus Member Posts: 172 Arc User
    edited April 2015
    Looks very helpful. Thanks for the link !
  • johnnysnowballjohnnysnowball Member Posts: 399 Arc User
    edited April 2015
    I find setting Word to United States English saves a lot of negative spelling-related reviews too*
  • bluegeekbluegeek Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited April 2015
    Thanks for sharing!
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