What Software Do I Use To Help Me Write?

Peter asks:

I recently came across this start up called WriteWell. Basically, they help people write better, whether they are writing a blog post or a school essay. And since you write a ton I was hoping you’d be willing to take a look at it and let me know what you think. Is it something you’d use? Is there any potential of selling it to content marketing firms? Etc. Love to get your thoughts.

Thanks!

Peter also sent me some of WriteWell’s boilerplate marketing copy:

WriteWell is an intuitive web-based tool that helps you write effectively and efficiently. Break down challenging writing projects (blogs, essays etc.) into manageable chunks and manage research in one clean workspace. If you’re struggling to get started, pick one of our templates – and we’ll walk you through the writing process. Watch our demo video here.

If you’d like to try WriteWell go here:-> https://app.writewellapp.com ; We offer a 30-day free trial

To learn more, go to our website.

The short version, as near as I can understand WriteWell from the video, is that they provide a system that walks you through the steps of putting together a written work, and makes it easy to move parts around and such. It looks nice. Perhaps 9 out of 10 writers will absolutely love it. But I won’t be using it. Here’s why.

I’ve tried out a few other writing-assistance platforms. Not like WriteWell, but completely different ones. Grammarly, for example, is a tool that does basic checking of your document to find typos, grammar problems, etc. It’s something between basic spellcheck that comes with any word processing software and having a human editor. Their own website says it “makes you a better writer by finding and correcting up to 10× more mistakes than your word processor.” On the homepage it even has a testimonial from Forbes:

Wait a second…hey, I wrote that! I forgot about that article. Well, that makes what I’m going to say next a little awkward, but I’ll say it anyway. I don’t use Grammarly anymore, even though I think it is great software. I still believe it quickly and easily makes your writing better. But I use a single piece of software to do my writing–Google Docs. That’s it. Ok, I also use Google Sheets and Trello for some basic organization, but 99% of my writing process is contained in Google Docs and nothing else.

Why don’t I use these other tools? Because I figured out that just writing, without using any tools whatsoever, was good enough. When I started writing for Forbes I was nervous about making mistakes. I wanted to write the highest quality copy at the highest possible standards. Then I realized that my writing sounded better if I just wrote whatever I was thinking, without thinking about it too much. Sure, I violate rules all the time, mostly on accident, but the more I wrote, the more confident I became that it didn’t matter. I realized if I write as much as I do, and I can’t keep track of the rules, hardly anyone reading my writing is going to notice or care. Plus sometimes I like violating the rules on purpose. I start sentences with “and” and “but.” Sometimes I put periods inside quotation marks, sometimes I put them outside quotation marks. I can’t remember which way is correct, or if it’s one way in certain circumstances and another way in other situations. Whatever I do, I just make sure I do it the same way throughout any single article so that at least if I’m wrong, I’m being consistent.

So as things progressed, I stopped using Grammarly. Not because I didn’t like it, or found it lacking, but because even as good as it is, even an extra few minutes spent going over my article didn’t seem worth it. Of course, the times when I do go back and proofread what I’ve written, I almost always make changes and then think “That really is a lot better.” But when I don’t proofread or go back over it (which is probably half the time or more), it doesn’t seem like it makes any difference. It’s not that I’m lazy, it’s that I’m busy and as soon as I finish writing something I’m ready to move on to the next thing. Adding any extra work to the process makes it less likely I’ll write in the future, and I don’t want anything to get in the way.

So is WriteWell good software? Maybe. Is Grammarly? Certainly. But the only software I can recommend as a must-have is Google Docs, because it’s where I write all my articles, books, and anything else other than emails. Or this blog post, since I just write these straight into WordPress. I don’t know if many or most other writers keep their process as simple as I do, all I know is this is the process that works for me. If most writers are like me, I wouldn’t invest in or bet on any writing-assistance software. But maybe I’m weird. In that case, WriteWell might be onto something big.

If you’re a writer, what do you write in? What other tools help you make your writing better?