Naomi’s Playlist is an eclectic collection of tools that help me approach my work as play. My hope is that they’ll do the same for you!
Object: Seeing my writing from a new angle for my final edit. Noticing passive language. Identifying complex sentences and being intentional about sentence structure.
What Didn’t Work: Reading over work I’d written, revised and edited many, many times, trying to see with fresh eyes and fine-tune at the sentence and word choice level.
My Aha! Moment: I was up against a deadline and had to do a final revision of a full book, but I was also exhausted after pushing to draft and revise in just four weeks. I didn’t have time to put the book away so I could see it with fresh perspective. I started reading through, and found myself saying, “Yes, that paragraph is fine. Yep, that one is too.”
I knew my draft couldn’t already be perfect. There’s always more that can be done to fine-tune sentences once the drafting and the revision are done. But how was I supposed to see the sentences with fresh eyes, when I was so tired? That’s when I heard about Hemingway… it’s a-maz-ing.
You paste your writing into Hemingway and the app calculates how many sentences are hard to read, how many are very hard to read, how many phrases have simpler alternatives, how many adverbs you used, and how many times you used passive voice. Each type of issue is highlighted with a different color.
How I Play:
• I start by drafting and revising my book in Scrivener.
• Then, I paste each chapter into Hemingway one at a time, to give myself a manageable section of writing with which to work.
• As I review the highlighted sentences, I ask myself: “Do I want to leave that complex sentence? If so, is there another sentence I can simplify to lower the overall complexity?” “Do I need that adverb or use of passive voice? How else might I say the same thing?”
• After I’ve made all the changes I’d like to make in the chapter, I paste the text into my final document and finalize the formatting.
Player’s Notes:
• I try not to judge my writing as “good” or “bad” based on what comes back highlighted. Particularly with creative writing, there are reasons for making stylistic choices. I use Hemingway to help focus my attention on the sentences which may still need to be considered. If I choose to leave a hard-to-read or very-hard-to-read sentence, I make sure I’m doing so on purpose.
• I read the full chapter, not just the highlighted sentences. Often, seeing the text reformatted this way causes me to see new possibilities for the sentences which aren’t highlighted, too.
Take it to the Next Level:
• Consider what kinds of writing might benefit from a close edit such as this. Hemingway isn’t just for fiction! Do you have a complex email or project outline to send to your team? Might your sales copy or blog post benefit from a readability check-up?
