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The following was written using Hemingway App: I bought this app a while ago. It's nice, but note it will make your writing succinct. Sometimes more succinct

The following was written using Hemingway App: I bought this app a while ago. It's nice, but note it will make your writing succinct. Sometimes more succinct than it needs to be. I also wish the app had basic features like find and replace, which it lacks. This writing is all approved, but if I write a longer sentence, it will give me a yellow line. This means that if I write a sentence in my normal length, about some topic that necessitates a longer sentence, it will give me a red or yellow highlight. This highlight makes it hard to read the text.

JumpCrisscross 6y ago
It's better thought of as a guide for writing in an effective style. Not a guide for writing well. Or properly. Most people have never consciously changed their writing style. That exercise has value in itself. And there are worse styles one could imitate than Hemingway.
- abnry 6y ago
  Yes. The app seems very useful in that regard. But I would like it to emphasize the style aspects of it, not some objective standard of "too complicated sentences".
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > And there are worse styles one could imitate than Hemingway. Certainly, including the one promoted by the app, which doesn't imitate Hemingway's style; at best it imitates a naive application of a maxim Hemingway reported as being influential early writing advice that he had received.
sirk390 6y ago
What I don't like in this text is the sentence without verb "Sometimes more succinct than it needs to be."
- sebmellen 6y ago
  This was enforced by Hemingway. I originally wrote "Sometimes it forces me to be more succinct than I need to be", but that was flagged as a "confusing sentence" for some reason.
- optymizer 6y ago
  <pedantic> I think you meant "without a predicate". </pendantic> As far as I can tell, "Sometimes more succinct than it needs to be" is grammatically incorrect because it lacks a predicate.
  - achr2 6y ago
    It's unreadable because the proper use of adverbs gives context. If the adverb "succinctly" was not flagged by this ridiculous app, the sentence would sound natural.
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      No, it wouldn't. It would just be a freestanding adverb phrase rather than a freestanding adjective phrase.
- zimpenfish 6y ago
  > the sentence without verb What's "be" if it's not a verb?
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > What's "be" if it's not a verb? The phrase “to be” is an infinitive verb, and in this “sentence” is a component of the adjective phrase “more succinct than it needs to be” (which is modified by the adverb “sometimes”, remaining an adjective phrase). When talking about the basic parts of a sentence (or, more generally, an independent clause), the required “verb” (the predicate) is more precisely a finite verb, which this phrase does not have. It also lacks a subject. And, for that matter, an object, though that's not generally required. It's just a freestanding adjective phrase. Sad.
jkingsbery 6y ago
Well done.
cbozeman 6y ago
Well, it's called "Hemingway Editor", not "Faulkner Editor".
- thelastwave 6y ago
  Turns out, the Faulkner Editor is MUCH harder to implement well. And for most most practical purposes, the distinction between writing in the style of Hemingway, and talking like a robot, is ignorable.
  - TedDoesntTalk 6y ago
    > And for most most practical purposes, the distinction between writing in the style of Hemingway, and talking like a robot, is ignorable. Writing != Talking. No native English speaker would talk like Hemingway speaks. The genius of Hemingway's writing can be lost if you look only at his writing style and ignore everything else.
    - thelastwave 6y ago
      Correct. And yet more and more people talk like robots.
identity0 6y ago
And that's why I don't like this concept. Let's be honest, that passage sounds like crap. I'm all for brevity, and I think nowadays people tend to write with too much formality and bureaucracy, but this app is not the way to go about fixing the problem. Arbitrarily capping sentences to ~20 words (I assume that's what they do) makes your writing really choppy and more verbose, ironically. That last paragraph probably could have been just 1 long yet focused sentence.
- outsidejoke 6y ago
  What about something like google-docs-highlight [0]. It's inspired by the Gary Provost quote "This sentence has five words. Here are five more words. Five-word sentences are fine. But several together become monotonous. Listen to what is happening. The writing is getting boring. The sound of it drones. It's like a stuck record. The ear demands some variety. Now listen. I vary the sentence length, and I create music. Music. The writing sings. It has a pleasant rhythm, a lilt, a harmony. I use short sentences. And I use sentences of medium length. And sometimes, when I am certain the reader is rested, I will engage him with a sentence of considerable length, a sentence that burns with the energy and builds with all the impetus of a crescendo, the roll of the drums, the crash of the cymbals - sounds that say listen to this, it is important." [0]: https://github.com/ojoven/google-docs-highlight https://github.com/ojoven/google-docs-highlight
  - davidivadavid 6y ago
    That's interesting, but also kind of underwhelming. I mean, if you understand the concept, why doesn't it provide: a) A paragraph-level analysis to account of sentence length variety b) A document-level analysis of the same type c) Suggestions for where sentence length needs to be varied, for example where long sentences should be broken, and so on. There's a LOT of books with guidelines to improve writing, but it seems like 99% of the tools are only brushing the surface at best.
  - jamiek88 6y ago
    That quote is fantastic. I could feel the pace and rhythm change. Sometimes I wish poetry other than rap music was popular. I know no one I can share poems with or equally show me their finds like we do with music and memes. I’m forever sending an mp3 or Spotify link to friends and vice versa. Nobody ever iMessages a sonnet.
thelastwave 6y ago
This is a good example. Thank you for posting it. I feel better informed after reading your comment. I would like to express my appreciation. Your last sentence was too long.
panopticon 6y ago
I came across a decent writing tip using Hemingway: try to "balance" yellow and red sentences instead of eliminating them. Readers should be able to handle some yellow and the occasional red, but try not to bombard them.
dragonwriter 6y ago
The following was written by the actual Hemingway; the Hemingway Editor thinks it is okay except that it has 4 adverbs and should aim for “0 or fewer” (not sure how the “or fewer” works) and “1 of 1 sentences is hard to read”: That something I cannot yet define completely but the feeling comes when you write well and truly of something and know impersonally you have written in that way and those who are paid to read it and report on it do not like the subject so they say it is all a fake, yet you know its value absolutely; or when you do something which people do not consider a serious occupation and yet you know truly, that it is as important and has always been as important as all the things that are in fashion, and when, on the sea, you are alone with it and know that this Gulf Stream you are living with, knowing, learning about, and loving, has moved, as it moves, since before man, and that it has gone by the shoreline of that long, beautiful, unhappy island since before Columbus sighted it and that the things you find out about it, and those that have always lived in it are permanent and of value because that stream will flow, as it has flowed, after the Indians, after the Spaniards, after the British, after the Americans and after all the Cubans and all the systems of governments, the richness, the poverty, the martyrdom, the sacrifice and the venality and the cruelty are all gone as the high-piled scow of garbage, bright-colored, white-flecked, ill-smelling, now tilted on its side, spills off its load into the blue water, turning it a pale green to a depth of four or five fathoms as the load spreads across the surface, the sinkable part going down and the flotsam of palm fronds, corks, bottles, and used electric light globes, seasoned with an occasional condom or a deep floating corset, the torn leaves of a student’s exercise book, a well-inflated dog, the occasional rat, the no-longer-distinguished cat; all this well shepherded by the boats of the garbage pickers who pluck their prizes with long poles, as interested, as intelligent, and as accurate as historians; they have the viewpoint; the stream, with no visible flow, takes five loads of this a day when things are going well in La Habana and in ten miles along the coast it is as clear and blue and unimpressed as it was ever before the tug hauled out the scow; and the palm fronds of our victories, the worn light bulbs of our discoveries and the empty condoms of our great loves float with no significance against one single, lasting thing—the stream. (From Green Hills of Africa)
- syrrim 6y ago
  It considers a line break to break up a sentence. If you move the whole thing to a single line, it will naturally consider it to be far too long a sentence.

JumpCrisscross 6y ago

It's better thought of as a guide for writing in an effective style. Not a guide for writing well. Or properly. Most people have never consciously changed their writing style. That exercise has value in itself. And there are worse styles one could imitate than Hemingway.

abnry 6y ago
Yes. The app seems very useful in that regard. But I would like it to emphasize the style aspects of it, not some objective standard of "too complicated sentences".
dragonwriter 6y ago
> And there are worse styles one could imitate than Hemingway. Certainly, including the one promoted by the app, which doesn't imitate Hemingway's style; at best it imitates a naive application of a maxim Hemingway reported as being influential early writing advice that he had received.

sirk390 6y ago

What I don't like in this text is the sentence without verb "Sometimes more succinct than it needs to be."

sebmellen 6y ago
This was enforced by Hemingway. I originally wrote "Sometimes it forces me to be more succinct than I need to be", but that was flagged as a "confusing sentence" for some reason.
optymizer 6y ago
<pedantic> I think you meant "without a predicate". </pendantic> As far as I can tell, "Sometimes more succinct than it needs to be" is grammatically incorrect because it lacks a predicate.
- achr2 6y ago
  It's unreadable because the proper use of adverbs gives context. If the adverb "succinctly" was not flagged by this ridiculous app, the sentence would sound natural.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    No, it wouldn't. It would just be a freestanding adverb phrase rather than a freestanding adjective phrase.
zimpenfish 6y ago
> the sentence without verb What's "be" if it's not a verb?
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > What's "be" if it's not a verb? The phrase “to be” is an infinitive verb, and in this “sentence” is a component of the adjective phrase “more succinct than it needs to be” (which is modified by the adverb “sometimes”, remaining an adjective phrase). When talking about the basic parts of a sentence (or, more generally, an independent clause), the required “verb” (the predicate) is more precisely a finite verb, which this phrase does not have. It also lacks a subject. And, for that matter, an object, though that's not generally required. It's just a freestanding adjective phrase. Sad.

jkingsbery 6y ago

Well done.

cbozeman 6y ago

Well, it's called "Hemingway Editor", not "Faulkner Editor".

thelastwave 6y ago
Turns out, the Faulkner Editor is MUCH harder to implement well. And for most most practical purposes, the distinction between writing in the style of Hemingway, and talking like a robot, is ignorable.
- TedDoesntTalk 6y ago
  > And for most most practical purposes, the distinction between writing in the style of Hemingway, and talking like a robot, is ignorable. Writing != Talking. No native English speaker would talk like Hemingway speaks. The genius of Hemingway's writing can be lost if you look only at his writing style and ignore everything else.
  - thelastwave 6y ago
    Correct. And yet more and more people talk like robots.

identity0 6y ago

And that's why I don't like this concept. Let's be honest, that passage sounds like crap. I'm all for brevity, and I think nowadays people tend to write with too much formality and bureaucracy, but this app is not the way to go about fixing the problem. Arbitrarily capping sentences to ~20 words (I assume that's what they do) makes your writing really choppy and more verbose, ironically. That last paragraph probably could have been just 1 long yet focused sentence.

outsidejoke 6y ago
What about something like google-docs-highlight [0]. It's inspired by the Gary Provost quote "This sentence has five words. Here are five more words. Five-word sentences are fine. But several together become monotonous. Listen to what is happening. The writing is getting boring. The sound of it drones. It's like a stuck record. The ear demands some variety. Now listen. I vary the sentence length, and I create music. Music. The writing sings. It has a pleasant rhythm, a lilt, a harmony. I use short sentences. And I use sentences of medium length. And sometimes, when I am certain the reader is rested, I will engage him with a sentence of considerable length, a sentence that burns with the energy and builds with all the impetus of a crescendo, the roll of the drums, the crash of the cymbals - sounds that say listen to this, it is important." [0]: https://github.com/ojoven/google-docs-highlight https://github.com/ojoven/google-docs-highlight
- davidivadavid 6y ago
  That's interesting, but also kind of underwhelming. I mean, if you understand the concept, why doesn't it provide: a) A paragraph-level analysis to account of sentence length variety b) A document-level analysis of the same type c) Suggestions for where sentence length needs to be varied, for example where long sentences should be broken, and so on. There's a LOT of books with guidelines to improve writing, but it seems like 99% of the tools are only brushing the surface at best.
- jamiek88 6y ago
  That quote is fantastic. I could feel the pace and rhythm change. Sometimes I wish poetry other than rap music was popular. I know no one I can share poems with or equally show me their finds like we do with music and memes. I’m forever sending an mp3 or Spotify link to friends and vice versa. Nobody ever iMessages a sonnet.

thelastwave 6y ago

This is a good example. Thank you for posting it. I feel better informed after reading your comment. I would like to express my appreciation. Your last sentence was too long.

panopticon 6y ago

I came across a decent writing tip using Hemingway: try to "balance" yellow and red sentences instead of eliminating them. Readers should be able to handle some yellow and the occasional red, but try not to bombard them.

dragonwriter 6y ago

The following was written by the actual Hemingway; the Hemingway Editor thinks it is okay except that it has 4 adverbs and should aim for “0 or fewer” (not sure how the “or fewer” works) and “1 of 1 sentences is hard to read”: That something I cannot yet define completely but the feeling comes when you write well and truly of something and know impersonally you have written in that way and those who are paid to read it and report on it do not like the subject so they say it is all a fake, yet you know its value absolutely; or when you do something which people do not consider a serious occupation and yet you know truly, that it is as important and has always been as important as all the things that are in fashion, and when, on the sea, you are alone with it and know that this Gulf Stream you are living with, knowing, learning about, and loving, has moved, as it moves, since before man, and that it has gone by the shoreline of that long, beautiful, unhappy island since before Columbus sighted it and that the things you find out about it, and those that have always lived in it are permanent and of value because that stream will flow, as it has flowed, after the Indians, after the Spaniards, after the British, after the Americans and after all the Cubans and all the systems of governments, the richness, the poverty, the martyrdom, the sacrifice and the venality and the cruelty are all gone as the high-piled scow of garbage, bright-colored, white-flecked, ill-smelling, now tilted on its side, spills off its load into the blue water, turning it a pale green to a depth of four or five fathoms as the load spreads across the surface, the sinkable part going down and the flotsam of palm fronds, corks, bottles, and used electric light globes, seasoned with an occasional condom or a deep floating corset, the torn leaves of a student’s exercise book, a well-inflated dog, the occasional rat, the no-longer-distinguished cat; all this well shepherded by the boats of the garbage pickers who pluck their prizes with long poles, as interested, as intelligent, and as accurate as historians; they have the viewpoint; the stream, with no visible flow, takes five loads of this a day when things are going well in La Habana and in ten miles along the coast it is as clear and blue and unimpressed as it was ever before the tug hauled out the scow; and the palm fronds of our victories, the worn light bulbs of our discoveries and the empty condoms of our great loves float with no significance against one single, lasting thing—the stream. (From Green Hills of Africa)

syrrim 6y ago
It considers a line break to break up a sentence. If you move the whole thing to a single line, it will naturally consider it to be far too long a sentence.