Pro Writing Aid – A Review

Published October 13, 2020

By Jenny Kate

Unless you’ve been under a rock, you’ve probably heard of Grammarly. It’s a nice little program to proofread your work. I mean, it’s cool and all. But have you heard of Pro Writing Aid?

It’s like Grammarly on steroids with a PhD in writing.

I’ve become a BIG fan!

What is Pro Writing Aid?

Chris Banks, the brainchild behind Pro Writing Aid, developed it because he wanted something to help him take his writing to the next level. PWA has extensions for Chrome and Word and even Scrivener.

The entire point of PWA is to help you become a better writer.
Not a better proofreader, although it will help with spelling and grammar. It’s to help you build better stories.

You know how Stephen King says no to adverbs? PWA will point out every adverb you have and then it will suggest a way to replace it.

Passive voice? Same.
“That” “very” “great” – yes to all those.

One thing I think is fantastic for fiction writers is its dialogue check and contextual suggestions – in other words, too many long sentences or too many short ones.

Let’s Compare

Grammarly was built as a proofreader and is probably a little better at that than PWA. But PWA offers way more recommendations for fixes than Grammarly.

I plugged my academic paper into Grammarly and then into PWA. Then I plugged in my fiction work in progress, both caught misspellings, punctuation and grammar, but PWA gave me nearly 20 reports to look at. Grammarly gave me far fewer but was pretty spot on with what it caught. PWA caught more. And by that I mean sentence structure, readability, overuse of words.

For nonfiction, academic work, I think Grammarly has the edge for now, but I don’t expect that to last.

For fiction work, PWA has the edge. Hands down. If you use Scrivener, it’s integration with that alone is enough to sway me.

Remember this is an artificial intelligence machine reviewing your work at warp speeds. So make sure to read through each suggestion, just as you would with your editor. Some rules will apply to your work. Some won’t.

One final thought.

PWA is way cheaper than Grammarly and has the edge. But if you’re buying for academic writing as opposed to fiction writing, Grammarly may be better because it has a wider plagiarism checker database than PWA. For now. Either way, if you’re in the market for an AI editor, definitely check out Pro Writing Aid.

P.S. Chris Banks was recently on the Self-Publishing Formula podcast. If you’ve got a half hour, listen in.

Editor’s Note: For more information on software for writers check out,
The Best Writing Software

Jenny Kate is the founder of Writer Nation, an online space dedicated to helping writers market their work. With 19 years communications experience, she regularly writes on social media, internet marketing and face-to-face publicity. You can find her on her Website, Facebook, and  Instagram