The bad news is ProWritingAid’s not fit for fiction. This subjective review of ProWritingAid’s paid version covers the basic text analysis and reporting. And it’s not good.
Backstory
I upgraded to the paid version in August 2025. Surely the paid version had to be better than the text-mangling free version? Right?
Wrong. After an eight-month road-test, PWA proves itself totally UNFIT for any kind of creative writing. But it will turn any text into a PowerPoint slide or a Middle-Grade term paper.
Miscommunication
In all fairness, English not an easy language to parse. A poly-glot of Germanic, French and Latin roots, it is famously imprecise, gloriously ambiguous and open to multiple meanings. While studying for my Masters degree, I dabbled in Expert Systems, the forerunner of today’s ‘AI.’ I know how difficult it is to implement rule-based systems.
But today’s ‘AI’ is hailed as nothing less than the Messiah. It’s not. Artificial Intelligence? More like Artificial Incompetence.
Entry-level
2025 brought a plethora of new features to PWA – more on those in Part II. I expected The switch to LLM-based ‘AI’ to be an improvement. What it delivered is AI slop.
The sad fact is that PWA struggles with simple punctuation, never mind grammar and sentence construction. As for ‘style’: forget it.
Rules, rules, rules
Far from intelligence as we know it, every Large-Languuge-Model AI is a massive pattern-recognizer. They have no framing, no context, no idea of meaning. Each pattern-based system is bound and limited by those rules.
Throw PWA some text, it scans for patterns and compares those to the patterns in LLM. If that pattern isn’t found, it takes a guess at the answer because it knows the meaning of nothing.
PWA has no ability to interpret meaning beyond the words in the sentence.
It can’t track meaning across sentences within a paragraph. It doesn’t recognize patterns within the text you give it.
So it prioritizes rules, the most common rules first. It is the most literal word-nerd on the planet, locked inside a box with no context.
It treats dialog especially badly. This thing has no idea how people actually speak. And that’s without any dialect or slang.
And yet, the LLM must contain vast numbers of texts including popular fiction. So why does it grade your work like a clock-work version of Strunk and White?
(Not) Putting on the style
PWA offers a huge range of styles from formal to ‘creative,’ and within that, more than a dozen genre-specific settings. I have no idea what the difference is, because PWA defaults to ‘PowerPoint Slide deck.’
This thing hates English vernacular. It loves conformity. It wants to snip, edit, and minimize. PWA’s ultimate goal appears to be to strip any trace of ‘style’ from any text and reduce it to the blandest of bland corporate-speak.
But that isn’t my biggest problem with PWA.
It just isn’t accurate, consistent or reliable. Feed it the same text multiple times, it will miss some errors and highlight different ones on successive passes.
If you accept all of PWA’s suggestions, you have a text riddled with errors, inconsistencies and incoherent garbage. You want examples? Here we go.
English but not as we know it
The fortress guards chase down a thief. Here’s the line:
What orders had they in the event they caught one?
PWA: ‘Better phrase is possible.’
> did
What orders did they in the event they caught one?
Dismiss that.
PWA then reports ‘possible missing verb:’
> have
What orders had they have in the event they caught one?
You want more?
PWA: ‘Better phrase is possible.’
a second hand clamped over her mouth
> a second hand clamp over her mouth
It randomly changes a verb, clamped, to a noun, clamp.
PWA changes a sentence with a verb to a sentence without a verb. Why? Who knows. PWA is a context-free, meaning-free zone.
Splice the Main brace
Wherever there’s a ‘possible comma splice’ PWA always goes for the semi-colon.
“He knows me, it’s a…”
> “He knows me; it’s a…”
Often a comma splice indicates two separate sentences. Surely it should suggest:
“He knows me. It’s a…”
I comma-splice all the time in rough drafts. But PWA sprays semi-colons around like confetti. And it frequently misses comma-splices that I spot in the edit. Which makes it worse than me, a poorly-educated human.
Consistency
PWA is inconsistent about inconsistency. It complains about capitalization all the time. But it can’t tell the difference between a named Sanctuary Street, capitalized, and a generic ‘in the street’ uncapitalized. It doesn’t learn or contextualize. And misses instances within the same text, so we get inconsistency.
Numerical agreement
How much stone and timber hid beneath the plaster?
PWA highlights this and suggests:
How many stone and timber hid beneath the plaster?
I have no idea what rule PWA follows here. But I could fill this post with pages of consistency issues.
Titles
I use Arch Deacon throughout. PWA wants to substitute archdeacon. It doesn’t recognize my use as a formal job title. And it misses instances in the same text. How?
Character names: partway through a text, PWA wants to change a name it ignored in the text already.
Closing speech followed by a tag.
“That time is over,“ Yari told him.
PWA says “the punctuation mark “,” may require a space before it not after.
“That time is over, “Yari told him.
Nobody does that.
PWA doesn’t recognize elipses
“…a few months later, the Ghost came to Kamsen, to do the work.”
PWA suggests:
“. a few months later, the Ghost came to Kamsen, to do the work.
Random deletion
A character answers a question in dialog:
“If you want. Will that get you off your broken ass and into House Dovatra?”
PWA wants to leave a hanging full stop and delete the rest of the line. No closing speech mark. Just delete a whole sentence.
“If you want.
Indecision
Here’s a doozy. PWA has conflicting rules in its LLM. Delete, insert, delete, insert: repeat in a endless loop.
Yari shivered violently and put her mind to quelling it.
PWA says: Possible verb error: quell
So you change it,
Yari shivered violently and put her mind to quell it.
PWA says: Incorrect verb form: quelling.
“Where did you go, anyway?
PWA says: Uncessary comma before adverb
So I take it out
PWA says: Consider adding comma before ‘anyway.’
You just told me to take it out?!
Not all the City Watch kept clean hands
PWA suggests: insert ‘of.’
Not all of the City Watch kept clean hands
PWA suggests: Delete ‘of.’
And on it goes.
Don’t Quote Me
PWA doesn’t know the difference between an apostrophe and a single quote mark.
It doesn’t recognize ’til for until.
It suggests a closing speech mark. ’til.’
This isn’t speech it’s a contraction. Besides which, I default to double quotes for direct speech EVERY SINGLE TIME.
Random substitution
Her business-like opening turned to frosty recognition.
PWA decides this is better:
Her enjoy opening turned to frosty recognition.
It’s not just random garbage, but grammatically incoherent garbage.
Nonsense removal of random words
How’s this for an evocative line?
Another chattering priest full of nothing but sin and the hereafter, when half the city struggled to earn enough for bread.
PWA says: Readability may be enhanced by removing this:
the hereafter
Which results in:
nothing but sin and when half the city struggled to earn enough for bread.
A human editor recognizes context. PWA has none. It wants to delete anything that doesn’t fit a rule in the LLM.
Seen-Saw
Yari heard of them, but never saw one.
PWA decided this is the wrong verb form:
Yari heard of them, but never seen one.
I have no idea what rule this is.
Nonsense changes
“It’s not your fault. I know what I have to do.”
PWA wants to change this to:
“It’t not your fault. I know what I have to do.”
Which is garbage.
It then complains: missing verb. That’ll be the one you just deleted. Okay, go with it:
PWA changes it’t which is PWA’s own random nonsense, reinstating it’s.
Words fail me.
Random deletion of valid descriptors
There; a white shape, somewhere across the street from the shop.
PWA suggests:
There; a shape, somewhere across the street from the shop.
Why? The color is an important detail and there’s NO REASON to delete it,
At other times, PWA simply breaks the text:
My text: With no pause to make a plan
PWA’s version: With no make a plan
My text: Rolling over and over, the motion made her dizzy.
PWA’s version: Rolling over and over, the motion.
Typos
PWA misses simple typos. Absolute basic proofing checks. MS-Word 97’s spell-checker gets this one:
haven;t
PWA missed it: there’s an apostrophe in haven’t, NOT a semi-colon. Come on this is basic stuff!
Glue words
“Too young,” the server said without a glance.
PWA’s suggested rephrase:
“Too young,” replied the server, void of a glance.
or:
The server, without a glance, declared, “Too youthful.”
One is garbage. The other is a far more complex sentence (bad, says PWA’s structure report) with an unusual dialog tag. Everywhere else, PWA resolutely tells you only to use said or asked for dialog tags.
English-to-PowerPoint-speak.
The blanding and anonymizing of text frequently changes the very meaning.
My stylish and evocative narrative says:
Without enough constables in the City Watch, the night hours came alive with the threat of robbery, violence, and kidnap.
PWA wants to rephrase this as:
Robbery, violence, and kidnap became rampant during the night hours because the City Watch lacked sufficient constables.
Mine is a fictional narrative. The other is a made-up fact from a Congressional audit report.
Dialog is worse:
“I’m not serving you. There’s more than enough drunken children in this Ward. Now go.”
PWA suggests:
This Ward has numerous intoxicated minors.
The Ward overflows with inebriated children.
Bland, bland. bland. All tone, style and character exterminated with extreme prejudice.
Parts of speech
“What have you learned?” Yari whispered.
PWA says: Sentence starts with an adverb.
‘What’ is a pronoun not an adverb. This thing can’t even identify parts of speech.
Readability
Don’t get me started. PWA relies on the Flesch Reading Ease index, which we know is garbage based on outdated rules from the 1950’s. Often poorly-implemented in software.
What’s ‘difficult’ about this line of dialog?
“Kitty. Going out,” Risto called.
PWA suggests this is difficult to read with a 35% score.
Mistaken dialog tags
PWA and I disagree on good dialog tags. PWA insists on said and ask (except when it doesn’t). I qualify dialog all the time to add tone and color. It’s not subtle, but it works.
PWA then identifies tags that AREN’T dialog.
She didn’t return his compliment.
This line is narrative. Return is NOT a dialog tag. There are no speech marks anywhere near it.
Willful butchery
When it comes to ‘Sticky sentences,’ PWA’s re-phrase not only eradicates any trace of style but removes concrete detail.
The reeves came and went, with their scribes and ledgers; traders came to pay tolls or apply for exemptions.
PWA suggests:
Reeves, scribes, and ledgers arrived then departed.
Officials with their record-keepers and books passed through.
It prioritizes brevity over everything and to hell with the actual content.
Diction Report
You have to ask whose diction sets the standard? Strunk and White?
Vague & Abstract Words (52)
all (12)
down (11)
about (7)
some (3)
already (3)
would (3)
a little (2)
like (2)
About (1)
almost (1)
certain (1)
amount (1)
exactly (1)
clear (1)
appearance (1)
anyway (1)
anything (1)
Agreed, some of those qualify as vague and/or abstract. That’s how people, especially young people, think and speak. But what is vague or abstract about clear, certain, down, exactly?
Tense Dialog
PWA frequently complains about tenses in dialog. Specifically it wants to change ‘present tense’ to past tense. So it does:
hoped to hoped
hissed to hissed
whispered to whispered
sighed to sighed
What has PWA changed, exactly? I don’t know, but lights up in green if you let it.
Unreliable math
The Pacing Report is broken. It identifies a number of instances, but rarely highlights the same number in the text. For example, five slow paragraphs reported but only two highlights. Or two reported but highlights zero. It does this a lot.
Rephrase or Re-write?
In one chapter, PWA suggested 234 rephrasings. Every single one read as Business-Writing-Formal-English-101 GARBAGE. Gramatically correct (maybe?), but bland, boring, and turgid. The worst Power-Point slide deck you ever had to sit through at a Health and Safety briefing.
Spelling
I feed PWA all my text in US language spelling. I don’t know what dictionary PWA uses. PWA highlights jail as UK spelling. Jail is the US spelling. Someone please explain.
Missed it
Here’s a fundamental question: can you trust PWA to thoroughly scan an report on a text?
rose from there they sat
should obviously be:
rose from where they sat
PWA missed it completely. This is not uncommon.
Critical Misjudgment
I haven’t listed every fault in every report, or this review would be five times longer. What I have is a dumpster fire of a writing tool, unfit for writing anything other than a PowerPoint slide deck. Maybe not even that. This isn’t some free-ware ‘lite’ version, this is a tool with a paid subscription.
It contains so many errors, omissions, and inconsistencies I can’t even trust it to punctuate a sentence.
That’s before we even assess its editorial capabilities: the extermination of style, the reduction of text to the blandest of corporate-speak, the removal of hard description and factual content.
Consider: a writer of average intelligence and education might trust in PWA’s proclaimed expertise. They might accept every single suggestion believing in its accuracy and authority. They might allow PWA to turn perfectly competent and readable text into incoherent garbage.
My renewal? Unlikely.
Please god, no.
What could possibly go wrong?
“I see you’re trying to re-write the US constitution. Would you like me to help with that?”
Bastard son of Microsoft Clippy.