ProWritingAid: Your AI-Powered Editing Companion

Here's the uncomfortable truth about self-editing: we can't see our own blind spots. You've read your manuscript so many times that your brain autocorrects the errors before your eyes even register them. And there are subtler issues that are even harder to catch on your own — the words you overuse, the scenes that drag, the passive constructions that quietly drain tension from your prose.

That's where ProWritingAid comes in. It won't replace a human editor, but it might be the most useful tool you have before your manuscript reaches one.

What Is ProWritingAid?

ProWritingAid is an AI-powered editing and writing analysis tool designed to help you improve the quality of your writing, not just its correctness. Where most grammar checkers are content to flag a missing comma, ProWritingAid digs deeper — looking at things like sentence length variation, overused words, dialogue tag choices, readability, and pacing.

It integrates with the tools you're probably already using, so you don't have to change your workflow to start benefiting from it.

Who Is It For?

ProWritingAid is particularly well-suited to:

• Fiction writers who want honest feedback on prose quality, not just grammar
• Self-editing authors preparing a manuscript before sending it to a professional editor
• Writers working to improve their craft — the analysis reports teach you to notice patterns in your own writing
• Non-fiction writers who need clean, readable prose without hiring a copy editor for every draft

If you're looking for a basic spell-checker, you don't need ProWritingAid. But if you want to understand why your writing isn't quite landing the way you hoped, this is the tool that will show you.

Key Features

20+ Writing Reports

This is what sets ProWritingAid apart from every other editing tool. Rather than one catch-all analysis, it offers more than twenty specialist reports — each looking at a different dimension of your writing. The Overused Words report shows you which words you're leaning on too heavily (there's always a word). The Sentence Length Variation report flags chunks of prose where every sentence runs the same length, which creates monotony without you realising it. The Sticky Sentences report highlights sentences packed with "glue words" that slow the reader down.

You don't need to run every report on every draft. But knowing they're there — and using the right ones at the right stage — is genuinely powerful.

Style and Clarity Suggestions

In your regular editing view, ProWritingAid underlines potential issues as you write or after you paste in your text. Suggestions are colour-coded by type: grammar, style, readability, and so on. You can accept, reject, or ignore each suggestion individually, and the tool learns from your choices over time.

Critically, it understands the difference between a grammar error and a stylistic choice. Intentional fragments — common in fiction — are flagged differently from actual mistakes.

Readability Analysis

ProWritingAid analyses how easy your writing is to read and provides a Flesch reading score, along with suggestions for where sentences might be simplified or restructured. For non-fiction authors especially, this is invaluable for ensuring your prose serves your reader rather than showing off.

Word Explorer

This is a lovely bonus feature — a built-in thesaurus with contextual suggestions, showing you how words are typically used in published fiction. It's a smarter way to find the right word than a standard thesaurus.

Integrations

ProWritingAid works inside Scrivener, Microsoft Word, Google Docs, and the web browser via an extension. If you're already using Scrivener for your drafts (see our Scrivener review), the direct integration means you can run your analysis without exporting your manuscript.

What We Love

The depth of analysis is genuinely unmatched for fiction writers. Grammarly is excellent for everyday writing, but ProWritingAid is the tool that will help you become a better novelist. The reports don't just show you what's wrong — they explain why it matters, which means you start internalising the lessons over time.

The Scrivener integration is a practical delight. Write in Scrivener, analyse in ProWritingAid, stay in your workflow.

The lifetime deal is exceptional value. At around $479 AUD (pricing fluctuates — watch for their sale events), you pay once and use it for the life of the product. Given how often writing tools move to subscription pricing, that's increasingly rare.

What Could Be Better

ProWritingAid can be slow with very long documents. If you paste in a full 90,000-word manuscript, be prepared to wait. The workaround is to analyse chapter by chapter, which is actually good practice anyway.

For beginners, the sheer number of reports can be overwhelming. Our advice: start with just three — the Overused Words, Sentence Length Variation, and Style reports. Add more as you get comfortable. Don't try to fix everything in one pass.

Pricing

• Free — Basic grammar and style checks, limited to 500 words at a time
• Premium — Around $30 AUD per month (significantly cheaper annually)
• Lifetime Licence — Around $479 AUD as a one-time purchase (watch for sales — they regularly run discounts of 20-40%)

The lifetime deal is worth serious consideration if you're committed to improving your writing long-term.

The Verdict

For fiction writers who want to improve their prose — not just proofread it — ProWritingAid is the best editing tool available. It's not a replacement for a human editor, but it will make your manuscript significantly stronger before it reaches one, which means better feedback, fewer revisions, and ultimately a better book.

Our recommendation: Start with the free version to get a feel for the interface, then decide whether the premium features are worth it for your workflow. For most serious writers, they are.

Are you a ProWritingAid user? We'd love to know which reports you find most useful — drop a comment below and let's compare notes!