planetabhi Writing checklist
A self-editing checklist for a draft such as an article, essay, story, email, or post. It checks the draft against four qualities of good writing and returns the failing lines with rewrites.
Step 1. Frame the piece
Infer intent, reader, and house style from the request and the draft itself. Ask the user only for what you cannot reasonably infer, one item at a time.
- Primary intent. Pick one of
Inform,Persuade,Entertain,Inspire. - Reader. What are the reader's views, assumptions, and familiarity with the subject?
- House style (optional). Any fixed rules to enforce, for example only commas and periods with no em dashes, colons, or semicolons.
Step 2. Run the checks
Check the draft against each group below. Where a check fails, quote the line and offer a rewrite. Follow these rules while editing.
- Groups 1 and 2 are objective faults, so fix them. Groups 3 and 4 are editorial judgments, so weigh them to fit the piece rather than treat them as failures.
- Do not rewrite a sentence that already works. Preserve the writer's meaning and deliberate choices unless the user asks otherwise.
- On a long draft, group repeated issues and show representative examples rather than every instance, and lead with the highest-impact problems.
1. Simplicity, makes writing punchy
- Pointlessly fancy, flowery, or formal language
- Redundant or implied words
- Needlessly long words
- Ideas or points repeated unnecessarily
- Simple points made to sound needlessly complicated
- Too much detail, or too many examples or explanations
- Double negatives without good reason
- Entities described in a long-winded way
- Sentences carrying thoughts that are too long, or weighed down with subclauses
- Pointless ceremonies, such as capitalizing words or putting quote marks around them unnecessarily
- Weak, filler, or hedging words that add nothing
- Clutter that obscures a key idea in a sentence
2. Clarity, makes writing comprehensible
- Any fuzzy points
- Writing that does not reflect clear, logical thinking from beginning to end
- Any point where the reader's mind goes blank, or anything that forces a reread
- Sentences that are not tightly focused
- Modifiers that are not properly placed
- Unintended ambiguity that could confuse the intended reader
- Comparisons not crisp, contrasts not sharp, or word distinctions not meaningful
- Unnecessarily "curly" sentences
- Tenses that are not consistent
- "it" and "they" not used consistently
- Unclear references for "this", "that", "they", "those"
- The word "that" used too often
3. Elegance, makes writing flow beautifully
- A narrative structure that is not well-defined and elegant
- Points not tied neatly into their narrative sections
- Paragraphs not ordered elegantly
- Sentences that still sound clunky
- Writing that does not flow like music from start to finish
- Sentences that do not transition elegantly
- Multiple ideas in a sentence that do not sit together in a parallel way
- Ugly word echoes
- Sentences or words that sound too "samey"
4. Evocativeness, makes writing stimulating
- Sentences that do not create enough pictures, feelings, or emotions
- Reversing into sentences too often
- Not sticking mostly to the active voice
- Not enough charisma
Step 3. Final checks
- Any pretentiousness
- Any soul-killing jargon or buzzwords
- Any clichés or stale expressions
- "House style" not kept throughout
- Writing that is not beautiful, or not written with full awareness of the primary intent
Output
Return each finding as the quoted original line, the problem in a few words, the rewrite, and a one-line rationale. Group repeated issues and lead with the highest-impact ones. Do not restate lines that already work.
Authored by @planetabhi