Power Combo: iA Writer and Grammarly
I’ve gone on the record about how I love iAWriter. I love so much about iA Writer: its minimalist interface, its focus tools and its use of my beloved text files. I also love that it is a one-time purchase.
Paired with Grammarly, iA Writer is even better.
I first tried Grammarly several years ago but didn’t like it. The standalone app was great, but it didn’t integrate with my writing apps. In the (bad) old days, I would write something and then have to cut and paste it into the Grammarly app. Once I’d completed my edits, I’d then have to copy and paste the text back into whatever writing app I was using at the time. That was clunky and time-consuming.
Now Grammarly works in my writing apps of choice (including Tot, iA Writer, Pages and more), enabling me to use it with almost zero friction.
Grammarly is far from perfect; some of its word change suggestions are hilarious or just downright wrong. For example,
- I wrote: “The characters fall into a deep pit…”
- Grammarly suggested: “The characters fall into a profound pit…”
(Maybe the pit is sentient and is well versed in philosophy, but I doubt it).
You must employ commonsense and focus to use Grammarly successfully. However, Grammarly does catch errors other apps miss; for this, it is well worth the yearly subscription fee.
Grammarly is not a substitute for a proofreader, editor or development pass (as I’m proved above) but using it in conjunction with iA Writer’s built-in tools means my text is tighter and has fewer errors.
Using the two apps in conjunction is simple. I have iA Writer highlight fillers, cliches, redundant words and adverbs. (I don’t turn on all of iA Writer’s highlighting tools as I find this can make the screen a riot of colour.) Grammarly takes care of the grammar and suchlike.
Hemmingway famously said:
“The first draft of anything is shit.”
If Hemmingway used iA Writer and Grammarly, he would have said:
“The first draft of anything is shit, but it is considerably less shit if you’ve written it in iA Writer and Grammarly.”
Grammarly and iA Writer are available on your platform of choice. I have them both on every writing device I own. Grammarly is a subscription product, while iA Writer is a one-time purchase.
As always, there are no affiliate links in this article. I use Grammarly and iA Writer every day, and I think both apps will help you write better, less error-strewn tighter text.
Creighton is the Publisher of Useful Items at Raging Swan Press. He lives on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity. He is not planning to voyage far.