The Grinder

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The Grinder Download

The Grinder is an open source document with a few lines of very simple code, but is something I have found useful in helping me hammer rough drafts into readable scripts. I hope this helps you improve your writing as much as it has helped me improve mine.

The Grinder will highlight your weasel words and passives by making them bold. It is a simple idea, but as a writer, this simple addition to your toolbox can help you focus on bigger picture items, such as plot, flow, character development, and so forth.

If you are a coder, hit alt-F11 to open the Visual Basic Editor, and edit to your satisfaction. In particular, you can modify the search arrays to best address your own bad habits. I add new words from time to time as I notice them in my drafts. You can do the same. Ping me if you are a novice and need me to do this for you. It's a simple, 10 second edit.

Use The Grinder to highlight your troubled areas. There is no need to kill ~all~ your weasels. You are looking for high-density troublespots, not a full re-write based on this script. If you nuke every bolded word, your draft will become an unreadable mess, with as much character as an old flat tire. So proceed with intelligence, please.

For instance, this document has been through The Grinder. Notice the bolding, and notice, too, that I left them in the text, because it would be insane to delete them all.

Enjoy.

 - Eric Trant

July 8, 2015

Dallas, TX