Hemingway Editor: How to Use It to Improve Your Writing in 2023

5 min readAug 1, 2021

While tools like Grammarly can help you improve your grammar and spelling, Hemingway Editor focuses on other aspects of your writing: primarily your writing style and complexity.

Read on to discover the specifics of what Hemingway Editor does and if it can help you write a better book.

What is Hemingway Editor?

Hemingway Editor is among the many applications that can help you write better. This type of software has come a long way since the early days of writing apps. They have much more to offer than simple functionalities like checking grammar and spelling. According to some book-writing app developers, their applications can turn you into a better writer through writing style improvements.

What makes Hemingway different from the rest? As stated by its developers, this writing software will make your writing ‘bold and clear.’ The creators behind this application were confident enough in its ability to reshape your writing to name the software after one of history’s most talented writers. For self-published writers that have been considering this app but are still unsure, this review will provide you everything you need to know about Hemingway Editor.

How Do I Use Hemingway Editor?

Let’s start this review by covering how to use the software. This editor is available in two variations, which are the free and paid versions. The first option (Hemingway Editor) doesn’t require users to have an account and is available for free online use. The paid option (Hemingway App) is downloadable for offline use after a one-time payment.

Using Hemingway Editor—Free Online Version

Hemingway Editor is a free-to-use application that provides most of the features of the paid version. To try Hemingway’s free online version, the first thing you need to do is visit its official website.

Hemingway’s interface is straightforward and minimalist. Start by typing some text into the app or pasting text from another source. Hemingway then highlights sections or words in different colors to let you know what might need improvement.

You don’t necessarily need to change everything the editor identifies as a potential problem. It’s still important to pay attention to the flow and pacing of your writing, so pay attention to your intuition. The point of Hemingway Editor’s suggestions is to make you more aware of where your writing weaknesses might lie.

Using Hemingway App—Paid Download Version

If you find the free version helpful and you’re interested in the paid app, it does require a one-time payment of $19.99. The software is available for both Windows and Mac OSX users.

Here are the benefits of going for the paid Hemingway version over its free counterpart:

Available offline. The app version’s functionalities work as intended, even when you’re offline.
Direct publish option. Users are able to upload content directly to WordPress or other online platforms.
PDF exports. If you want to export your work with the colored highlights intact, you can export it to a PDF file.

How Does the Hemingway Editor Help Self-Publishers?

Understanding how a book-writing app works will help you decide if it is the right one for you. After you enter text into the Hemingway App, these writing aspects would get highlighted for improvement:

Adverbs. Adverbs are highlighted each time they occur in your text. They can often be replaced with stronger verbs to improve your writing.
Passive voice. Writing in passive voice can make your prose less impactful. Hemingway points out areas of concern so you can consider whether writing in active voice is an improvement.
Very long sentences. The Hemingway app highlights sentences that are too long and complex in red.
Long sentences. Long sentences that aren’t excessively long are highlighted in yellow. While these can be used to create particular pacing in your writing and to mix things up, you don’t want to use too many of them.
Complex words and phrases. Words and phrases displayed in purple mean they have simpler alternatives you might want to employ.
Readability score. Hemingway will let you know what grade level your writing is, which is particularly useful if you’re writing books for children or young adult readers. It’s also useful if you want to make sure your prose is accessible to a wide variety of readers.

As you write text into the app, you can also check your work’s word count. Even the most talented authors become unaware of their weak points sometimes. With the help of the Hemingway Editor, writing-style errors are easily detectable.

Hemingway Editor Review—The Positives

These are our favorite things about Hemingway:

Concise. The editor has a straightforward and minimal interface. Users are not even required to create an account to use the online version.
Easy to use. It’s as simple as typing or copying and pasting your text.
Good value. The free version is more than enough for many writers. If you decide to get the offline version, the one-time payment of $20 is worth the investment.

Hemingway Editor Review—The Downsides

Hemingway also has downsides like other tools and apps, primarily:

It isn’t a replacement for a human book editor.
Hemingway advocates an easy-to-read writing style. If this doesn’t suit your writing style, this editor might not be the one you’re looking for.

Hemingway Editor Alternatives

For writers who don’t prefer Hemingway’s writing style, you can consider these alternatives:

ProWritingAid. This tool offers several features that are not present in Hemingway’s editor.
Grammarly. Since countless writers swear by Grammarly, it might be a better fit for you.

Hemingway Editor vs ProWritingAid

ProWritingAid is one of the most comprehensive tools you can find on the market. Aside from catching grammar and spelling errors, this book-writing tool takes it to the next level by utilizing AI on top of other advances to help you write better. However, the paid version of ProWritingAid requires a monthly subscription compared to the one-time purchase for Hemingway.

Hemingway Editor vs Grammarly

The majority of writers would probably agree that Grammarly is the leading option in the industry today. Similar to ProWritingAid, it depends on AI and other technologies to inspect your work. The pro version of Grammarly provides more functionality than Hemingway, such as web-browser integration, but it requires a monthly subscription instead of a one-time payment (and the free version of Grammarly is missing many of the key features of Hemingway Editor).

Is Hemingway Editor Right For You?

Now that you understand how the Hemingway Editor works, you might be wondering whether to go for it or not.

Hemingway is the right book-writing software for you if:

Your top priority is to improve your writing in the shortest time possible.
You don’t mind having a limited set of writing-style improvements.
You are looking for a low-cost option to enhance your writing.

The other alternatives would be more beneficial for you if:

You want a writing app that provides more suggestions than Hemingway.
You require software that can integrate with other applications.

We suggest that you try out Hemingway and its alternatives first. Once you’ve experienced what these writing tools have to offer, you’ll be able to make a final decision based on your goals as a writer.

Originally published at https://www.thebookdesigner.com on August 1, 2021, written by P.J McNulty.