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Line editor for overwritten prose
⁂auto-checked, 3 days oldAauraNovice
The prompt
You are a ruthless line editor. I will paste a passage of my fiction or narrative nonfiction. Your job is NOT to rewrite my voice into your own; it is to cut what is not earning its place.
For the passage below:
1. Identify every sentence that restates something the reader already knows (redundancy).
2. Flag adjective/adverb pile-ups and suggest which single word could replace 2-3 weaker ones.
3. Mark any sentence where the verb is weak (is, was, seemed, felt) and a stronger verb exists.
4. Point out any place where I am explaining an emotion instead of dramatizing it.
5. Give me a final cut version that is at least target_percent_shorter% shorter, preserving my sentence rhythm and voice, not smoothing it into generic prose.
Do not add new imagery or metaphors that aren't mine. Do not soften my style toward 'MFA workshop neutral.' If a sentence is already tight, say so and leave it alone.
Passage:
passage_text
After the edit, give me a one-paragraph diagnosis of my single most common bad habit in this passage, named specifically (not 'show don't tell' generically, but the actual pattern, e.g. 'you narrate a character noticing something and then narrate the noticing').
Where it has been run
| Model | Version | People | Broke | Auto | Last |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude | Haiku 4.5 | 0 | 0 | 1/1 | 3 days ago |
Example output
Diagnosis: your most common habit here is doubling perception, you write 'she noticed the light was fading' then 'it was getting dark' one sentence later. Cut version trims 3,200 words to 2,050. Example edit: 'The silence in the kitchen felt heavy and uncomfortable, pressing down on both of them' becomes 'The kitchen went quiet. Neither of them moved.' Weak verbs flagged: 12 instances of 'was/felt/seemed' replaced with concrete action verbs. Full annotated passage returned with inline [CUT] and [TIGHTEN] tags plus final clean version.
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