Prose Metrics
Quiet, on-device gauges for the mechanics of your prose — with real examples highlighted in the text.
Prose Metrics measures the craft signals editors watch for — sentence length and variety, adverbs, passive voice, dialogue tags, pacing, and more — around fifteen gauges in all. Each one shows whether it's sitting in the target range or drifting below or above it. Targets are relative to your genre, because a thriller and a literary novel breathe differently. It runs on your machine and costs nothing. In Single chapter it measures the active chapter; in Continuous manuscript it automatically measures the complete ordered book.
Prose Metrics — gauges and inline highlights
- 1Open Prose Metrics from the Review menu.
- 2Confirm the genre (it defaults to your book's) so the targets fit.
- 3Scan the gauges for any needle sitting below or above its target range.
- 4Click a metric to highlight its real examples in your manuscript.
What It Measures
- Readability and rhythm — sentence length, variety, glue words, and pacing signals
- Craft flags — passive voice, dialogue tags (and adverb-laden ones), -ing openers, emotion tells, and weak adverbs
- Genre-relative targets across seventeen genres, so the ranges mean something for your kind of story
- The drawer labels its scope as This chapter or Full manuscript, following the workspace you chose
- Click a metric to highlight its actual examples in the chapter or across every Continuous-manuscript page — not generic illustrations
- A footer legend explains the in-range, below, and above bands at a glance
Metrics are signals, not rules. A caution band is an invitation to look, not a command to change — your voice always wins the argument.