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Like most people who use word processing applications, I’m by now perfectly used to seeing those colored squiggly lines appear below phrases or sentences deemed grammatically incorrect. And as a subset of this group no doubt also does, I typically ignore them. I know what I’m saying, after all, and I’m aware when it deviates from standard grammatical rules. But a recent discussion I had regarding the heap of narrative do’s and don’ts piled on students of composition, e.g. Show don’t tell, led me to wonder how useful it would be to have such prescriptive narrativity rules built into a word processor. Let’s call it Story Perfect.
Would you use Story Perfect to compose fiction? What if it could check your metaphors for alignment? What if it could help you ensure your protagonist’s language was “in character”? Or help you pick the appropriate moment for your climax? And would the result still be “your story?” Though it may seem intrusive to most writers, we do this on some level anyway: internalize rules we’ve learned and reproduce them on the page. Why not have a little reminder during the moments of inspiration?
