Plain Prose

A writing coach for Obsidian that points things out and never rewrites.

No AI. Plain Prose uses no AI of any kind: no language models, no rewriting, no suggestions written for you, no downloads, and nothing sent anywhere. It counts and measures your text with simple, open rules you can read in the source. The words stay yours.

Most readability tools push every sentence towards a lower grade. That suits instructions and web copy, not fiction or essays, where a long sentence can be doing exactly what it should. Plain Prose works the other way round: you decide how your writing should read, and it shows you where a note drifts from that.

• Your own grade range. Set a floor and a ceiling instead of “lower is better”. Easiest: look at your “Usual” grade in the comparison and set a range about 2 either side of it. One note can have its own range with the property prose-range: 5-10.
• Rhythm. A bar for every sentence, so you can see the music of a paragraph at a glance. Paragraphs where every sentence is the same length are marked as flat rhythm, whether the sentences are short or long.
• Habits worth a second look:
  • filler words (just, really, began to, the fact that…);
  • adverbs;
  • weak verbs (was, got, went, made, seemed, and “there was” openings), skipping tenses like was walking;
  • words repeated close together, with a list of the words you lean on most (character names don’t count);
  • showy alternatives to “said” (she hissed, he exclaimed).
• Two ways to count sentences. Fiction (default) treats “No!” she said. as one sentence; Hemingway-style ends a sentence at every . ! ? and line break, so your grades match the Hemingway app. Switch in Settings.
• Compared with your folder: how this chapter reads next to your others (grade, sentence length, variety, habits per thousand words). Not judged against a school grade.
• Write and Edit modes. Write hides every mark so you can draft. Edit shows them when you revise. Click the status bar, or use the command, to switch.
• Long sentences are only marked if you turn on Above your ceiling in the settings.
• Add your own filler words and dialogue tags, and words to never mark (names, dialect).

It’s a small plugin: no AI, no downloads, no network. Everything runs on your device.

The grade is the Automated Readability Index (characters per word and words per sentence), the same scale many editors use. Most fiction scores around 3–9.

Works well with Writers Board.

Feedback and bugs: GitHub issues · Buy me a coffee

GNU AGPL v3 or later © AshOtis