How Podgy is my Writing?

As I promised earlier today, I put my own work through the Writer's Diet assessment program.

I took a 300 word sample from the first page(s) of my novel and assessed it, first manually and then electronically at the Writer's Diet website - just to make sure I hadn't missed anything.

You can do the same by going here.

Now my first pages have been edited not only by me, but also by my beta readers, so if not perfect this is at least a fairly spruced section of my work.

Sample#1.
My score for this section was Lean on all points. (Much to my surprise!) Writer's Diet also gave me an overall score of Lean and a Lean rating on all points. As you can imagine, I was very chuffed with that.

So, out of curiosity, I wondered how badly a random section of my work would rate.

I chose a piece from around page 60. This has only been briefly edited by me and my writing buddy. No serious re-writes or beta-reader critiques here.

Sample#2.
My electonic score for this section was overall Fit and Trim. Everything scored Lean except Waste Words which got a Needs Toning. Too many "it" and "that" happening in the dialogue at this point.

So, I submitted another sample from even later in the novel, around page 150.

Sample#3.
The electronic score was overall Fit and Trim with Ad-dictions (Be-verbs) and Prepositional Podge creating a bit of extra fab. Not enough to be unsightly though.

I'm pretty pleased with my scores.

Now, I'm tempted to take a piece of my previous MS and test it. Given how much my writing has improved of late, I think it'll be carrying quite a bit more weight.

This whole diet thing is really quite addictive.

Go give it a whirl yourself. I'd love to hear how you score.