Derek Taylor has a nice video that talks about Emacs tools for writers. It’s a nice recapitulation of a post by Scott Nesbitt that I wrote about back in May of 2018. Taylor discusses pretty much the same tools as Nesbitt but since it’s a video you get to see them in action. The tools the video considers are:
- Org-mode
- Spell Checking with flyspell
- Word counting with wc-mode
- Grammar checking with writegood-mode
- Distraction free writing with writeroom-mode
The word counting package, wc-mode, is a little confusing because there are two packages with that name. Taylor appears to be using this one, which doesn’t seem much different from the built-in count-words command. I prefer to use Benjamin Beckwith’s version, which has a more flexible display and provides a running count. If you’re doing almost any type of (non-coding) writing, you probably need a word counting function.
I’ve never felt the need for a “blank page” writing environment but if you’re the type of writer who doesn’t want to see anything on the screen except the words you write, you should definitely consider writeroom-mode. It gives you a screen with no status bars or other distractions and has the text nicely centered on the screen.
Finally, if you’re pining for your eighth grade English teacher’s nagging about grammar, you can try writegood-mode. I definitely don’t want that but it does have some functions that gauge the “readability” of your prose.
The video is just over 12 minutes—a little less if you skip the shout outs at the end—so plan accordingly. If you use Emacs for writing and aren’t familiar with these tools, it’s definitely something you should watch.