Thanks for posting this! I've been struggling to write my first novel, and I'm interested to see how I score with this.
Of course, when you're writing, many times you break the rules. At times grammatically incorrect dialog, for instance, scans better. You might leave a subject off a sentence, make the reader hunt around for it. You might make some sentences difficult in order to contrast them with freely-flowing sentences in the space afterwards. You might create long, difficult-to-read sentences punctuated with short declarative ones.
Wonder how this tool is going to know any of that?
You're right that short, declarative sentences aren't always better. But, our goal in building this tool was to just provide a few simple algorithms for catching things that you might miss after staring at a piece of writing for too long.
It's a tool explicitly designed for the dumbing-down of text. It might have its uses, for instance when you're writing ad copy, but applying it to everything you write would be a mistake.
Of course, when you're writing, many times you break the rules. At times grammatically incorrect dialog, for instance, scans better. You might leave a subject off a sentence, make the reader hunt around for it. You might make some sentences difficult in order to contrast them with freely-flowing sentences in the space afterwards. You might create long, difficult-to-read sentences punctuated with short declarative ones.
Wonder how this tool is going to know any of that?