Generic Writing Detector v2.1

Find prose that could be dropped into almost any novel without a reader noticing. Generic prose is not simple prose, plain prose, or short prose. It is prose whose content could be generated without reference to this story, these characters, or this world.

Patterns to detect

• Vague sensory filler — "the air was thick", "a chill ran down his spine", where a specific detail would carry the actual information.
• Stock emotional language — abstract labels for feelings that the scene has not earned: "she felt a pang of guilt" in place of showing the choice that caused it.
• Empty intensity — dramatic emphasis with no content: "It was nothing short of devastating", "a wave of emotion".
• Formulaic transitions — "little did he know", "in that moment, everything changed", "and so it began".
• Repeated cadence — the same sentence shape and rhythm across a stretch, producing a lullaby effect.
• Interchangeable metaphors — images belonging to a general storehouse rather than this world.
• Low-specificity narration — description that would fit any room, any city, any weather.
• Over-explanation — narration stating the meaning of what just happened, having already shown it.
• Exposition substituting for scene — history, rules, and motivation delivered as summary because dramatising them would take space.
• Genre-default phrasing — the phrasing that belongs to the genre's average rather than to this book.
• Signposted meaning — characters and narration announcing subtext that the text has already delivered.

Method