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The Easter Bunny dropped off a special treat for Easter this year…

Repetition Checker is now live for Writhm Pro users.

All children, except one, grow up. They soon know that they will grow up, and the way Wendy knew was this. One day when she was two years old she was playing in a garden, and she plucked another flower and ran with it to her mother. I suppose she must have looked rather delightful, for Mrs. Darling put her hand to her heart and cried, “Oh, why can’t you remain like this for ever!” This was all that passed between them on the subject, but henceforth Wendy knew that she must grow up. You always know after you are two. Two is the beginning of the end.

That’s the opening of Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie, and it’s is a masterclass in first paragraphs.

It’s soft. It’s almost a bedtime-story voice. But the theme is right there. This is a story about childhood — and losing it — and even though it’s clearly written in an older style, the sentences still pack a punch today.

And that last line — “Two is the beginning of the end.” — that is GOLD.

Watch the video for the full visual breakdown 👇

For more deconstructions, follow on TikTok — and if you want to play around with Writhm, sign up for a free account. It’ll help you improve the flow of your writing.

My first indication that food was something other than a substance one stuffed in one’s face when hungry—like filling up at a gas station—came after fourth grade in elementary school.

This is opening of Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain, and it’s a great example of how to control rhythm on the page.

Let’s keep reading, and see if you can pick up on a subtle trick he’s doing that you can use in your own writing. It’s in this next part; see if you can spot it.

It was on a family vacation to Europe, on the Queen Mary, in the cabin-class dining room. There’s a picture somewhere: my mother and her Jackie O sunglasses, my younger brother and I in our painfully cute cruisewear, boarding the big Cunard ocean liner, all of us excited about our first transatlantic voyage, our first trip to my father‘s ancestral homeland, France.
It was the soup.
It was cold.

Do you see what he did there?

This is an example of a beautiful descending pattern.

You’ve got two long sentences that are painting a picture of this wonderful memory. A family vacation, a boat, France.

And then he lands here:

It was the soup.
It was cold.

After ALL that buildup, you get two short sentences that punch you in the face.

That is CLASSIC Bourdain.

This is what makes his style so fun. He writes so visually and descriptively, but then he’ll smack you on the head with those abrupt lines just to rope you back in.

So the big takeaway here: try descending patterns. Write a few long sentences in a row that carry the weight of a full idea, and then follow it up with something short and sharp to really stick that landing.

Watch the video for the full visual breakdown 👇

For more deconstructions, follow on TikTok – and if you want to play around with Writhm, sign up for a free account. It’ll help you improve the flow of your writing.

“Behavioral Science, the FBI section that deals with serial murder, is on the bottom floor of the Academy building at Quantico, half-buried in the earth. Clarice Starling reached it flushed after a fast walk from Hogan’s Alley on the firing range.”

Freakin’ Silence of the Lambs.

This is THE prime example of good pacing and rhythm and character building in a book, so let’s dive in and deconstruct the opening.

Watch the video for the full visual breakdown 👇

Right away, the structure is doing exactly what the scene needs.

It’s efficient, it’s matter of fact.

And the whole opening moves very quickly. In only 100 words, you’ve got Clarice rushing away from the firing range, you’ve got this telling character moment when she primps in front of a mirror, and you know something urgent’s about to happen because “Chief Crawford’s summons said NOW.”

Think about it. The writing itself is showing you there’s no time to stop and smell the flowers. When your story’s moving fast, your sentences should too.

Another thing that’s really interesting is the variation in sentence lengths when it comes to narrative vs. dialogue.

At the start, you can see a lot of long sentences, but when Clarice meets Crawford, It flips into almost all purple and green highlighting in Writhm (see video above).

The dialogue is very staccato, very to-the-point — which is PERFECT for the relationship between Starling and Crawford.

“Hello.” Her smile was only polite.
“Nothing’s wrong. I hope the call didn’t spook you.”
“No.” Not totally true, Starling thought.

So here are 2 takeaways from the opening of The Silence of the Lambs:

#1) Make sure your pacing reflects the environment you’re writing about; in this case fast, urgent, no fluff.

#2) For realistic dialogue, try short back-and-forth lines.

For more deconstructions, follow on TikTok – and if you want to play around with Writhm, sign up for a free account. It’ll help you improve the flow of your writing.

“Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. They were the last people you’d expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn’t hold with such nonsense.”

That’s the opening of Harry Potter, obviously.

Check out a couple cool things that are going on here.

The first sentence is doing a lot of work. It’s a fairly short clause, but it’s dressed up with these fun little interrupters (“of number four, Privet Drive”) and this cheeky tone, right? That little “thank you very much” adds some nice dry British humor and makes it more fun than if it just said, “Mr. and Mrs. Dursley were perfectly normal,” right?

The next few paragraphs are still short-to-medium length, but they’re not triggering the monotony flag in Writhm because there’s enough variation that it flows nicely.

Watch the video for the full visual breakdown 👇

So the big takeaway is that it’s all about finding your Goldilocks sentences. Sentences that aren’t too long, or aren’t too short, but they’re just right to build some character.

And that’s the other thing I love about this opening.

It’s all about character.

It doesn’t start by saying, “Privet Drive was the perfect neighborhood. Emerald lawns, birds chirping, yada yada.” It started with Mr. and Mrs. Dursley. Character. When in doubt, it’s never a bad idea to start with character.

For more deconstructions, follow on TikTok – and if you want to play around with Writhm, sign up for a free account. It’ll help you improve the flow of your writing.

This is one of the most common questions I’ve been getting lately.

Here’s the short answer:

Hemingway is about conciseness and “correctness.” It flags complex sentences and suggests cutting things like adverbs, but it doesn’t really help you vary your pacing or the flow of your writing. In fact, if you ran a bunch of famous books through Hemingway, it would tell you all sorts of things are wrong with them.

Writhm is about flow and finesse. It visualizes your sentences based on length and complexity and helps you see where your writing stumbles so you can fix it. Writhm loves both short, punchy sentences and long, sweeping prose, and it won’t ding you for grammar mistakes or tell you to try to simplify things.

Now don’t get me wrong—Hemingway can be useful.

But again, not everything’s about “correctness.”

Plus, they are pushing hard on AI right now, which, y’know, makes a lot of writers nervous. At Writhm, there’s a conscious choice to have zero AI whatsoever. It doesn’t train on your writing, it doesn’t generate anything. And it’s being built with the input of the writing community, which supports the craft of writing and writers’ livelihoods.

Tl;dr – Hemingway focuses on conciseness and “correctness,” while Writhm focuses on flow and finesse.

Hope that helps. And hey, give Writhm a shot! We’re the new kid on the block, and we’re adding new features from community feedback every week.

Sign up for a free account and take a peek.

This is one of the most common questions I’ve been getting lately.

Here’s the short answer:

Grammarly is about “correctness.” It catches typos and grammar mistakes, but it doesn’t really care if your writing sounds beautiful or rhythmic—it just wants it to be technically correct. In fact, if you ran a bunch of famous books through Grammarly, it would tell you that all sorts of things are wrong with them, which, grammatically, that might be the case, but stylistically there’s a reason for it.

Writhm is about flow and finesse. It visualizes your sentences based on length and complexity and helps you see where your writing stumbles so you can fix it. Writhm loves both short, punchy sentences and long, sweeping prose, and it won’t ding you for grammar mistakes or tell you to try to simplify things.

Now don’t get me wrong—I’m a big Grammarly fan.

But again, not everything’s about “correctness.”

Plus, they are pushing hard on AI right now, which, y’know, makes a lot of writers nervous. At Writhm, there’s a conscious choice to have zero AI whatsoever. It doesn’t train on your writing, it doesn’t generate anything. And it’s being built with the input of the writing community, which supports the craft of writing and writers’ livelihoods.

Tl;dr – Grammarly focuses on “correctness,” and Writhm focuses on flow and finesse.

Hope that helps. And hey, give Writhm a shot! We’re the new kid on the block, and we’re adding new features from community feedback every week.

Sign up for a free account and take a peek.

What if I told you I redesigned Writhm from scratch…and it just launched?

It’s true. Check it 👇

Adjustable sentence ranges. Customizable colors. Savable projects and themes.

You’re going to love it.

There’s a Free tier and a Pro tier with extra features.

And here’s the best part…

We’re opening up 500 LIFETIME spots for the Pro tier starting today.

Whether you upgrade to Pro or remain on Free, I can’t wait for you to check it out.

Note: If you’ve signed up for Writhm before, you’ll need to sign up again. (Dang tech.)

This is the only writing app out there focused on flow and finesse, not “correctness” or grammar.

It’ll make your writing more beautiful and engaging, guaranteed.

—D. Melhoff

P.S. Watch the announcement video on TikTok and check out all the buzz. Craziness!