Repair

Apology Laboratory

Most apologies fail in a predictable way: they contain the word sorry and then spend the next four sentences defending themselves. The structure is usually there in the writer head, but it does not survive contact with the reader, who hears a defence instead. This tool scores a draft against five components an apology actually needs: regret that names the impact, responsibility that owns the act, repair that says what changes, restitution that offers something concrete, and repetition that changes the mechanism rather than the mood. It then tells you which components are missing and gives you the sentence to paste in. The score describes one piece of writing on one day. It does not score your partner, your relationship, or your worth.

Your draft apology

Write it the way you would actually say it, then paste it here

Hours since it happened

What happened

How you will deliver it

Result

How to use it

STEP 1

Write the apology the way you would actually say it, then paste it into the box. Do not tidy it up first. The tool is looking for the shape of what you plan to send, and tidying removes exactly the pivots and counter accusations it needs to see.

STEP 2

Fill in how many hours have passed since the incident, and pick what happened: a one-off, a recurring pattern, a missed occasion, or something cruel that was said. The same words carry different weight in each case, and a repair that works for a one-off will not work for a pattern.

STEP 3

Choose how you will deliver it: out loud, in writing, or as a text. A written apology can carry more detail than a text but has no tone, and that changes what you should leave in.

STEP 4

Read the result before you rewrite anything. The score is only useful when you know which of the five components is actually missing, because people almost always assume the problem is the opening sentence when it is nearly always the missing repair or restitution.

Three common mistakes

Over-apologising. Three paragraphs of self-criticism read as anxiety, and repeated apologies for a single incident transfer the work of processing onto the person who was hurt. One apology, with one concrete repair, is stronger than three long ones.
Explaining inside the apology. The sentence beginning with "but" or "I was stressed" is the most common defect in a draft, because it feels like context. It is not context in that position, it is a reason, and it arrives after the apology has already been undercut.
Promising feelings instead of actions. "I will try to do better" cannot be checked by anybody and therefore repairs nothing. "I will set a reminder every Thursday evening" can be checked in two weeks, which is the only kind of promise that lands.
Scoring a draft you are still writing. The tool reads what is on the page right now. Drafts that are written to be read by the other person sound different from drafts written to be scored, and the second kind always scores higher because it has been edited toward the structure the tool rewards.

The five components and what each one is for

An apology that works has five parts, and each one does a specific job for the person reading it.

Regret (20 points). The word sorry plus a sentence that names the effect on the other person, plus a sentence that shows you understand why it landed. Regret without understanding reads as politeness.
Responsibility (20 points). Owning the act in the first person, with no pivot word anywhere in the text, and no blame. The pivot check is strict on purpose: a single "but" costs 5 points, because a pivot is where the accountability stops.
Repair (20 points). A future-tense commitment (10 points) plus a concrete, checkable action inside the same sentence (10 points). The action has to be a verb somebody could observe: call, text, set a reminder, ask, schedule.
Restitution (20 points). An offer framed in the other person terms (12 points) plus a specific thing offered, such as money, time, an errand, a replacement (8 points). Offering what the other person asked for is worth far more than offering what you think they want.
Repetition (20 points). Saying this will not happen again (8 points) plus a mechanism that makes the repeat less likely (12 points). A mechanism is a calendar entry, a standing question, a rule you agreed on. An intention is not a mechanism.

The default draft on this page scores 38 out of 100. It opens well, with full marks on regret, and then loses the room: a pivot after "I was tired and stressed", a vague promise instead of a repair, nothing offered, no mechanism, and a closing counter accusation. That is the shape of most apologies that do not land.

What to add, word for word

The suggestions the tool produces are written to be pasted into the draft rather than admired. They follow one rule each: name the thing in the language of the person who was affected, not in the language of the writer.

For regret, the sentence is about understanding rather than feeling: "I understand that the message left you hanging all evening, not just for an hour." The second half matters, because it separates the real cost from the intended one. For responsibility, the sentence has no excuse in it at all: "It was my call to make, and I made it badly." For repair, the sentence contains a day, a time and an action: "I will set a reminder every Thursday evening and text you before I make any plan without asking." Any promise another person could verify in a fortnight is worth ten promises they cannot.

For restitution, the hardest one, the sentence gives the choice back: "I do not know what would help right now, so name one thing I can take off your plate this week and I will do it." This is the part people skip because it feels like admitting you do not know the situation. It is the opposite: it is the only version of restitution that cannot be wrong. For repetition, the sentence names a mechanism and a review date: "I am putting our check-in in my calendar every Sunday and I will ask you whether it worked." A repair with a review built into it is the one form of apology that survives contact with the next month.

Markers to remove, and why they are there

Most drafts that score badly are not dishonest. They are drafts written by a person who was in the middle of something difficult and wanted the other person to know it. Each marker below is that impulse showing up in a place where it works against the sentence.

The pivot. "I was stressed, but..." is a reason. Reasons belong after the apology has been heard, in a separate conversation, and only if they are asked for.
The counter accusation. "You always shut down" reads as a comparison of fault. The reader will respond to the accusation and will not process the apology underneath it.
Old apologies as currency. "I already said sorry" asks the other person to be grateful for past apologies, which converts an apology into a receipt.
The condition. "If you felt hurt" tells the reader their reaction was optional, and then asks them to argue for it.
The cancellation. "Let us just move on" closes the thing you just apologised for, which is the one move an apology must never make.

Cutting a marker usually lowers the word count and raises the score at the same time. That is the useful asymmetry here: the shortest reliable apology is not shorter in feeling, only shorter in defence.

FAQ

Is a low score a sign that I am a bad apology?

It is a sign that this particular draft is a bad apology, which is a much more useful thing to know. Most drafts on this page score between 30 and 55 because apologies are usually written for the writer rather than the reader. The five components are simple enough to fix in one pass, and the tool gives you the exact sentence for each missing part, so the score should move the next time you look at it.

Should an apology be long or short?

Between 40 and 70 words is the range that lands most often. Under 15 words it reads as a reflex and it leaves the reader guessing what you actually understood. Over 150 words it reads as a defence with an apology at the top, and the reader starts looking for what you are hiding. The default draft here runs 66 words and scores 38, which is the proof that length is not the problem: it is missing repair and restitution that cost it.

What if I am not sure whether they are still hurt?

Apologise anyway, and do not make the hurt the condition of the apology. Whether the other person is over it is not information you need in order to take responsibility for what you did, and asking about it in the same message reads as a question about whether you have to. Apologise for the act, offer the repair, and let them decide how much of the feeling they still have.

Does the tool tell me whether they will forgive me?

No, and no tool can. Forgiveness is not a function of wording, and a score of 85 will not make the other person ready. What a good apology does is remove the obstacles that make forgiveness difficult: the uncertainty about what you understood, the uncertainty about what will change, and the uncertainty about whether anything is being offered. Those three are what the five components are for.

My partner apologised badly to me. Can I use this to score their apology?

You can, and it can be a useful way to start a conversation, but keep two things in mind. The score describes the writing, not the person, so say that out loud before you use any number. And if the apology is a repeated pattern rather than a draft, a written exercise may not be what the conversation needs. In that case the useful output is the repetition component: does the other person have a mechanism in place, or only an intention?

Limits of this tool

This tool scores a piece of writing. It does not assess your relationship, your partner, or your capacity to be a good partner, and no score on this page should be quoted at anybody.
Limits of this tool: it reads the words you wrote, not the history behind them. It cannot tell a strategic apology from a sincere one, and it cannot know whether the other person has already said the same thing many times before.
Nothing is uploaded or stored. The draft is scored in your browser and the page forgets it as soon as you close the tab.
If an apology is not landing, the cause is usually not the wording. When two people are stuck, a written tool can only help with the first minute of the conversation, and a conversation with someone you trust is usually the stronger move.