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| Photo credit: Marc - who just moved on Flickr |
With my first few WIPs, I actually read my work out loud as
I was writing the first draft…to family members. It became this sort of thing with my family where I would read
the draft (often a chapter at a time) up until the point where I’d stopped
writing and they would look at me and say and?
And I would shrug and say, I don’t know.
That’s where I’m at. Which was usually followed by get back to work.
While I now cringe at the thought of reading the first draft
to anyone, I’ve since learned that
reading subsequent drafts out loud is especially helpful after you've done a
couple of rounds of revision and your eyes start to glaze over when you try to
read your WIP again.
You see, most of us know that if you read something a
certain amount of times and you become familiar with the text, your brain
starts to skip over things. It stops noticing typos and awkward sentences and
words that you’ve used way too many
times and when “it is” should be “it was” or he accidentally becomes she.
When you read your work out loud, however, you start to
notice those things again. You’ll stumble over a sentence and squint at it and
realize just how awkward it sounds, or you’ll be reading a sentence about your
male protagonist and say, “then she went” and realize—quite suddenly—that your
mistake just changed the gender of your main character. And while your brain
may forget that you’ve said a certain word too many times, your ears will
notice when you say gaze again and
again and again.
The best part? You
don’t need to read aloud to anyone in particular.
You can read to your dog, your fish, your one-eyed gerbil
Alfredo, or your child’s collection of stuffed animals. Bonus points if you can
drag/bribe/coerce someone into listening to your story as you read it out loud,
because then you can gage their reaction during various parts of your WIP (did
he fall asleep during your action scene? Laugh at something that wasn’t
supposed to be funny? etc.), but if not, it’s ok because the exercise is really
for you, anyway.
Reading your work out loud allows you to pick up on
inconsistencies, breaks in flow and all those little errors that your brain
decided to ignore while you last read it. As long as you don’t mind looking
slightly crazy while reading to an empty room (or not), I highly recommend
trying it out.
Have you ever read your WIP out loud? If so, was it helpful? If not,
why not?
12 comments:
I agree - it's an essential step at the proofreading stage. The trouble is that even when reading we often read what we wanted the text to say and not what is actually there. For that reason we get the computer to read it to us instead. We use Text Aloud which has some very natural sounding voices. It reads exactly what is there.
No computer speech system is perfect though, so you'll have to put up with the odd word pronounced wrongly - 'lead mine' doesn't make much sense if it's 'leed' instead of 'led'.
I ALWAYS tell my creative writing students to read their pieces aloud. You can hear so many glitches that are obscure otherwise. Onec I was at a writers' retreat where we wrote outside on a wraparound porch and one of the authors walked around the house in circles, reading an almost 300 pg ms to herself.
Personally, I can't stand robotic computer voices and I don't have software that allows for more natural sounding voices. However, you're right that we can often read what we want to say versus what is actually there. No system is perfect. :)
Now that's interesting--the author walked while reading the MS out loud? I'm not sure I'd be able to do that without walking into something. Heh.
I've heard this tip before. But now I guess I'll actually do it. LOL
It helps more than you might think. Good luck!
Hello! I'm back! Now, where were we? I have always done this talking out loud thing. First of all, I'm crazy. So it's a natural step. Thirdly, because secondly isn't important, I've always been tuned into the rhythm of my sentences and this helps me get it right. If it doesn't flow I know to edit.
Reading your work out loud definitely helps you listen to the rhythm of the sentences. When you stumble (that isn't related to just being tired or reading a word incorrectly), you know that particular sentence probably needs to be looked at again.
It's so helpful to read stuff aloud, especially to other people. I read aloud sometimes at an open mic night for writers, and I can always tell if my writing is interesting or not by how well I can hold my audience with it.
I've never read a whole novel of mine aloud though... I shall have to try that sometime. :)
I've never been to an open mic night for writers, but I feel like that'd be very helpful (if not a little nerve-wracking). Reading an entire novel aloud obviously takes much longer...but it's worth it, in my experience.
I always read my work aloud, but I like one comment suggesting an automated device for more accuracy. I might have to check that out & engage both practices --- no such thing as too many revisions, right? :)
If you found an automated voice that wasn't painful to listen to, I imagine it'd be worth trying out. Or maybe I'm just picky about computer voices...hmm...
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