Friday, June 14, 2013

Reading Your Manuscript Out Loud

One thing that you may want to consider while editing is reading your book out loud to yourself. True, I've already mentioned this once, but as I've just finished doing it, I thought that it worked really well.

For one, you get to see a whole lot of mistakes while speaking the story that you'd normally never catch normally. I know, it takes a whole lot of time to do a reading, and it will probably seem especially frustrating if you've spent a lot of time in edits before, but it will pay off. Also, since you're reading, you'll tend to notice and concentrate on every single line of your writing, something that you might not have been able to do while just reading. I know for a fact that I sometimes miss out on something while reading.

But the main thing that it helps you is deciding how to frame your sentences. Several times I noticed a sentence that just sounded 'off' or a word that would have been better if it was substituted with another. And it really shows a lot about your dialogue and if what a character is saying really fits.

You probably either want to read it to someone else, or have it read back to you. Microphones and voice-recording softwares are pretty easy to come by, so it is viable.

But even if you can't do either of those two, do read it out loud, even if it is just to yourself. It might seem tiring, but it is worthwhile in the end.

Of course, you may have to spread your sessions apart. My book was only around 45k but I felt my voice go sore a few times, so just watch out for that.

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