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7 Reasons Why You Should Read Your Book Out Loud

October 3, 2010 by Joanna Penn 29 Comments

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OLD POST ALERT! This is an older post and although you might find some useful tips, any technical or publishing information is likely to be out of date. Please click on Start Here on the menu bar above to find links to my most useful articles, videos and podcast. Thanks and happy writing! – Joanna Penn

I have just submitted my novel, Pentecost to my editor for review.

Before I sent it, I read the entire book out loud which really helped me pick up some problems. It took me a whole day, from 7am to around 9pm and I was pretty hoarse by the end of it! Watch the video or read the text below for details.

In the video, I explain:

  • You can find inconsistencies across the story and continuation issues e.g. a character is drinking tea and then coffee, or you've described a scene and then you realize it's night-time.
  • It improves dialogue to hear it spoken out loud. When your characters are actually speaking, you realize they wouldn't say it quite that way.
  • You find typos and mis-placed words that your brain skipped over when reading on the page.
  • You realise how long some sentences are when you can't say them without a deep breath in the middle.
  • You can see where punctuation is wrong and where it needs changing.
  • You get a sense of pacing and can check if it is appropriate for the novel e.g. mine is a thriller so needs fast pacing, short sentences
  • You get a sense of how long the podcast novel will be!

I put this idea out on Twitter and Facebook and pretty much everyone thought it was a great idea and most writers are already doing it.

Do you read your work out loud? Does it work for you?

******

You can now get free chapters of Pentecost on the Facebook page by clicking here.

********

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Filed Under: Writing Tagged With: novel writing

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  1. Finish Your Writing Project Using These Secrets « Art Biz Blog says:
    March 29, 2018 at 1:37 pm

    […] Here’s another secret: Read your writing out loud. […]

    Reply

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Most of the information on this site is free for you to read, watch or listen to, but The Creative Penn is also a business and my livelihood. So please expect hyperlinks to be affiliate links in many cases, when I receive a small percentage of sales if you wish to purchase. I only recommend tools, books and services that I either use or people I know personally. Integrity and authenticity continue to be of the highest importance to me. Read the privacy policy here. Read the Cookie policy here. I hope you find the site useful! Thanks - Joanna

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