Clare T. Walker

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writing tip: always read your manuscript out loud

August 16, 2014 by Clare T. Walker

Startling Figures is almost ready to publish. I got the cover, spine, and back cover mock-up from the designer and I uploaded a “final” manuscript to CreateSpace.

The book looks very good on the document review screen, but here’s the reason for today’s writing tip, and the reason the word “final” is in quotes above:

When I read the manuscript out loud, I found a punctuation error in the very first sentence! This is after reading it countless times myself and having several beta readers go through it. It amazed me that I didn’t catch the error until I read a facsimile of the formatted document out loud.

Reading your work aloud forces you to slow down and enables you to catch “sour notes,” awkward phrases, and other writing blunders that the brain skips over when reading silently. (Another reason I was able to catch errors in the formatted, pre-publication mock-up may be that Times New Roman–the font I used to compose the stories–is very compact, but Garamond–the typeface I chose for the book–is much more open.)

Other errors I found:

Toward the bottom of the screenshot, at the left margin:

Screen shot 2014-08-14 at 1.30.47 PM

There are so many “wounds” in this paragraph, they’re stacked three deep!

The word “and” is missing from one of the sentences below:

Screen shot 2014-08-14 at 1.43.29 PM

Try reading this out loud:

John stepped toward Yvette with a sheepish smile. “What do you think, honey?”

I can’t even say “sheepish smile” once, slowly, let alone five times fast! I forgot to get a screenshot of “sheepish smile,” but here’s how I changed it:

Screen shot 2014-08-14 at 5.17.29 PM

I finished my third read-aloud last night — even then I was making corrections! It’s time consuming and your voice gets tired, but it’s worth doing to find problems now rather than at the first public reading of your work.

If you’d like to receive a quick email from me when the book is published, go ahead and fill out the little form below:



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Comments

  1. w88.com says

    August 20, 2014 at 7:14 pm

    Glad to hear! like your blog and your way of writing! Perhaps you will show me a few tips.

    • Clare T. Walker says

      August 21, 2014 at 5:50 pm

      Welcome! Keep reading!

  2. by hartanbona says

    September 2, 2014 at 2:03 am

    Oh my goodness! Awesome article dude! Thanks, However I am
    having difficulties with your RSS. I don’t understand the reason why I am unable to subscribe to it.
    Is there anyone else having identical RSS problems?
    Anyone who knows the answer will you kindly respond? Thanks!!

    Stop by my weblog; by hartanbona

    • Clare T. Walker says

      September 2, 2014 at 9:17 pm

      It’s not an RSS. It’s just a little ole email list. If you subscribe, I’ll send regular updates directly to your email inbox. No spam — I promise! — just a heads up whenever I publish what I think is a particularly good article on the website, or when a new book of mine comes out, or if I find something irresistible on the Internet that I think my readers would really like.

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