Proofreading Help--Reading Your Work Aloud

Sometimes the simplest solutions to a problem are overlooked. When a story we've written doesn't feel right, won't come together in the way we'd hoped, we look for ways to help us see the light, find the little errors that act as roadblocks to a satisfying piece. 

Reading your story, essay or poem out loud will be a big aid in finding places that need attention, mechanical errors that you've overlooked when proofreading by means of silent reading. Your eyes flit across the page and catch many bits and pieces that need correcting. Those same eyes also pass right on by other trouble spots.

Give your ears a chance to find more places that you need to revise or correct. Reading silently is fine, but adding another reading by actually speaking what you've written will be an additional help.

I'd suggest that you don't do this at the dinner table, on a bus, or sitting in a crowded coffee shop. This exercise is one to do all by yourself in a quiet room or outdoors in a place where it's you and nature. Stand up. Straighten up. Begin reading in a normal voice, as if you were reading to an audience. Side note:  When I am going to be reading my work to a live audience, I do read it aloud at home first. It helps to make you more comfortable when actually reading to people.

You can do it once through or try it a second, even a third time. Poetry, especially, benefits from more than one reading. 

What kinds of things are you apt to find when you read your work out loud? 

• Sentences that are too long--if you must stop and take a breath while reading one sentence, it's probably too long. You might not see it reading silently, but you will hear it reading orally.
• Missing periods--you will read with one sentence running into another.
• Overly long paragraphs
• Too many dialogue tags--you needn't use one with every bit of spoken conversation. In a back and forth between characters, use the tag sparingly. Readers can figure out who is speaking.
• Repetition of words
• Repetition of information
• Poor opening--no hook
• Blah ending
• Rambling

There could be others, as well. The more you read your writing out loud, the more your work will benefit. Like so many good practices, you need to establish a habit. I read some of my writing aloud but not everything. I'd like to increase the times I do this and to create a set habit. One of the reasons I, and maybe you, don't always do it is that it takes more precious moments that we're not always willing to give up.

I read this post out loud, and guess what? I found several places where I changed bits and pieces. If you've never tried the oral reading as help to editing, give it a try. If you've done it only occasionally, try to do it more often.If you do it all the time, pat yourself on the back.