Do you hear what I hear?
If you do any writing, you’ve probably heard this before, but this is the first time I’ve tried it: I got DH to read aloud a piece I’m submitting to the Canada Writes Edible Non-Fiction Challenge, and found at least four things that I wanted to change in a 300-word manuscript that I thought was (finally) finished.
It was an entirely useful exercise, completely different even from reading it aloud myself. I’d get him to do it again, but given that he also got to sit through the thesaurus rampage that changed “lots of tasty stuff” into “oodles of edible fare” (but only after we’d been through “oodles of entirely edible fare”, “oodles of edible delights”, “an abundance of entirely edible delights”, and “a wealth of savoury delights”), I’m thinking that a second reading tonight might be grounds for divorce. I’m pretty sure that that contract they made me sign at the church had a “cruel and unusual” clause.
Hm. Maybe I should check that. The deadline is noon tomorrow.
Do you read your work aloud? Does it help?
Do you ever coerce ask someone else to read it for you?
Other places I ramble
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10 Comments
Argh! The horror. The shame. Stop, stop, stop.
These are the thoughts running through my mind when I read out loud. I don’t know how or why I manage to sound so incoherent and amateur but I have an incredible knack for this.
Yes, reading out loud is the best thing to do.
LOL. I get that. Totally.
I definitely read my work aloud… I like the iambic pentameter of listening to the beat of the words – if that makes sense. I’m obviously not a writer, but sometimes I get overly anal about what I write – even if it’s for something unimportant.
I rarely (never?!) get others to read personal writing, but work stuff usually has to go through others so it happens then – though they are looking at content rather than the writing itself!
Deb
Well, let’s see. You read your work aloud. You get picky about what you write. And, um, you WRITE! You sound like a writer to me, Deb!
Oh, and for the record? I’ve never submitted writing to anyone since I had to hand it in to a prof. Unless you count boring explanations of esoteric programming interfaces, which I don’t
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I’m really bad at self-editing, which is why I often ask my husband and my mother to read things as I work on them. When I’m editing at work I always read aloud – you catch things that you just don’t see otherwise.
I’m the same way – I think the problem is that we already know what we want to say (well, usually), so we’re not the best people to recognize what’s actually being said, or what other people will hear. I also find that coming back the next day can help, maybe because I can no longer remember what I was trying to say – I guess mommy brain can sometimes be an asset
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I love to read things out loud. They sound different then when I read them in my head.
I read my work out loud, for sure. And sometimes I’ll get DH to read over a blog post before I hit publish. But never thought to ask him to do it out loud. I’m sure I’d find it effective…and would probably cringe the whole time too.
Hope you made your submission deadline!
Thanks Mel! I did make it
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You should definitely try getting your DH to read aloud – it’s not as cringe-inducing as I would have thought!