Hey Reader,

Longtime readers might remember when I used to do the 3@3. New readers, welcome to the explanation: a few years back, I used to go live once a week at 3pm and answer 3 questions that had been pre-submitted. It was all live, no editing, just raw talk. Turns out, I've got a pile of those clips sitting around, and honestly, most of the advice hasn't aged a day. Would I add some information or say it a bit different? Maybe. But these are still so solid, I decided to resurrect them and share them with you again!

The question this time:

Can you explain the value of reading your manuscript aloud, and at what point in the editing process would you recommend doing that? What if you have speech disabilities?

Let me release you from a little bit of worry right away: it's not about reading your manuscript aloud. It's about having your manuscript read aloud to you.

The old advice was always to read it out loud yourself, but here's the problem. When you read your own manuscript, you still hear what you thought you wrote, not necessarily what's actually on the page. A computer voice doesn't have that bias. It's robotic, it doesn't imbue emotion, it just reads what's there, and that flatness is exactly what gives you distance. It forces you to listen instead of look, and that shift in medium is where the real value is.

Listening exposes slow pacing, underwritten or overwritten scenes, wrong words, missing words, overused words, all the things your eyes slide past because you already know what you meant to say. I ask almost every author who's stuck the same question: have you listened to it yet? Usually the answer is no.

One trick I always recommend: listen to a scene you love first, so you have a sense of your own natural flow, and then listen to the trouble spots with that as your comparison point.

Just 3 minutes: I've recorded a brand new video called Why to Read Aloud that I know you'll get a lot out of in just 3 minutes!

This is exactly the kind of thing I go deep on in Before You Hit Send, my self-editing course, and if you want the philosophy behind why I edit this way in general, Edit Your Way is the book that lays it all out and also includes a full chapter on Reading Aloud. That chapter also includes some suggestions for those who need accessibility options.

And still asking: would you want live 3@3 back, or something like it, so you could bring your own questions?

Happy writing!

~Angela
​

This is a paid sponsorship. If you click, we get a small commission (In this case, $3 per click, which isn't nothing!) No further action is needed from you, so just clicking on the sponsorship helps us pay for this newsletter, which is much appreciated if you find you like these!
​