Your Book Sounds Different Out Loud

For Authors As authors, it’s easy to become blind to problems in our own writing. After reading and revising the same pages again and again, our brains just start to fill in the rhythm, emotion and meaning we intended to add. That’s why awkward sentences, repeated words, and unnatural dialogue can so easily slip past us unnoticed. But as author and audiobook narrator Jimmy MacGregor discovered, these problems become much harder to ignore when you read your manuscript out loud. In this week’s guest post, Jimmy explains how working behind a microphone changed the way he approaches his own books, from recognizing when dialogue doesn’t sound quite human to questioning whether a character’s emotions and distinctive voice have truly made it onto the page. In Jimmy’s experience, reading a manuscript aloud is one of the most revealing stages of the editing process, as it exposes weaknesses that silent revisions often miss, providing authors with a simple way to strengthen their work. I was an author before I became an audiobook narrator. When I first got behind a microphone, I expected there would be a learning curve. Breathing properly, pacing myself, keeping character voices consistent, ...