Reading aloud what I wrote is a tool I use after I’ve finished a novel. It helps me know whether the words flow the way I want. It is also another way to proof for errors because I want the book to be the best it can be before others read it. That’s where I am right now with The Unforgiving Town, a dark mystery written in third person with many characters.
Last month, I reached the end. But that meant going back to the beginning, first printing the manuscript then getting out my red pen. And once that was done, I read the entire book aloud. Okay, I found more to change.
But that wasn’t good enough. For me, it can be helpful hearing someone else say what I wrote, so I use Word’s read-aloud function. I chose a woman’s voice this time. Her name is Samantha, according to the options. Samantha has a rather mechanical voice that doesn’t have any emotion or mercifully, judgement, but listening to it, I discovered repeated words, missing words, and words that should be deleted, even a few typos. I make the changes as we go. The process takes many hours, spread over three days. I use ear plugs and sit on our front porch.
But just when I thought it was enough listening to Samantha, I decided to give the book yet another read aloud, but this time I would do it myself — yet again. I do that on the porch, at the kitchen table, or in my office so my husband doesn’t have to hear my babbling. It still surprises me that on the third read aloud I find stuff to change. Didn’t I use the phrase “did a number” before? Yes, three times. Okay, now it’s one. In a chapter, I wrote the time was eleven in one paragraph and nine in another. Another change. A friend who read the manuscript offered suggestions for a chapter, and when I read it aloud, I discovered he gave good advice.
As of this morning, I am on page 150. I have 83 pages to go. I figure I will be done listening to myself today or tomorrow. Then ta-da I will send it to my publisher for its consideration. The query letter and synopsis are done.
So, what’s The Unforgiving Town about? A week after his release from prison, Al Kitchen is found dead beside a bike on a back country road. Al served a lengthy sentence for beating a well-liked man to death during a botched robbery, but most everyone in this small town is unwilling to forgive him. They preferred he died in prison.
It’s a sequel to The Sacred Dog, which is about a feud gone bad. But this book is a dark mystery because I so enjoy the puzzle of writing that genre. I feel the same reading and watching mysteries.
Onto page 150 …
ABOUT THE PHOTO ABOVE: The hibiscus plant in front of our front porch is in bloom.