Say Your Writing

Here’s one of the best tips I know for writers, which was told to me by
Bruce Eckel.

Once you’ve got a reasonable draft, read it out loud. By doing this you’ll
find bits that don’t sound right, and need to fix. Interestingly, you don’t
actually have to vocalize (thus making a noise) but your lips have to
move.

This advice is for those who, like me, strive to get a conversational tone
to their writings. A lot of people are taught to write in a different way
than they speak, but I find prose much more engaging with this conversational
tone. I imagine I’m sitting in pub, explaining the concepts to my companions.
I’ve heard people say that when reading my work, they can hear me speaking it
– which is exactly the effect I’m after.

Too often I read prose that feels flabby. Two kinds of flab stand out:
corporate prose and academic prose. I often tell people that if they read
their prose and it sounds like it could have come from Accenture , then they are doing it wrong. And, of course, the passive
voice is rarely preferred. Speaking makes this flab noticeable, so we can cut
it out.

In my case I find I constantly (silently) speak the words as I’m writing.