Editing Out Loud

I’ve been listening to an audio book this week.  It’s actually a book I read a few years ago, so although I’m familiar with the general story outline there are parts I had forgotten.  While listening I’ve noticed a few slips in POV, and for me, this has reinforced the benefits of reading out loud when editing.

It never ceases to amaze me how reading out loud emphasises the over-use of a word, ambiguous pronouns, POV slips, clunky sentences, and much more.  All these things are harder to spot when you read your own work silently.  They are easy to pick up in someone else’s writing, but we become so familiar with the words we’ve written it’s harder to ‘see’ things that need changing.

If you’ve never tried editing out loud, give it a go.