Read my manuscript out loud?  Are you insane?  What in the world for?!?!?!?!?

That’s what I thought the first time I heard the suggestion.

No way.  I don’t like the sound of my own voice.  I WOULD FEEL STUPID!!!

And those were my answers.

But in completing my third manuscript—the one that WON the Golden Heart this last year—I was so certain it was close to being a winning manuscript, that I wasn’t about to let anything slip by undone.  So after I had edited it in its entirety at least six times, and was certain I had all the typos and “wordy” parts fixed, I closed myself up in my bedroom, stretched out across my bed and began to read out loud.

(Please note…the husband wasn’t even allowed in the house during this as I was still certain I would sound stupid.)

Upon beginning, I really didn’t expect to change much of anything.  I mean, I had gone through the sucker so many times I could practically recite it word for word!

And let me also mention, I didn’t start this until some time after noon that day, figuring that would be plenty of time.

Wrong on both accounts.

If you’ve never read your work out loud, try it.  You’ll surprise yourself.  I had read a scene or chapter or two in a mumbling fashion, but with this, I read it out loud, making sure to look and read every single word, and also read it loud enough to be heard by someone other than myself (if they had been allowed in the house.)

What I learned was it’s very hard to hear the cadence of the story as accurately when read silently in your mind.  Very hard.  It was just tiny little things, but things that, when changed, show the difference between fairly-well edited and seriously polished.  And agents and editors notice seriously polished! That was what I got from my experience.  I would be reading along and suddenly hit a tiny bump.  Usually it was just something slightly off, like an extra syllable in one sentence, or too many sentences near each other that “sounded” the same.  But I knew it when I heard it.  And it couldn’t always be fixed with a one word change. 

I didn’t read incredibly slow during this process, but as I mulled over how to change the bumps I’d hit, I would easily spend thirty minutes to an hour reworking a single sentence and going back over it—out loud—to make sure it fit just right.

It was a LONG process, and I have to admit that I did finally let the husband come home, because I was up until three-thirty the following morning finishing it!  I still didn’t let him come into the room, however, where I was reading, and I think I might have made him go upstairs, just to lower the risk of him hearing me. 

But what I took away from that experience was very vital.  In the grand scheme of things, I didn’t change the total word count that much.  It was a 58,000 word manuscript, and I ended up shortening it by only about four hundred words.  But this was a manuscript I was CERTAIN would not be changed during this final reading.  By removing those additional four hundred words, and spending well over twelve hours reading it out loud, I grew to understand even more, what it means to polish a manuscript.  Every little tiny word has to be looked at over and over and over again to get it just right (at least for me.)  And in the end, I was very proud of that manuscript, not only with the effort I’d put into it, but with the finished product.

So what about you?  Do you read your work out loud?  Would you?  If you knew it would make a difference in whether you sold or not, would you?  I haven’t sold yet, but I do believe that what I learned by going through that process will help get me there sooner rather than later.  Let me know what you think.

NOTE:  If you’re wondering about the “Three Acts” part of the title of this post, I’m simply playing upon the notion that novels, like screenplays, are structured in acts.  Some people break it into three, some four, some none at all, but for me, it’s three.  If you’re lucky, some day I’ll share my over analytical, completely geeky spreadsheet that lays out the three acts, turning points, and character and relationship arcs, all on a simple, concise, nine-page document.  Definitely a subject for another day, however.