A Very Cool Editing Technique for Writers!

I think most of every writer reading this can agree that editing is not the most fun part of writing a novel, book, article, poem, etc.

Now, I know that some people love editing, and to everyone who is like that…congratulations. I am not like that, and I don’t really like editing. I’ve warmed up to it a little more over the years, and I don’t mind editing, but I’d much rather be writing a first draft. 🙂

So, Caleb, what is this incredible, secret writing technique?

Well, its not much of a secret. It fact, its rather quite simple. However, I’ve only heard of a few people who have used this technique.

While writing one of your drafts, put it into a text-to-speech reader and listen to the draft as if it were an audiobook.

Yes, this might seem a little odd for some of you, but think about it: When you’re editing, you’re reading the story over and over silently in your mind. When you’re only reading it that way, you might be missing sentences that are wordy, or sound a little off. If you put it into a text-to-speech reader and listen to your story, you’ll notice different bits of the story that you never would’ve noticed, and you’ll be able to pick up some things that are a mistake or are written in a confusing way.

I actually just tried this recently with my two WIPs, Frostbite, and Raid of the Krames. Being able to listen to the stories like they were audiobooks was really helpful! I was able to listen to the story as a whole, and not get caught up in commas, quotation marks, and periods. That way I was able to pick up how the story flowed as a whole, as well as noticing any sentences that were totally confusing.

Have you used this technique before? What do you think of it? I’ve only tried it recently, but I think its a really cool idea! If you haven’t tried it yet, I would really encourage you to do so!

All right, that’s it for this week. I hope you guys find this little editing technique helpful. I don’t know if many people will like it or not, but I found it really useful!

Until later,