Why Take the Time to Read Your Work Out Loud?

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On July 11, I was a featured speaker at True
Theatre. True Theatre is a Cincinnati storytelling
event, where everyday people tell true stories about their lives to a general
audience.




Each evening has a specific theme—independence was last week's theme—and I told a
story about traveling
to Thailand on my own, and getting stuck.




To prepare for this spoken word event, I had to spend time, at first, reading the
story out loud, then memorizing and rehearsing it.



Aside from the lessons I learned about storytelling (to come in another post), I learned
the value of reading a piece out loud.




Now, up until this point, I was probably like most of you. I've seen the advice to
"read your work out loud" many, many times. I didn't practice this technique (except
for poetry), and found it irrelevant, unhelpful, uncomfortable, and time consuming.
Who cares how something sounds when read aloud, unless it was meant to be heard?



But for important short stories or essays, I'll be using this technique. Why?



It quickly reveals what sentences or sections I don't care about or believe in. Sometimes
when we write, we create filler. We don't think deeply about what we're saying. We
include throwaway lines. Reading something out loud has an unusual way of bringing
this to your attention. You suddenly don't have your heart in what you're saying.
Especially for short pieces, you should care about delivering every line. If you have
the desire to skip over parts, or leave something out, then you should edit it out.



It emphasizes boring or dead description. It was easier, when reading aloud,
to realize how the description needed to be relevant to the point at hand, by either
helping with characterization, or helping move the story forward.



It helps develop perspective and voice. Listening to yourself—whether in the
moment or recorded—more closely identifies the writing to YOU, and you start to think
more carefully about whether the events, details, and intricacies of the story reflect
YOUR perspective. (Sometimes we write in an "objective" mind, or with a stale and
soulless approach.) Reading aloud helps you think more about how this is YOUR story,
and that it's YOU who uniquely decides what story you want to tell.

I'm not sure yet whether this technique would be as appropriate or effective for a
book-length work. I hope you'll offer your thoughts in the comments.



(And, if you live near Cincinnati, I encourage you
to check out True Theatre for wonderful storytelling.)



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