Taking Orders from Robots

It’s no secret that I’m a fan of Scrivener. I gush about it enough on the Genre Hustle’s episode of writing tools (listen here) and in every day conversation that Scrivener should be paying me. Sure, it has its shortcomings (give PC v3 already!), but it’s always scratched that anal-retentive, organization itch in the back of my skull.

That being said, I never finish a piece in Scrivener. I get it as far as I can and then compile it into a Word document, so I can get the format right. From there, I share it via Google Docs so I can get comments from betas, and then do a final pass through in Word before submitting.

This week, though, I’ve been sitting in front of my laptop with my headphones plugged in, listening to a piece with Word’s text-to-speech tool. Let me tell you, it’s changed my whole outlook on editing.

If I had a dollar every time I was told or had read somewhere to read your work aloud while editing, I could afford to quit my day job and write full time. Despite that, I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I’ve actually done it.

What’s worse, I know it works! Anytime I submit a piece to critique and ask someone else to read the first page (part of our critiquing process), I always end up furiously making notes where things sound off; scratching out camouflaged repetition and replacing proper names with pronouns.

Getting into the ‘whys’ and ‘why nots’ of my editing process is too large a beast to skin at this moment, so, instead, I’ll take this chance to celebrate my adoption of this new habit while giving myself a healthy dose of shit.

Hi, I’m A.P., and I’m a bit of a dummy.

I am a few days away from finishing my current draft of Bearwalker, a novelette/novella (it’s right on the edge between the two) and, like I mentioned, for my final pass through, I have been listening to it in Word. Sure, the robotic voice stumbles here and there, especially when dealing with my invented words, but I gotta be honest, it’s doing way better than I thought it would.

The really great part, is that the editing has been going well. Hearing the words has made it way easier to pick out those awkward phrases or overused words in my own writing. Also, listening to it at that slow pace forces me to really pay attention. I’m a fast reader and I am guilty of reading what I think is there, instead of reading what is actually there. With Word’s TTS, typos, repeated words, and inconsistencies are so much more obvious to me now. It makes me slow down and really concentrate on what’s happening on the page.

So, yes, let me join the massive crowd of people telling you to read your work out loud. Or, better yet, have someone else do it. Too embarrassed to have someone else read it? Get Word’s sultry cyborg to do it for you. I promise you, your writing will be stronger for it.

Don’t be a dummy like me.

Have a great, productive weekend and don’t forget to be kind to one another and to yourselves.