Forum: Author Hangout

New author tip - Amazon Polly.

evilynnthales 🚫

One big problem I've had turned out to be really easy to solve.

I'm sure most/all of us do it. You write some, then go back and make a few tweaks. Adding, removing, replacing, and rephrasing words and sentences.

You reread the final version and it looks good. You read it out loud to yourself. Happy with the result, you move on.

Later on you glance at the story again, and see your mistake. "Betty grinned as as she..." How did you miss it?

Our brains sometimes outsmart us. It's like our mind preforms it's own autocorrect.

In my case, I fixed this problem by using text-to-speech. Closing my eyes and listening to a computer read back exactly that I typed in has been invaluable. This removed an entire class of mistakes from my writing.

There are many out there. I like amazon Polly because it's free for something like 5 million characters month, and has many hight quality voices to choose from.

If this is already common knowledge, sorry... :)

Replies: REP awnlee jawking

REP 🚫
Updated:

@evilynnthales

I haven't heard of using text-to-voice to review a document before, but it sounds like a good idea.

My current method is to expand the document so it fills the screen from edge to edge. [that makes the text larger and I'm more aware of what I'm reading.]

Start with the last paragraph in the chapter and move up one paragraph at a time. [I tend to develop 'reading momentum' after reading something the 4th or 5th time, which is my prime cause of reading over what I actually wrote. By reading the paragraphs out of their normal sequence, I break that momentum and am more aware of what I am reading.]

Read slowly and to try to vocalize what I read. [In addition to spotting the normal verb tense, wrong homonym, etc., this usually helps me find words I overlooked deleting when editing and words that should have been added for clarity.]

I don't catch all my errors but I find a lot more than I used to.

awnlee jawking 🚫

@evilynnthales

It's a good suggestion but, even better, get a real human being to read it out loud from cold. That will help you sort out your punctuation too.

AJ

Replies: evilynnthales

evilynnthales 🚫

@awnlee jawking

Great suggestion.

When I try to writing "normal" fiction I'll remember to ask my wife to read it to me. She doesn't share my kinks, so she wouldn't be comfortable reading what I write.

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Forum: Author Hangout

New author tip - Amazon Polly.

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