Tasha’s Tips for The Aspiring Writer: Read Your Work Aloud

[Editor's Note: FlashFiction.Net will be publishing tips from Tasha Cotter, one every Monday, for twenty weeks: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.]

My goal for this series of blog posts is for writers to save themselves a lot of time and frustration. This series is meant to get you on the path toward publication, provided you put in the work of writing and revising. Don't worry if you don't follow all these recommendations--who could? I'll be the first to admit that even I'm guilty of sometimes not using my time wisely--look for my tip on social media! But overall this series contains hard-won truths on how to make writing a bigger part of your life. I hope it clarifies the publishing guidelines, professional etiquette, and protocols you may have been unsure about in the past. More than anything, I hope it puts you on track toward opportunities you may not have imagined.

                                        —Tasha
                                        Twitter: @TashCotter

One of the first things you learn in a poetry workshop is the importance of reading your work aloud--not at an open mic night and not in front of others--but by yourself in the privacy of your dorm, apartment, or home. Reading your work aloud allows you to hear any clunky phrasing that you wouldn't necessarily catch if you were simply reading your work silently on a computer screen.

For poetry, I tend to read my work aloud after the first draft is composed. For fiction I tend to read passages as I go, paying special attention to dialogue. For poetry, reading aloud feels absolutely necessary. The mission of poetry is a much more precise and concise art; therefore, each word carries weight. Reading aloud is a great way to find out how the poem moves sonically--you can listen for where the poem seems to be calling for a hard rhyme or soft rhyme and make changes as you go. For a great primer of poetry and music, check out Mary Oliver's excellent little book, A Poetry Handbook.

For fiction, reading your work aloud provides a subtler benefit: your ear becomes trained to look for ways of making the listening experience more satisfying and clear. You begin to look for moments that feel garbled or dense and clean them up, streamlining the prose. If you've ever read Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert, you know how pleasing a poetically crafted novel can be. It should go without saying that reading poetry is a wonderful teacher for any novelist and can help you find the music in your own work.

Reading your work aloud also quickly shows you where a word seems to be missing, or is missing. Typos quickly become apparent. It also provides an easy way for you to see if you would have instinctively used a different word or articulated the line differently.

I read aloud for all these reasons and also just to find my pacing for the individual piece of writing. For example, it's generally a good rule of thumb to read your work slowly for an audience. Reading a poem aloud helps me find the natural pauses and discover new aspects of the poem I like or may need to tinker with. And if you're ever planning on giving a reading in public, make sure to practice reading your work aloud and timing yourself. Otherwise you run the risk of speaking too fast and losing your audience.

Tasha Cotter, @TashCotter, is a poet and fiction writer based in Lexington, Kentucky. She is the author of two chapbooks of poetry and the full-length collection, Some Churches (Gold Wake Press, 2013). You can find her online at www.tashacotter.com.