While preparing for the launch of A Habit of Mind, I tried out certain extracts for reading on the night. This proved instructive for several reasons.
The first was how difficult I found it to read certain phrases aloud – and no, this was not down to loosely fitting false teeth. In the past, when involved with voice training, I found certain tongue-twisters very easy, but one caught me out every time and still does:
red lorry, yellow lorry
If I lived in the Land of the Free, this would not be a problem.
red truck, yellow truck
Now it fairly trips off the tongue rather than tripping me up when I say it. But I found some instances in the passages I was considering which caused me problems.
Then there was punctuation. Like most people who write, I observe the standard rules, but these are not always so useful when reading a passage aloud.
Responding to these problems, I edited passages which I found hard to get my tongue round and, while I was at it, punctuated the chosen extracts for ease of reading aloud; for example, adding commas at points where taking a breath would be a sharp idea.
I also discovered that reading aloud is an excellent way to flush out typos which might otherwise go unnoticed. So, when you’ve finished that six-hundred page saga concerning the Snodgrass family of Nether Sidcup over several generations, pour yourself a drink, sit down and read it out to the cat. Who knows what you might discover.
And something else you might try – record yourself reading. Not only does this give you an accurate duration for the read, it allows you to hear where you aren’t doing so well. For example, you might hear that you’re running short of breath at certain points, or you might detect too much breath and too little voice at others. These are things you can work on.
You don’t need Pro Tools to do this; Audacity will do the job very well and it’s free.