Sometimes, okay, a lot of times, an author gets so deep into his/her own writing that he/she can't see all of the mistakes that are blatantly obvious. Typos, incorrect word usage, repeated words or phrases, run-on sentences and the like are all passed by because an author doesn't have what's called an "exterior point of view" to the story.
What is an exterior point of view? Well, remember the last time you had a really BIG problem in life and it seemed impossible to solve? You were so wrapped up in it, emotionally bogged by it and deep into it that you just couldn't see any way out of it? Remember having a problem like that? Then one day, you told a few friends about it and they helped you solve it with incredible ease?
Or how about the time you looked at someone else's problem and helped them solve it just as they were about to meltdown in hopelessness... It's always easy to see solutions, and see things correctly when you are exterior to the problem and not too immersed into it. That is an exterior point of view.
It's the same way with writing... You get so immersed into your owns story that you literally cannot see every flaw, problem and incorrectly spelled word. This is why we hire editors. This is why we have our friends read it and give us their feedback. But who has hundreds or thousands of dollars for an editor? Or a friend that can and will come to your beck and call every time you need to know if your writing is trash or not? Not many of us do, unfortunately. Furthermore, how many friends actually know anything about proper grammar or well executed plots? It's a small list.
So what is this new way to edit that will help to alleviate this problem of being to internalized into one's own writing?
It's called, Text To Speech (TTS) A computer program that reads your text aloud to you, so that you can hear your own story told from an exterior source. There are many programs online that can be found, which use natural sounding voices, both British and American to read your story aloud.
It cannot catch every mistake, but it will find A LOT of mistakes, AND it will allow you to hear the story as a reader might read it , which is huge. I've been using a program called Naturalreader and it 's amazing. It integrates right into Microsoft Word and has extremely human sounding voices.
It has helped me tremendously and I hope it can help you too!
What is an exterior point of view? Well, remember the last time you had a really BIG problem in life and it seemed impossible to solve? You were so wrapped up in it, emotionally bogged by it and deep into it that you just couldn't see any way out of it? Remember having a problem like that? Then one day, you told a few friends about it and they helped you solve it with incredible ease?
Or how about the time you looked at someone else's problem and helped them solve it just as they were about to meltdown in hopelessness... It's always easy to see solutions, and see things correctly when you are exterior to the problem and not too immersed into it. That is an exterior point of view.
It's the same way with writing... You get so immersed into your owns story that you literally cannot see every flaw, problem and incorrectly spelled word. This is why we hire editors. This is why we have our friends read it and give us their feedback. But who has hundreds or thousands of dollars for an editor? Or a friend that can and will come to your beck and call every time you need to know if your writing is trash or not? Not many of us do, unfortunately. Furthermore, how many friends actually know anything about proper grammar or well executed plots? It's a small list.
So what is this new way to edit that will help to alleviate this problem of being to internalized into one's own writing?
It's called, Text To Speech (TTS) A computer program that reads your text aloud to you, so that you can hear your own story told from an exterior source. There are many programs online that can be found, which use natural sounding voices, both British and American to read your story aloud.
It cannot catch every mistake, but it will find A LOT of mistakes, AND it will allow you to hear the story as a reader might read it , which is huge. I've been using a program called Naturalreader and it 's amazing. It integrates right into Microsoft Word and has extremely human sounding voices.
It has helped me tremendously and I hope it can help you too!
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