AVERIL ROBERTSON

Yes, this title is a trick, sort of.

I had a new experience in the writing journey this week: reading my 3000-word short story Tree Change to the Society of Women Writers WA. It was nerve-wracking. I’m very comfortable as a public speaker when I’m talking about my professional work (documentation writing and knowledge management) but this was a whole new ballgame. I dug deep into the recesses of being taught about reading aloud at school. Pausing, enunciating, not rushing, lots of expression. It seemed to go down very well, and hearing people react as the story progressed was an amazing experience for me as a writer. I’m so glad I went over to Perth to do it, and enormously proud to have won first place in their Ethel Webb Bundell Short Story Prize.

The trick in the title, then? Some of what I got from reading my work aloud in Perth, you can get by reading your work aloud to yourself. Yes, your family will think you’ve gone crackers. Yes, no one particularly likes the sound of their own voice. What it gives you, though, is a feel for the cadence of your writing. The rhythm of the syntax of a sentence, a paragraph, a line of dialogue. With dialogue, reading aloud is especially valuable. If it feels unnatural to say, it will probably sound unnatural to your readers. If you stumble, they might mentally stumble too.

As well as targeting clunky dialogue, reading your work can be a great way to get in your characters’ heads. You might find you adopt certain ways of speaking when you’re ‘being’ them that you can write into the text more. This could be in their vernacular, or their mannerisms, or the inflections of their dialogue, or some other nuances that you subconsciously add when you read out loud. 

So, if you get the opportunity to read your work to a group, take it with both hands (and do a couple of practice runs!). And always, always take the opportunity to read your work out loud to yourself so you know your writing has a readable cadence and offers as much depth and nuance as possible.