Bliki: Say Your Writing

Here's one of the best tips I know for writers, which was told to me by Bruce Eckel. One you've got a reasonable draft, read it out loud. By doing this you'll find bits that don't sound right, and need to fix. Interestingly, you don't actually have to vocalize (thus making a noise) but your lips have to move. 1 This advice is for those who, like me, strive to get a conversational tone to their writings. A lot of people are taught to write in a different way than they speak, but I find prose much more engaging with this conversational tone. I imagine I'm sitting in pub, explaining the concepts to my companions. I've heard people say that when reading my work, they can hear me speaking it - which is exactly the effect I'm after. Too often I read prose that feels flabby. Two kinds of flab stand out: corporate prose and academic prose. I often tell people that if they read their prose and it sounds like it could have come from Accenture 2 , then they are doing it wrong. And, of course, the passive voice is rarely preferred. Speaking makes this flab noticeable, so we can cut it out. In my case I find I constantly (silently) speak the words as I'm writing. Notes 1: I suspect what matters here is that you need to trigger the part of your brain that processes spoken word as opposed to written word - and that part is sensitive to blandness. 2: I pick on Accenture since they are a big consulting company, and thus do all the things needed to sound blandly corporate. The worst case I ran into was many years ago when some sparkling prose by a colleague of mine was turned by editors at Microsoft into a tasteless pudding. There is a perceptible corporate way of writing, often learned subconsciously, that is rife and ruinous.

May 28, 2025 - 19:20

Here's one of the best tips I know for writers, which was told to me by Bruce Eckel.

One you've got a reasonable draft, read it out loud. By doing this you'll find bits that don't sound right, and need to fix. Interestingly, you don't actually have to vocalize (thus making a noise) but your lips have to move. ¹

This advice is for those who, like me, strive to get a conversational tone to their writings. A lot of people are taught to write in a different way than they speak, but I find prose much more engaging with this conversational tone. I imagine I'm sitting in pub, explaining the concepts to my companions. I've heard people say that when reading my work, they can hear me speaking it - which is exactly the effect I'm after.

Too often I read prose that feels flabby. Two kinds of flab stand out: corporate prose and academic prose. I often tell people that if they read their prose and it sounds like it could have come from Accenture ² , then they are doing it wrong. And, of course, the passive voice is rarely preferred. Speaking makes this flab noticeable, so we can cut it out.

In my case I find I constantly (silently) speak the words as I'm writing.

Notes

1: I suspect what matters here is that you need to trigger the part of your brain that processes spoken word as opposed to written word - and that part is sensitive to blandness.

2: I pick on Accenture since they are a big consulting company, and thus do all the things needed to sound blandly corporate. The worst case I ran into was many years ago when some sparkling prose by a colleague of mine was turned by editors at Microsoft into a tasteless pudding. There is a perceptible corporate way of writing, often learned subconsciously, that is rife and ruinous.