Proofreading your novel using text-to-speech (Read Aloud)— tips and benefits

Proofreading my work is one of the most painful stages of writing. I hate it, but it’s absolutely essential. It can’t make up for one’s own deficiencies with grammar (I have mine), but it can still help identify and fix a whole bunch of obvious erRors that that might happen while writting.

The usual suspects when it comes to proofreading one’s own work are — using MS Word’s built-in grammar and spellchecker, using Grammarly (or similar tools), reading the output in a different format (e.g., PDF), sending the book to Kindle or a different e-reader and reading it there, and of course, sending it to a professional proofreader.

Over time, I’ve realized from tips and guidance from other authors, and my own experience, that effective proofreading requires your eyes and mind to look at your work as if it’s someone else’s. I mean, aren’t we all great at finding faults in others’ works?!

I now employ a system that combines multiple methods into one, and have found it to be very, very effective in finding a whole host of problems. This system should work for most writers and their methods, though I will describe it the way I use it. The limit you hit is your own weakness with grammar — there are things I suck at, and will never catch because I don’t know they’re there — and that’s where a professional proofreader or a beta reader will help.

If you haven’t already, you should check out my article on how I use a programmer’s editor (Visual Studio Code) to write my novels. I can say without a doubt that it has been a very productive move and has transformed how I write.

Here’s how I recently proofread my latest work Sinister Sands. The concept is to produce an output (or if you use Word then use Word) that looks and feels very different from your working product.

• Change the font to something completely different to what you write your manuscript in (e.g., if you write in Georgia, change the font to 16pt Chalkboard — oh the horror. I use Fira Code to write but preview in different fonts depending on my mood)

On the left is my manuscript, and on the right, the Preview

• Change the background color of the page (e.g., cream)
• Turn on text-to-speech. In Word, you can just use the “Read Aloud” feature. If you produce an output in PDF, then some PDF readers support read aloud or text-to-speech.

Turning on Read Aloud on Microsoft Word

• With text-to-speech, do a two-pass. (a) Close your eyes and just listen — this will help you catch weird sentences, repetitive words that repeat repeatedly in the paragraph, duplicate duplicate word usage, awkward or clearly incorrect sentences that is awkwards, copy-paste horrandthen he went to the fieors (b) increase the speed of the speech, and read along as you listen — this will help you catch grammatical errors, incorrect capitalization, comma-misuse and anything you may have missed in pass 1.
• I don’t always do a two-pass; sometimes I just keep the speech-speed slow and just read along as I listen

Here’s how I do it in Visual Studio Code, which is the free editor I use for writing.

Text-to-Speech in Visual Studio Code for Proofreading Novels

1. Create a manuscript.css that can be used by the Markdown preview (VS code comes with in-built Markdown preview) and set your body and h1, h2, h3 with very different fonts — like this:

body {
  font-family: `Chalkboard`, Arial;
  font-size: 18pt;
  background-color: antiquewhite; //it's a cream color
}

In VS code settings, there is a specific setting for Markdown Previews where you should specify the folder wheremanuscript.css exists

2. Download the extension Voice Commands from the VS code extensions marketplace and configure settings (example below is on a Mac)

VS Code Extension Speech Settings

3. Now, keep your script and preview side-by-side in a horizontal split and then select the block of text you want to read, and start speech by right-clicking on the selection and choosing the start speech option

4. Listen! And if you find issues, pause, fix, and continue

Text-to-Speech in Microsoft Word for Proofreading

If you write in Word and prefer to proofread in word, it’s pretty simple as well:

1. Make a copy of the document
2. In styles, change normal so that you have a very different font
3. Place your cursor wherever you want the speec to start, and in the Review tab click on ‘Read Aloud` — you can configure speed and speaker

4. Follow the two-pass method I mentioned above

Proofreading with voice and a very different look-and-feel puts you in a different frame of mind and helps you catch issues that you would otherwise miss. Give it a try! And yes, you can call me an idiot for not having tried it before. We all start somewhere.

I hope you find this useful — it’s been very helpful to me.

Additional Reading

• How I use a programmer’s editor (Visual Studio Code) to write my novels.