The Life-Changing Magic of Reading Your Own Book Out Loud to Yourself

Or, how I managed to Marie Kondo 14,000 words out of my novel manuscript when I thought it was impossible.

The older I get, the less I want to present myself as any kind of expert, because I believe that true wisdom is understanding how little you know. Now, if only I could tell that to my insufferable, socially awkward 16-year-old self who tried to shoehorn her “5” score on the AP World History test into conversation wherever possible for months after.* 

BUT. If there’s one piece of wisdom I could dispense to any other fledgling baby writer, it’s this: read your own book out loud to yourself. I just finished the 8th freaking draft of my novel manuscript, wherein I managed to cut the entire thing down from around 98,000 words to 84,000 words. That means I cut 28 pages single-spaced or 56 double-spaced pages Times New Roman 12 font, or your average college dissertation’s worth of words. I did it by reading my entire novel out loud to myself, beginning to end, and eliminating every possible unnecessary adjective, adverb, sentence, dialogue tag, or paragraph along the way. 

This is really standard advice that most editors and writing experts, even psychologists and scientists tend to give. We unconsciously do it all the time when we read other peoples’ novels closely–a word or phrase will stick out if it’s awkwardly written, or doesn’t sound like something someone might say out loud. It’s also doubly ironic that it took me so long to do this for my own novel because in my professional PR life, a large part of my job is helping people write compelling op-eds, distill their organizational talking points into punchy sound bites, and give speeches that sound human. My number one piece of advice for my clients, and one I usually follow myself when I’m ghostwriting an op-ed: read the whole thing out loud to yourself to see if it’s clunky. 

So, why didn’t I follow this advice for my own novel at first? Why did it take me this many drafts to do so? Because it’s hard to give myself that kind of psychic distance from a creative project I’m so close to. Because deep down, I know I’ve probably still got a little bit of that know-it-all, perfectionistic 16-year-old inside me. Also, because reading your own words out loud back to yourself is daunting and time-consuming. It’s like a deep clean of your manuscript, and I hate deep-cleaning my house. 

Photo credit: Canva Pro. I have never, ever in my life wiped down the pots for my house plants. 

You’re going to have to get over any self-consciousness you feel about strangers seeing your lips moving silently as you read this thing to yourself in public places like airports and coworking spaces between meetings, because that’s the only time you have to yourself. You’re going to be embarrassed by the cheesy, overwritten similes or unnatural dialogue tags you fell victim to when just trying to get the draft done (seriously, no human being “hisses” or “snarls” that much). You’re going to cringe at every unnecessarily repeated word or phrase. You’ll definitely discover typos that you somehow missed in the previous seven drafts. 

But it’s so necessary. 

Before I started this round of revisions, and after I had incorporated all the amazing feedback from my beta readers, I knew I still had to cut it down. My novel is firmly in the “adult upmarket fiction” category, which means it probably won’t sell if it’s more than 90,000 words–and it’s best if it keeps well under that word count. 

My beta readers initially helped guide me toward scenes I needed to cut. RIP to what I thought was a hilariously gross-out diarrhea sequence illustrating my protagonist’s anxiety, but you can’t argue with five different smart people telling you it’s gratuitous. After that, I genuinely had no idea what else I could edit out. I was afraid of my novel losing its “voice,” of being less funny, or being too “generic.” Enter my beta readers all giving me essentially the same advice: “read this out loud to yourself to see if you can get rid of any excess adjectives or adverbs.” And so, starting last month, I did. 

I was not able to do it all at once. In fact, it took me several weeks of separate sessions sitting down and reading every word of my book silently or out loud to myself. Unlike Marie Kondo (who, by the way, is now firmly in her “messy house era”), I didn’t ask if each word sparked joy. Instead, I asked “is this absolutely necessary to tell the story?”

It was hard, but I am amazed at how few words it now takes to convey the exact same mood, setting, etc. For example, compare the same paragraph in draft 7 versus draft 8. 

Draft 7: 

The drive home is uneventful, thankfully. When I pull into my parking spot next to the apartment building’s dumpster I see that Lindsay has already left for dinner with her coworkers. The outdoor stairs to our hallway are still emanating the day’s heat even though it’s cool and dark now, and the metal security screen door screeches with age as I open it. It’s hot inside as I kick my shoes off, because our AC unit is about 1,000 years old, and everything is covered in ancient brown carpet. This is the off-campus, L.A. apartment I was so excited to move into last year, and I can barely afford the rent now. I walk straight through the living room and down the cramped hallway to my room, shut my door, lower the blinds, turn on the ceiling fan, and curl up in my bed. Fetal position seems appropriate right now. 

Draft 8: 

When I pull into my parking spot next to the dumpster behind our apartment building, I see that Lindsay has already left. The outdoor stairs to our hallway are still emanating the day’s heat even though it’s evening, and our metal security screen door screeches with age as it opens. It’s hot inside as I kick my shoes off onto the ancient brown living room carpet, because our AC unit is about 1,000 years old. This is the off-campus apartment I will soon be unable to afford. I walk straight through the living room and down the cramped hallway to my room, shut the door, lower the blinds, turn on the ceiling fan, and curl up in my bed. 

Fetal position seems appropriate about now. 

The differences are subtle, but it conveys the same message in fewer words–and I even managed to choose some words that just flowed better. 

There are unfortunately no shortcuts. This post does not include any hot tips or hacks for checking this particular box in the editing process, or making it go any faster. You just have to make the time and read the damn thing out loud to yourself. You will make the cuts that are necessary along the way if you get your ego out of the way. Cut the diarrhea scene. Get rid of the excess adjectives and adverbs. Keep the interestingly specific stuff and know what serves the plot. 

You are not bargaining with a sea witch. You won’t lose your voice. 

You’ve got this. 

At least that’s what I’m telling myself now, because once I make a few more tweaks, this thing’s getting re-queried next week. More on that soon. 

*Give her a break, she was painfully insecure and her standardized testing ability was as all she thought she had going for her.