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Saturday, May 14, 2016

WHY AUTHORS NEED TO LISTEN TO AUDIOBOOKS



1) MORE THAN WORDS

 There is a cadence to good writing.  You pick that up listening to audiobooks. 

Over time, that extra knowledge will bleed into your own writing.

 For example, it is truly annoying when every line of dialog has a "he said" or "she said" after it. 

It's true these are often 'invisible' in printed form, 

but a chain of them can really bog down rapid-fire dialogue.


2.) WRITERS NEED TO READ

If you are like me, free time to pick up a print book and read is getting harder and harder to find.  

We all drive, do housework, do fitness workouts, or eat lunch.

If I've got a road trip to make, I may manage an entire book.

Listening to audiobooks helps me experience more literature than I would otherwise have time to take in.

 
3.) YOU CANNOT SKIM

  You've trained yourself over the years to skip the "boring bits", 

to the point where you may not even realize you're doing it anymore, or why. 

And, this may be affecting your own writing. 

With an audiobook you're forced to hang on every word the author wrote. 

 As a result, you'll gain newfound appreciation for the words themselves. 


4.) YOU WILL LEARN PACING BY HEARING IT DONE WELL and BADLY

To learn about story pacing, you need to read the whole book.  Even those blocks of narrative and that looong stretch of backstory!

Hearing the whole thing will give you a better feel for how other authors pace their work

and how they use language to speed things up and also to slow them down.


5.) YOU WILL HEAR THE WORDS AS YOU WRITE THEM.

 After a time of listening to audiobooks you will hear the words in your head now as you write.  

Jarring bits that might have gotten by you will now stand out for you to edit them on the spot.


6.) YOU WILL HEAR HOW "VOICE" MAKES OR BREAK A BOOK

Every writer needs to develop their own unique voice.  While you don't want to copy the voice of another writer,

it is a great teaching experience to hear how and why that author sounds like one of a kind.

7.) THE MAGIC OF LANGUAGE

The reality of writing is that your prose will benefit when you consider the sounds of the words you use. 

The words that we use can be musical but to hear the "notes" we need to actually hear the language.

Audiobooks allow you to do this. 

* Don't forget to CHICK WITH A QUILL and DAVID POWERS KING 

for my latest posts in my "Don't You Hate Book Tours?" Book Tour!

http://chickwithaquill.blogspot.com/

 http://www.davidpowersking.com/

16 comments:

  1. Great tips for listening to audiobooks, Roland. I love to read and you are right - I skip over the boring bits :)Thank you for my free audiobook gift! I'll put those tips to good use. I think I'll also try recording my own stories to see if I can spot the irritations and inconsistencies. Thanks for the great post.

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    1. It really does help to hear your own work read aloud. I listen to my own audio books to see where I might improve. :-) I'm glad you liked your audio book.

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  2. You do make some valid points. Although not being able to skip the boring parts would be tough. I guess just pick really good books, huh?

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    1. One of my favorite print read authors is hard to listen to for the multitude of he said; she said that interrupts the flow of his great dialogue.

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  3. Hi Roland - I quite agree and if I was travelling I'd definitely have audio books on the go ..

    Certainly if I read my blog posts - they need to 'roll along' - to coalesce and to be brought to life through reading out loud ..

    I'm sure the skippable bits won't be skippable when read by someone who is trained to read and talk ... magical voices some people have .. cheers Hilary

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    1. Sean Connery and Morgan Freeman are great narrators ... as is Gary Sinse of Forrest Gump fame.

      Gary Furlong and Robert Rossmann make me sound great, too. :-)

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  4. I remember Alexander Scoby, or what ever his name was, who had the most beautiful voice in the world and read that Highway Man poem to chill your to the bones. Too bad he's no longer around for audio books. I hope I'm remembering these names correctly because I don't have time to check. In for a break in my weeding. I will try an audio book soon. Never have before.

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    1. Yes, he had a fantastic voice. He read the entire Bible in a classic rendition of the passages.

      Pace yourself with those weeds!

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  5. I suppose that's why when I write I need silence. I do hear the cadence of my writing, and I can feel if something isn't quite right. But audiobooks would help with that, too.

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    1. Yes, the cadence of our words adds to the flow of the story ... or detracts if we fumble it! To hear the different, yet equally effective, cadences of Hemingway, Zelazny, and Faulkner has helped me immensely to create my own style. :-)

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    1. I mostly only "read" through audiobooks now. I especially liked A SHORT HISTORY OF EVERYTHING by Bill Bryson: http://www.audible.com/pd/History/A-Short-History-of-Nearly-Everything-Audiobook/B002V0KFPW

      I got it with my free credit at Audible: over 17 hours of fascinating facts that made me feel smarter until they slipped from the Teflon coating of my mind! :-)

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  7. I have gotten out of the habit of "reading" and solely listen to books now. I don't even hear the "she saids/he saids" any more.
    While I love listening, I feel that it has made me lazy with reading. Sometimes I miss seeing the words, or spending time re-reading a particularly beautiful passage.

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    1. Lynda, I am much like you in listening now more than turning the pages. But I have a bookshelf of solely leather-bound books that I love to take down just or the tactile sense of them in my hands as I turn the pages. Also I have a bookshelf full of coffee-table books whose photography and scientific information adds to the enjoyment of that all too rare free moment. :-)

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