Editing & Competitions

I have started to edit a manuscript.  Yep it’s finished but needs the polishing.  I have to admit I am the QUEEN of “and”.
It shows all the way through the writing and, and ,and. It is enough to drive anyone nuts.  I found a new tool thanks to the  lovely people at Natural Reader.

It is a text to voice software piece and the one I downloaded is free.  For me the free version will do although it is tempting to buy so I can adjust some of the words it pronounces LOL.

It picks up all my niggling bad habits of repeating words and phrases, the one habit that annoys me terribly when I read.  For example the book I was reading the other day used the word riposte.  It is french for retort, it actually stopped me for a moment as it is a word infrequently seen.  I liked the way it was used in this first instance.  Unfortunately after the 6th or 7th time it annoyed me.

It was used at least once every chapter and in one instance was used a second time in a paragraph.   When a word is unusual there is nothing wrong with using it more than once in a book but  a continual use can pull the reader from the story as it leaps out at them.

So this reader will help me pick up on the way things read.  I have already used it to pick up where commas are needed and sentences sound awkward.  So why are the people from Natural reader so lovely?

Well it wouldn’t load onto my laptop.  I tried each option they had for downloading it but it just woldn’t work.  I thought it was me and sent them an email only half expecting a reply.  they were fabulous.  emailed me within 4 hours (remembering I am on the other side of the world in a totally different time zone) with a link.  I tried the link and it failed to work.  So I emailed them again to let them know.  Within 3 hours they had sent another link.  This one worked.

Now if this is the service I receive for a free product then I can’t imagine the service i would receive for their paid product.  I would not hesitate to recommend them.  The tool itself is useful for writers as sometimes even when we read it aloud we can still misread words we have written.  This voice gives us a totally independent read.  Something we can do with at times.

Natural Readers 

I also entered a competition.  It’s an ongoing competition at Chase the Dream and I have a few that I can scrub up and enter.  I may not do anything but I’m hoping the practice with editing will do me good.  It’s fun anyway.

Anyway I hope your New Year is going great guns.

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~ by bronmlee on January 8, 2010.