A couple weeks ago I pulled some Alice Munro collections from a library bookshelf. I’ve read Munro’s short stories in anthologies before but never connected to them. But there in the stacks I thought, Everybody makes a big deal about Alice Munro. I guess I should give her a try.
I began at the beginning of one of the volumes, and after “Royal Beatings” and “The Beggar Maid,” I was still unconvinced. Then I tried a new tack: I read aloud. Two paragraphs into “The Turkey Season” and I was hooked. To see why, do a little experiment. Read the story’s second paragraph silently and then aloud:
I was a turkey gutter. The other people who worked at the Turkey Barn were Lily and Marjorie and Gladys, who were also gutters; Irene and Henry, who were pluckers; Herb Abbott, the foreman, who superintended the whole operation and filled in wherever he was needed. Morgan Elliott was the owner and boss. He and his son, Morgy, did the killing.
Whoa! In my head, those words sounded stodgy and unrhythmic, but when I read them aloud, I suddenly heard a voice. It was the voice of a fictional narrator so fully imagined that I could believe she existed and was telling me about something that mattered very much to her. In fact, the whole story—read aloud—made perfect sense to me, and so did the one after (“The Moons of Jupiter”).
I get Alice Munro now. I’m a fan.
Why Read Aloud?
In an era when people don’t sit around the fireplace reading installments of the latest Dickens novel from the newspaper to each other, we often miss the value of reading out loud. But it’s key to both enjoying and writing good literature.
Reading Aloud Cultivates Your Writing Style
As much as letters on a page may delight us bibliophiles, reading is more auditory than visual. Those printed signs represent sounds. If written language becomes disconnected from spoken, it loses meaning. Think of writing style as the link to spoken language. Good style equals clear, expressive, audience-friendly communication. Our writing style inevitably suffers if we do not maintain awareness of the connection between written and spoken language. Reading aloud builds and strengthens this awareness.
Reading Aloud Improves Your Dialogue
Writing dialogue is one of the hardest things that fiction authors do. We can’t exactly reproduce real-life dialogue on the page—the result is babble. On the other hand, if our dialogue doesn’t have the ring of believability, it sounds stilted and pointless. Reading out loud helps us learn the balance.
Reading Aloud Connects You to a Story’s Emotion
I find that my emotional experience of a story tends to be deeper and more nuanced when I read aloud. Maybe that’s because reading out loud is slower than silent reading, so I can’t blur past relevant details in my race to find out how a story ends. Maybe it’s also because reading aloud dramatizes emotion in a way that’s harder to ignore. As I speak and hear a story’s richest, most subtle lines, my chest feels throbs of sorrow, anger, betrayal, and joy, and I am sometimes surprised by tears.
Tips for Reading Aloud
It turns out that vocal reading isn’t too popular; most people are surprised when I tell them how much I enjoy it! I will be forever grateful to my second-grade teacher, who delegated story time to volunteer students. It was hearing one classmate’s dramatic rendition of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory that inspired me to try reading aloud myself—and I was hooked. Here are some tips to help you get the hang of it.
Read by Yourself
I won’t say that reading out loud to yourself isn’t weird. But it’s also fun, and you might feel less inhibited than if you were reading to someone else. Give it a try! No one can hear.
Read with Others
Story time with children is a great excuse for reading aloud, although you’re limited to books with kid appeal. Reading with fellow adults—especially if you take turns—is not only entertaining, but meaningful. One approach is to assign each character’s lines of dialogue to a particular reader; this dramatized way of reading works for fiction and plays.
Read Plays and Poetry
Fiction lovers tend to overlook other forms of literature, and while that’s understandable, it limits our growth as writers. Plays and poetry, in particular, are critical for developing a writer’s ear and understanding of story. Both forms are strongly auditory; by reading them aloud, we challenge our creativity, expressiveness, and grasp of style.
Here are four more ways to cultivate your writing style. And if I haven’t quite convinced you to join my read-aloud club, maybe these beginning paragraphs from Alice Munro’s “Carried Away” will do the trick:
In the dining room of the Commercial Hotel, Louisa opened the letter that had arrived that day from overseas. She ate steak and potatoes, her usual meal, and drank a glass of wine. There were a few travellers in the room, and the dentist who ate there every night because he was a widower. He had shown an interest in her in the beginning but had told her he had never before seen a woman touch wine or spirits.
“It is for my health,” said Louisa gravely.
(Photo by Joshua Coleman on Unsplash)