If it weren’t for writing you probably wouldn’t hear me at all. For a dark skinned, 6’3, bald guy with the physique of a NFL linebacker, you’d think it would difficult to blend in with the scenery. However I manage to do this quite well.

While I may not like to hear my voice in real life the one place I do want it heard is in my stories. Here are a few ways I keep my voice in stories.

Audiobooks

Yes, this isn’t officially my voice, but I’ve found that listening to great stories helps me in crafting my own. I have three hours of commute five days a week so that’s a lot of time to think about stories and listen to how they should be created. My weapons of choice are the paid service of Audible and the library offered service of Overdrive. While on my drives I can listen to how a cadence should be, how worlds are built in genres I’m unfamiliar with, and other tools of the trade. Reading will always be our best teacher to better writing, and audiobooks are a great way to keep that education going.

Speech Recognition Software

I have fallen in love with the Dragon Speech Recognition software! Since I write longhand I get to read what I’m working on aloud. In doing so I can hear what works and what doesn’t work. Going over the passages one by one makes it incredibly easy to sure up what are weak parts of the story and what should be taken out. If you don’t have the Dragon you can try Google’s speech recognition out in their Drive or GoogleDoc apps.

Text-To-Speech

A recent discover (to me at least) has been the text-to-speech feature on Kindle. You can send your manuscript to your kindle and then use the feature to read your story back to you. Although it is a slightly robotic sound (think Siri) it will sound as if your words are being read by a member of your audience. You can hear how it would sound from someone else.

These are a few things I use to add voice to my stories. What are some things you use? Until next time have a writeous day!

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Matt Williams is an avid reader, a collector of many pens, an ever improving father of two, and an all-around fanboy. When he’s not wrestling with cats or a long commute you can find him hunkered down writing something imaginative. He’s working on publishing his first book Beyond Here, a middle grade story involving a coma and a singing flower with a bent stem sometime in 2016, along with a few projects with his other daughter.