GhostReader
at the link above. It is worth every penny to an active writer writing articles and manuscripts.
As a book author myself I know that it takes me at lease five read-through's of my book manuscript before I get every sentence clear and all the mis-spellings out.
As you know, correcting manuscripts is more than correcting.
We revise as well.
GhostReader helps with this in the following ways.
- GR reads out your text in its reader using a refined almost human computer voice with nuances of inflection as well as clear diction.
- So you are buying excellent read-out computer voices not available in free software voices. Why listen to a computer voice when you can listen to a human robot voice?
- Many of us writers need psychological encouragement from time to time. Writing and re-writing is lonely work of thousands of hours. Now, hearing your text read back to you in a software voice that maybe reads mostly better than you do is like companionship, is it not? And you can switch around from two male voices to two female voices.
- Another big difference is that GhostReader uses normal player controls such as play and pause. So as soon as the GR voice reads out a word that sounds funny you stop the player and check your word to make sure it is the word you want to use in the correct spelling.
- However, GR does not include a comprehensive spell-checker, but that can be done back in your word processor. Or simply correct by typing in GR and when finished with the text you have corrected in GR copy and paste it back into your word processor.
- When you pause GR to correct a word or change a sentence you know right where you are because GR also highlights the word or sentence it is reading. This feature is crucial to help prevent eyestrain, a real health plus.
- Correct your word and click on the back function to the beginning of the sentence and the whole sentence is read out to you from the beginning. Thus you get to hear your new, corrected sentence read out to you. You do not have to read it, though you could read at the same time you hear because you follow GR highlighting each word. NO TENSION CORRECTING!
- When you hear your text read out to you that you have recently written, you are being entertained! If you don’t feel entertained or inspired by the reading of your text, consider revision or elimination. ELIMINATE THE BORING FACTOR!
- For me I feel inspired hearing my text voiced back to me. I get to hear the rhythms and word combinations of my writing and to improve upon it. I also catch whether a sentence is too long, or too short.
- I also get to hear the text without reading it, thus maybe catching lack of clarity and writing craft in some text. Hearing without reading gives us a certain distance from our writing so as to experience it more as a reader would experience it. GHOSTREADER IS YOUR FIRST AUDIENCE!
- LITTLE POINT. Certain word mistakes are missed when the wrong word for the meaning is spelled correctly. When GR reads each word I hear that I have the wrong word in that place. Like writing 'your' for 'you.'
- JUST DISCOVERED! It was late at night and I wanted to correct some text of the day. I copied it from MacJournal and had GhostReader read it to me for some revising in about four places. After correcting I usually do a Select All-Copy, and then Paste back into my other program the corrected text. But this was a play I wrote in Celtx, a good free program. Celtx is formatted as a play. I could not paste back all text at once. SOLUTION. I had GhostReader read my text back to me as I read the earlier version in Celtx. Thus by listening I could see immediately the changes I had made and type them into Celtx for a new revision. Thus I did not have to cause eye strain by eyeball reading from text to text to find differences!
- You can use GR to read out to you anybody’s text, like from an ebook novel and have the pleasure of just relaxing and listening. As a writer I listen to chapters of other writers to get, not the story, but the style of telling the story. Thus I train myself to unconsciously compare my own novel text with someone already published and selling well. Am I really up to this published writer’s level yet? LISTENING TO GR’S IMPARTIAL BUT PASSIONATE READING OF MY TEXT LETS ME KNOW THE TRUTH!
- To get in the mood in starting a new writing session the next day, or next week, I sometimes have GR say out to me the last previously written paragraphs from the previous writing session. GETS THE FLOW GOING AGAIN.
- You can of course compose your scenes and chapters into GR and have them read back to you in first draft, second draft and so on.
CONCLUSION - Don’t waste your time either not having your written text read back to your or in using the free functions of system software for reading text outloud. None of the free speaking functions in other programs read text passionately and with more real inflections of actual people speaking than GR. GIVE YOURSELF THE GIFT OF ANOTHER PERSON BY YOUR SIDE. Listen to GR read your text for you. I do!
Author’s Note: Written in MacJounal, my article organizing program, and read back to me for correction and clarity in GhostReader. HAVE A COMPANION BY YOUR SIDE. LISTEN TO GHOSTREADER!
Notice the writing devices I have used in this mini article to make this text informative, alive and original?
