On Reading aloud

I find that reading my work aloud helps it.

I heard an author interviewed back in the 1980s, in the days before call phones, the personal computers and internet, He traveled a lot so wasn’t able to get together in any kind of writer’s group. He would call his answering machine every night and read what he’d written that day. Upon arriving home, he’d edit his text while listening to his tape recorder.

Hard to believe, but in those days having an answering machine at home was considered insulting. In the early days of my business I hired an answering service to take messages for me. I went to an answering machine when they became acceptable. I remember once saying I could never imagine when I would ever want to walk around with a phone in my pocket that would ring wherever I was.

Now, my major maladjustment is trying to figure out why my cell phone won’t ring. I have to stop by the Verizon store to have it looked at.

If you look back at classic films and study the technology that was used, you see what changes we have made. The phone is probably one of the biggest. And shots of living areas won’t have computers in them. And what people write about and how they write about it has changed along with it. A character used to have to find a phone to call. Now they just use their cell phone or internet technology.