So… um… it’s Friday again. Actually, it’s been Friday more than once now. I think with my posting on the QueryTracker.net blog, my In Deep Smit posts will become more biweekly-ish.
But I definitely have something I’m deeply smitten with to share this week.
I’m in the middle of another manuscript revision. An agent who loved my partial and requested my full manuscript identified a plot point that didn’t work for her later in the story. Her comment gave me a eureka moment for a small backstory change that I believe makes the novel stronger.
I rewrote the chapters primarily affected, and now I’m finishing a detailed line edit to make sure I haven’t missed any inconsistencies along the way.
And since I’m going through word by word, I figured I’d take the opportunity to tighten my manuscript wherever possible.
Now, you might think this post would be about the agent who inspired the idea. And I am indeed, deeply grateful to her for her time and insight. But the object of my affection for discussion today is the Narrator tool on my PC.
I had heard that text-to-voice software was included on most recent PC’s, but I’d never bothered looking up how to use it before. I find reading aloud to be a great editing tool, but have noticed that when I read from my manuscript, I sometimes miss problems like missing or repeated words anyway because I know what the text is supposed to say and my brain corrects it without my noticing.
I wanted something that would read my text to me, so I looked up where to find the preinstalled software.
And there she was… Microsoft Anna, the robotic narrator, hiding under “Ease of Access” in my “Accessories” folder.
Together, Anna and I have obsessed over each word of the first 3/4 of my manuscript. Despite frequent careful editing by myself and hundreds of beta readers, I still found a few small typos. I’ve also found a few overuse quirks, like my apparent fondness for starting dialogue lines with “Well,” which each of my characters indulged to some extent.
Hands down, this is the best edit I’ve done. So I’m deeply smitten with Microsoft Anna, and I’m not afraid to shout that to the blogosphere. 🙂
Now, if you don’t mind… Anna and I would like to be alone for a while. 😉
Filed under: In Deep Smit, musings, novel, What I've Learned | Tagged: editing, H. L. Dyer, Heather Dyer, In Deep Smit, jubilation, musings, novel, The Edge of Memory, What I've Learned |
H. L. Dyer's Weblog 
Nice! My voice is named Vicki!
See… I’ve read you can download other voices, but I got sucked right into this whirlwind romance and haven’t felt the need to look for anyone else. *snort*
Hey, congratulations on the full manuscript request! That’s awesome. And I hope you and Anna will be very productive together. 🙂
Mine is Paul. I paid for him. (wink, wink)
Seriously though, I never could get my Narrator function to work correctly, so I bought a program called Flame reader. I can alter pronunciations for my fantasy names and such. It came with the natural voice, Paul. It is also is installed as an add on in my word program, so I can have it read to me at the click of a button.
Mine is Sam. I wouldn’t have found him if not for this post. Thanks!
That is a fabulous idea! Thanks! Now I’ll give you and Anna some space.