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Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Good Morning, This is Laura.

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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's tip is to

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Speaker 1: write for the ear. If you assume that whatever you

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Speaker 1: write will be read out loud, and you structure your

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Speaker 1: writing to make that possible, your writing will be more

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Speaker 1: compelling and clear. This week, I'm sharing several of my

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Speaker 1: favorite writing tips. Whether you write for a living or not,

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Speaker 1: you may have to write reports or emails or articles

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Speaker 1: for industry publications. Certain tactics can make all writing better.

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Speaker 1: When I write these podcast scripts, I am obviously writing

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Speaker 1: them to be read out loud. That is the whole

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Speaker 1: point of a podcast script. But even writing that isn't

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Speaker 1: designed to be recorded benefits from approaching it as if

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Speaker 1: it would be. That's because of how people actually process

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Speaker 1: written language. Many years ago, an editor told me almost

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Speaker 1: in passing, that when people read things silently, they are

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Speaker 1: actually saying them in their heads. As a result, writing

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Speaker 1: that sounds better to the ear reads better even if

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Speaker 1: you never actually hear it. When I write these scripts,

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Speaker 1: I practice reading them out loud. When I do, I

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Speaker 1: immediately see things that need to be edited. Sometimes sentences

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Speaker 1: are too long, they need to be broken up so

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Speaker 1: I can get through them without gasping for breath. Sometimes

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Speaker 1: sentences are all the same length, too many long sentences,

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Speaker 1: or for that matter, too many short sentences in.

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Speaker 2: A row boring. Finally, certain words and sentence structures sound

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Speaker 2: stronger than others. It turns out that ending a sentence

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Speaker 2: on a solid one syllable word generally feels more satisfying

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Speaker 2: than ending it on a long one. So rather than

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Speaker 2: writing being clear and compelling, you want it to be

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Speaker 2: compelling and clear. Some of this becomes habit over time.

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Speaker 2: If you want an example of what good spoken language

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Speaker 2: sounds like, try listening to a really good preacher. These

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Speaker 2: people often have it down because they're talking to crowds

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Speaker 2: many times a week. But even in the absence of that,

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Speaker 2: if you simply commit to reading your own writing out

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Speaker 2: loud before you publish it or hit send, you will

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Speaker 2: likely spot problems. You will see that some words sound

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Speaker 2: better than others, you will see where you are gasping

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Speaker 2: from breath, and you'll break things up that will help

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Speaker 2: readers be able to make it through your writing too. Now,

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Speaker 2: I know that most of us don't do this with

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Speaker 2: casual writings such as emails. But imagine if we did

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Speaker 2: reading email would feel more pleasurable, and thus we'd be

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Speaker 2: able to get our points across and maybe we'd send

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Speaker 2: fewer emails. That wouldn't be a bad thing at all.

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Speaker 2: In the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and

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Speaker 2: here's to making the most of our time.

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Speaker 3: Hey, everybody, I'd love to hear from you. You can

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Speaker 3: send me your tips, your questions, or anything else. Just

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Speaker 3: connect with me on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at before

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Speaker 3: Breakfast pod. That's b the number four than Breakfast pod.

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Speaker 3: You can also shoot me an email at Before Breakfast

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Speaker 3: Podcasts at iHeartMedia dot com that before Breakfast is spelled

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Speaker 3: out with all the letters.

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Speaker 1: Thanks so much.

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Speaker 3: Should I look forward to staying in touch. Before Breakfast

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Speaker 3: is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,

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Speaker 3: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen

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Speaker 3: to your favorite shows.