5 Hacks for a Better Book Reading

You wrote your book, got it picked up by a publisher, and now your brainchild is in print. The hard work is over, right? Not quite.

Your next challenge is the book-reading. You schedule your reading, pick a section to read, and skim it to review. Now what? Here are 5 hacks for a better book reading.

Vary rhythm, volume, and tone
Falling into a rhythm while reading will destroy your listeners’ interest. The minute you start to sound like Dr. Seuss, your listeners will get caught up in the cadence and lose track of the meaning. So break up your reading rhythms. Read fast; read slow; read loud; read soft; but for heaven’s sake, don’t read monotone.

Stay focused on the content
It’s important to stay focused on the meaning of what you are reading, whether you’re terrified of public speaking or you’ve done it hundreds of times. If you’re nervous beforehand, listen to music, practice muscle relaxation, or simply force yourself to think about something else until time to start. If you’re feeling confident, congratulations, but don’t be tricked into thinking you’re invincible. Either extreme will damage your focus and raise your chances for slipping up or tripping over words.

Watch your operative words
Operative words are the words you stress or emphasize in a sentence. Well chosen operative words turn a good reading into a great one. How do you choose which words to stress? Read these famous lines from A Midsummer Night’s Dream out loud.

If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumbered here
While these visions did appear.

 
What words did you emphasize? A straightforward reading probably sounds something like this:

If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumbered here
While these visions did appear.

 
Do you see the singsong rhythm we so easily slip into? But we don’t want singsong, so we need to reevaluate how we emphasize. When choosing operative words, verbs are almost always your strongest choices. Read these same lines again but emphasize only the verbs. (You won’t always choose verbs. Sometimes, other words better take the stress, but let’s start here.)
 

If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumbered here
While these visions did appear.

 
Do you see how much stronger, how much more interesting that sounds? Verbs are incredible image-laden words. Offended. Slumbered. They create such vivid pictures in our mind. Perhaps you would emphasize this to point to second couplet or switch out appear with visions, as a strong image word. But choose your operative words carefully, underline them ahead of time if needed, and stick to them.

Mind your inflections
Voice pitch is another simple way to keep your reading interesting. Say these two sentences to yourself and listen to the difference: “Do we have ketchup?” “Wally, get the ketchup.” In the first one, your inflection rises on the last word so that ketchup is said at a much higher pitch than Do. But in the second sentence, the inflection reverses, and the first word is higher than the last.

How does this help us with speech? Falling inflections, such as in “Wally, get the ketchup,” give us a sense of finality. Something ends. But rising inflections like “Do we have ketchup?” indicate that there is more to come. It stimulates the brain to keep listening, an invaluable trick for a reader to know.

These upward inflections are key, not only at the end of sentences, but at the end of phrases as well, to keep the words’ sense of motion. Grab the nearest book and read a paragraph using downward inflections at the end of every phrase. Now read the same paragraph again using upward inflections. Which sounds more interesting? But careful not to use upward inflections all the time—your listeners need closure as well as motion.

Use but don’t abuse pauses
Similar to varying the sounds of your voice, pauses are a another hack for to placing emphasis or drawing attention to a point. They also break up monotony. If you’ve been reading at a clip for a few lines and suddenly pause, you will grab your listeners and pull their focus to whatever you say next. Pauses also add realism to lines of dialogue. In the same way that you cannot always think of the right word immediately, a character likely cannot either.

Be conscientious of how much you use the pause. The dramatic effect of a good pause is like a drumroll, building suspense. But if you put a drumroll in every sentence, or even every paragraph, the repetition causes them to lose their power. So pause, by all means, but pause sparingly.