You're staring at a manuscript that you have spent countless hours, days, weeks, preparing for publication or submission. It's as stellar as you can make it. Or is it?

Here is just one of the tricks that I occasionally pull out of my hat when editing. This technique is the best method of making dialogue sound natural and will pick up the awkward sentences faster than any other method. There are times when I use this technique while writing too. It is one of the best tricks one can have stashed under their hat.

Read Aloud

You can read a line over and over again, but you still don't see the mistake. It's something incredibly simple, like a missing "the", but you still don't see it. Our eyes filter what our minds see. The eyes make the corrections needed and hence our brains don't register anything different. However, when we read something out, vocalize the line, our brains work differently. And guess what... That missing "the" becomes obvious.