Listen to the audio recordings below and notice the tone, tempo, pitch, rise and fall of each word and sentence pitch.

Notice how the sentences roll off their tongue and have perfect timing for punctuation, pauses and expression. This is not necessarily the way they are reading, the reader is just the medium. It’s the style of almost perfect writing that makes the reader engage with your work.

Got it? Good, now here comes the fun part. Pick three books that you enjoyed reading but also completely different from one another.

Select a chapter out of each book and read it a few times until you are familiar with what is written.

Next, you are going to read it out loud several times until you become precisely familiar with each passage.

Got it? Now, you are going to record yourself reading each passage!

But, when you recite it for the dreaded recorder, read it as though you are reading it to an audience. You’re a writer, so use your imagination!

Pretend you are reading an audiobook. If you’re feeling uncomfortable, awkward or even feel you’re about to have an anxiety attack, good! It means you’re about to make a breakthrough, and I promise you, it will feel like a drug when your creativity is unleashed!

Play with your tones, tempo and your voice to try and keep it compelling and engaging!

Do this a few times, because if you can get your words to pour out your lips, you are able to write how you feel with emotion.

When you have recorded each passage, listen to them again and notice where you stumble, stammer or pause with each punctuation. Try and perfect this by recording it over and over until you are relatively happy with the result.

Try to ignore the fact that you “don’t like the sound of your voice”, that can be fixed with voice coaching at another time. 

The point here is to try and get your creative mind to understand how you want to write. 

And now for your cringe exercise for today!

Once you feel you have perfected your tone, pitch and recording, do it again, but this time in front of a mirror!

I know right? It feels weird, but you’re an author in the making, weird will become part of your character!

It sounds silly or pointless, but there are a few very important elements we are addressing here.

1. You are stimulating your creativity and your mind is in receptive mode to adopt change. So take advantage to learn how you want to write.
2. Continue practicing this exercise and you will find yourself not only an amazing writer but an amazing orator too!
3. Because if feels weird, lame, silly, stupid and embarrassing, you survived it, which is a +100 confidence point.

The easiest way to learn to write and improve on style is if you can reach the point where your words come out as you would when speaking.

Another great exercise is to read story books to kids to try and keep them engaged. This is a tough crowd to keep engaged, so it’s the perfect battleground!