Language is a funny thing. Our brains can handle combinations of words that our mouths can’t. We can run the most challenging tongue-twisters through our minds without a pause, but saying them out loud causes us to slur, stumble, and stall. Which is why reading a scene out loud is a great way to find clunky writing or a bumpy narrative flow.
We skim over words when we read silently, understanding the meanings even if we don’t read all the words (we’ve all seen those badly misspelled sentences that still make sense). That's why it's so easy to miss typos and invisible descriptive words—our brains fill in the blanks and cut out the chaff. But when we're forced to read a sentence out loud, we trip over any words causing problems.
