When I first dipped my toes into the audiobook world, I thought it would be a fairly straightforward process. After all, the book was done. The story was edited, polished, published, and live. What else was there to do?
Answer: A lot.
I expected to simply sit back and listen to my novel come to life in audio form. What I didn’t expect was that I’d be immediately confronted with every sentence that sounded better in my head than it did out loud. Every stretch of dialogue that lost its intended emotion. Every pacing choice that worked on paper but fell completely flat when spoken.
It didn’t take long before I realized: I wasn’t just listening to my book—I was discovering it all over again.
There is a significant difference between reading something on a page and hearing it aloud. I thought I understood that. I’d used Microsoft Word’s Read Aloud feature plenty of times during the editing phase, and it was a valuable tool—especially when combating what I call “Missing Word Syndrome.” You know, that lovely trick your brain plays where it fills in missing words or corrects errors without telling you.
Hearing the robotic Word voice read my manuscript helped me catch dropped words, awkward phrasing, and sentence rhythm issues. It’s a fantastic editing tool—and one I recommend for every writer.
But—and this is a big but—it’s not the same as putting together an audiobook. Not even close.
Word’s Read Aloud function is meant to help your brain catch mistakes it might overlook. It has zero inflection, zero emotion, and zero care for whether your sentence lands with emotional punch or awkward flatness. That’s what makes it great for editing. It’s impartial. It’s robotic in the best way.
But when you step into the world of audiobook narration—even with AI—you’re no longer just proofreading. You’re producing. And that means you’re hearing your story performed.
Even the slightest bit of inflection from an AI voice—just the tiniest lift in tone, the most subtle hesitation—can expose all sorts of literary sins. Pacing issues. Dialogue that reads well but sounds unnatural. Overly long sentences that are grammatically correct but feel like verbal marathons. Or entire emotional beats that feel hollow when spoken.
And when it’s your words being spoken? You hear everything.
I found myself going back into the manuscript and making real changes—not because the story had changed, but because the delivery revealed where the execution could be stronger. A sentence I once thought was powerful fell flat when read aloud. A section of dialogue that read as intense now just sounded clunky. Inner monologues that soared on the page lost their magic when delivered in a flat tone.
Some of the changes were small—a word swap here, a line break there. But others were more significant. I adjusted entire passages to better fit the rhythm and emotional tone of the audiobook version.
And I’m glad I did.
Now that I’m working on my fourth novel, I’ve noticed something I didn’t expect: I’m writing a little differently. Not in a way that compromises my voice or limits my creativity, but in a way that’s more mindful of how the words will sound, not just how they’ll read.
I still write for the page—but I’m also considering the ear.
The pacing. The breath between beats. The way a sentence flows when read aloud by someone other than me—whether it’s an AI voice or a future human narrator. I’ve developed a small, subconscious reflex: will this work in audio? Will it make sense, emotionally and rhythmically, when spoken?
I never thought writing would become multi-sensory in this way—but it has. And I’m better for it.
While I still believe the written version of a book is the purest experience (and yes, I will always encourage readers to grab the print or ebook version in addition to audio), I also believe that narration offers an entirely new lens through which to experience a story. And for writers? That lens can be humbling—and transformational.
So no, Word’s Read Aloud function and AI audiobook narration aren’t interchangeable. They serve two very different purposes—editing vs. production—but both are useful. Both are revealing. And if you’re brave enough to listen, both can teach you a lot about your own writing.
xo Ametra
