Novel Blog - Writing The Great American Novel

There's nothing that can replace the feeling of accomplishment that comes with reading a good book cover to cover, but for those that find it challenging to find the time; books on tape are a good alternative. You can check them out from your public library, rent them from Cracker Barrel, or get them at some movie rental stores.

I listen to them during my commute to work and on long driving trips. I can finish a book on tape in about a week, but reading a 350 page book takes me three weeks. I drove 19 hours from Michigan to Florida in February and finished two books during the trip.

With this medium becoming more and more popular, writers need to consider the spoken word too when writing novels. For example, if your main character has a name like "Northington" or "Pennington" you might want to shorten it up to single syllables to make it more pleasing when narrated to tape. Consider "North" or "Penn" as examples.