One of the final editing passes all my books go through is listening to it via Microsoft Word’s text to speech option. It helps find missed words, duplicate words, repetitive words, and awkward phrasing among other things. It can also be quite unintentionally hilarious and baffling. Here are a few I’ve come across while listening to the robovoice reading A Thread of Magic (available June, 2025).
First off, the book. This is the beginning of a new series set in and around Alabama’s capital city. It’s not a rosy view of the south. This is the south’s darker side. The side full of prejudice and racism and how it collides with a new reality of magic users and mythological beings.
And if my word processor is anything to go by, it’s also where the Department of Redundancy Department thrives. I’ve removed so many crutch words in this document, I have a basket of them (JUST came out on top with almost 200 instances). As for the other errors… Well, let’s see how Word’s voice reader tackles the difficult and the easy and check out its questionable choices.
Things Microsoft Word could pronounce:
- Dragon Names – Ēlēlouwala, Vesuvaraeon, Axlargígurian, Virunganabi, and Alicanzuthil gave the program no problems. It pronounced them mostly how I intended (some of the emphasis was wrong), but it did so consistently and without variation. I was pleasantly surprised.
- Szerix – The resident imp of Mediocre Magics, the FMC’s store, was another easy pronunciation for the program. I expected the SZ combo to give it pause.
- Other Personal Nouns – City names (including Yakima, Montgomery), character names (Connal, Michaela, Dytasha), and other names were no problem.
Things Microsoft Word could not pronounce:
- Par – Yes, the golf term. Easy word, used often in casual conversation. Word decided to spell it because why not, I guess.
- Relive – According to the dictionary, it means to live through (an experience or feeling, especially an unpleasant one) again in one’s imagination or memory. IE “he broke down sobbing as he relived the attack.” Simple, right? Oh no, Word decided ‘live’ must be pronouced as live with a long I (līv). All the pauses trying to decide if I’d spelled rely instead.
- Combed – Surely it got this one right, you say? Why no, no it didn’t. It decided it must rhyme with room (co͞om), because that makes sense.
- Petrifying – A synonym of terrifying, petrifying describes someone or something so scary it immobilizes the subject. It’s based off the word Petrify /ˈpetrəˌfī/. It should not be pronounced pee-tree-fī, but here we are.
- Smoothed – Yet another past tense debacle, Word decided it needed to pronounced both syllables. This made the monosyllable Smoothd sound like 2-syllable smooth-ed. It was amusing more than annoying, so there’s that.
- Wound – Okay, I know heteronyms/homographs (words spelled the same but pronounced differently) can be confusing, and English is just a dozen bastardized languages in a trench coat, but really? Wound the injury and wound the action are not interchangeable pronunciations! Also, pick one!
- PO Box – This one may be on me because I didn’t put the periods after each letter in PO, but in no world is a PO Box a po’ box. Those things cost a monthly fee!
While it’s fun to poke at the program for sounding like an ESL student, it really is a great resource for finding those errors your eyes miss after the millionth time reading over a manuscript. I caught over a dozen missed words, a few duplicates, and so many awkward sentences using the feature. Highly recommended for anyone needing a quick proof, just be prepared for unintentional laughter.
A Thread of Magic releases this June and will be exclusive to Amazon and KU for a limited time.