The Sound of the Page

Phonetic Texture

This afternoon, I spent time reading my latest chapter aloud—not for the meaning, but for the mouth-feel. We often forget that prose is an auditory medium. Soft vowels create a sense of ease and flow; hard consonants like k, t, and b create friction and tension.

If you are writing a scene of high anxiety, your sentences should be “jagged”—filled with percussive sounds that mirror the character’s heartbeat. If you are writing a scene of rest, the words should slide into one another. The phonetic texture of your work should never be accidental. It is the invisible music that tells the reader how to feel before they’ve even processed the plot.

The Monroe Minute
Read your most recent paragraph. Identify the “hardest” sounding word and see if it aligns with the emotional mood of the scene.

Until the next page,
Sloane S. Monroe

#### **File: 2025-10-23.md**
```toml

Sloane Shay Monroe

I don’t write to idealize love, but to explore it honestly, with emotional precision and depth.