VO Pro Tip: Reading Around Punctuation

Published about 2 months ago • 1 min read

Reading Around Punctuation

Hey Reader,

Corporate and medical scripts are notorious for being stuffed with heavy punctuation—commas after every clause, semi-colons, parentheticals, and dashes galore.

If you treat every single piece of punctuation as a hard pause, your read immediately turns choppy, mechanical, and dry. You end up sounding like a voice robot navigating an obstacle course instead of a person sharing an idea.

Punctuation in a script is usually there for grammatical structure, not vocal cadence. Also, in corporate scripts, the writers oftentimes don't read the copy out loud and may not be thinking about how it's going to sound coming back from a Voice Talent.

The next time you open a dense corporate script, try these two steps:

Read for the thought, not the comma. Group full ideas together and speak through the minor commas. Let your pitch and subtle changes in pacing convey the structure rather than bringing your vocal momentum to a complete stop every time you see a comma.
Use "invisible transitions." If a sentence has a comma, try replacing the pause with a slight forward lift in your voice—as if you’re stringing two parts of a bridge together—instead of dropping your pitch and resetting your breath.

A smooth, conversational read comes from connecting thoughts naturally. When you stop letting punctuation dictate your breathing, the copy immediately flows better.

-Michael

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