Professional Viewpoint Toward Readers
Be willing to let your readers mispronounce your words. A
professional viewpoint toward your writing includes a level of detachment. If
your work is successful in the public arena, many thousands of people will read
it. Once your work is published, you will probably not be able to control what
the public does with it. If you have invented new names and new words, you
should sever your emotional attachment to those words. Unless you have written
them to comply with the easier rules of pronunciation, you stand a chance that
your readers will pronounce them differently than you intended.
How to Get Readers to Pronounce Your Invented Words Properly
Three solutions to troublesome pronunciation are:
- Create words and names that use standard pronunciation rules
- Create a pronunciation guide
- Sever your emotional attachment to invented words and names
Be aware that no matter how hard you do number one, some
readers will still mispronounce your words. For number two, realize not all
readers will use the guide and not all readers like them. If you truly need a
pronunciation guide, you might want to revisit number one. For number three,
remember that once you hand your work over to the public, it belongs to them.