The ear test

There are a lot of ways to make sure that your story flows well. There are programs and people and technology to help with this as well.

But really, there's one thing from day one of writing that really makes sure your writing works well: your ears.

Read your writing out loud and listen to how it sounds.

You might decide to ignore rules like that of the split infinitive. You might realize you should end a sentence with a preposition. You might realize that you’ve gone too far in giving one of your characters an accent.

And if you read your story over and over again, you might realize that you've gotten it just right.

The ear test will tell you.