Reading Aloud

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Someone asked me today how long it takes to read a story aloud, for a Bardic Circle. I turned up some resources...

The maximum advisable time for a solo reading is 20 minutes. If you're assigned a longer slot, aim for 20 minutes and use the remainder for question-and-answer or some other activity. A rapid-fire reading with multiple people typically uses 5-minute slots. The longer slots are easier to fit a story into, but tedious if the performance prooves poor. Shorter slots are harder to fit; the pacing has to be perfect. You can go through more people faster, though, and it's not so bad if some of them suck. A mix of 5 and 10 minute slots can work very nicely for a group.

Reading aloud is hard to judge because different people read at different speeds. You pretty much have to pick a piece, practice reading it, and time yourself.

This page says it takes about 2 minutes to read a page of a normal book out loud.

Here's an article on how to do author readings.

Here's a wonderful explanation of how to read aloud and make it sound good.

For reading aloud, look for short items that are either fast-paced and dramatic, or funny. Other styles can work but are more challenging; start with the easier ones. For a rapid-fire reading, consider poetry. It is MUCH easier to read a poem in under 5 minutes. Many poems are one page; few are more than two. It's harder to find a short story that will fit a short slot, and finding a good read-aloud scene out of a novel can be a downright nuisance. However, look for "flash" or "drabble" fiction online: very short stories. I recommend The Aphorisms of Kherishdar (particularly "Ishan," "Sasrith," and "Aisim") and Wind Tunnel Dreams (try "Angel," "Cats and Apples," and "Dancer Through Time").