Someone who works to deadline may not have this luxury, but I’m convinced that if you’ve got the slightest doubt about anything in your writing – a word that doesn’t do exactly what you want, a cadence that doesn’t feel quite right – then trust your instincts and fix it. Even the smallest adjustments matter. When it comes to art, ‘good enough’ is never good enough, and deep down we all know it.
I too swear by reading aloud. Just today while checking over an early chapter, I discovered that in one sentence Zach is already wearing swimming trunks, then half a page later, is removing his hoodie and jeans. I must have reread this chapter a dozen or more times. How did I miss such a glaring mistake?
personally I don’t think one can beat reading the thing outloud. You can always pick up the things that yyou are consistently ‘blind’ to. I get my boys to read out their school assignments and they are amazed at the way it ferrets out those strange cadences you mentioned not to mention the repeated use of the same adjectives.