Issue

Verbal action

Guidelines

Most of us can sneeze, cough, and clear our throats without going to acting school. If you wrote the words in your book, do you have to read them, or can you just do them?

One situation where you should read the words is when the action is part of a longer sentence or separated from other dialogue:

You may feel that saying the words is more descriptive than doing the action. If so, read the words.

If you wrote the sound (“Ahh-choo”), maybe the actual sound will be better than the onomatopoeia version? Try making a sneezing sound. Is it convincing? Remember when you are recording, you can always try it both ways, and later on pick whichever one fits your audiobook better.