Show & Tell: Library Event

Later today, I’m off to Copperas Cove Public Library for an event featuring area writers.  Among the show & tell is my friend David Watson’s new book,  Tunguska Terror,  first of the Aero Rangers series.   David can’t be there, but the librarian will present a short reading from it.  David read me a bit from a later volume a few nights ago and it is indeed a ripping yarn…intentionally sort of pulp-ish in keeping with the era it depicts and the kind of fiction then coming out on newstands for eager readers.   David’s background in history is strong and he’s worked in a wild combination of the Russian revolution and its aftermath with the activities of some WWI veterans who just can’t let go of the excitement of the war they were in.

I’m taking the proof print books of both the short fiction collections of Paksworld stories as my show & tell.   DEEDS OF YOUTH, “the green book”  will drop to e-devices on Monday, and also on Monday should show a link for ordering a print-on-demand copy.   CORRECTION:   BOOK BIRTHDAY IS TUESDAY!   TUESDAY IS THE 18TH.   I GOOFED.    R-s birthday is Tuesday–we both had it wrong.    Celebration (home alone with each other, ooooo…) will include guacamole & chips, pastries with chocolate, some form of healthy food  in addition, and staying out of the heat.  R says he’ll really celebrate when it cools down enough.

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And time took flight and I was fighting with my cellphone camera and my image processing software and it was time to get ready and leave.    Now I’m back and it’s time to go to bed.  I’m back and I’m tired and I will add to this tomorrow maybe.   It was a lot of fun, met lovely people, ate a….what was maybe a LARGER than strictly necessary number of very tasty dessert bites….and thoroughly enjoyed the ride to and from with Wendy the head librarian’s wife, during which I talked too much.  We have a lot in common.  She has a ton of skills I don’t.

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I had a lot of fun–I know I said that before, but it really was a blast being back out on the Writer in Public situation again, with a new book to show off, meeting people for whom my books had been fun and even useful/helpful.  Gave me a boost, the kind writers need.   I came back, briefly attacked the story-in-progress, decided the original plan for it was going to make it too long, and by day’s end today should have it almost-nearly-if-not-completely done.  Well, but for revision.

For those of you considering taking your precious manuscript out to an event (reading at a writer’s group,  or with published material reading at a convention or library event) here are some gentle (I hope they feel gentle) suggestions that will increase listener pleasure.  Reading your work is different from writing, and from having someone read your work silently.  Reading aloud to a group is a performance.   Don’t be spooked by that word.  You don’t have to be an actor to read your work well.  I’m not an actor and people said nice things last night about my reading.  It’s a skill, but it’s a skill I learned, and it’s a skill anyone can learn.

Think back to a time when someone read to you a simple story and you enjoyed it.   (If that never happened, I’ll cover that, too.)   My mother read to me, and read expressively.   You don’t have to be able to “do voices” but you do need to use your voice as you do in conversation–it goes up and down, it emphasizes some words more than others, it slows WAY down and then speeds up again.   It pauses for listener reaction.   So practice: practice getting louder, getting softer,  using higher and lower pitch to accent some words.   Be silly with the practice.  Write down one sentence you’ve written and draw a line under one word and over the next through the whole thing.  Try reading that sentence with your voice going up and down–ridiculously high and low.  Slightly high and low.  Loud and low, high and soft…and the reverse.  Loosen up your vocal ability.  Or sing it.  Sing it to a song you know.    Now pick another sentence–dialog’s good to use but it could be descriptive or action–and pretend it’s being said in a movie by a good actor.  How would the actor say it?  Do that.  (No it won’t make you an actor.   But it can make you a better reader.)

Now look at your story and read a paragraph or two, pretending you’re telling this story to a circle of eager listeners.  SLOW DOWN.   Let your voice make full use of your words.   If you’re a fast silent reader (I am)  you’re apt to be a fast oral reader…too fast for listeners to enjoy and falling easily into a monotone that sounds like  seeing hte words on a screen that’s scrolling too fast, all run together.   Onceuponatimetherewasagiantwholivedatthetopofamountain (gasp for breath) everyyearinspringhecamedownandrobbedacradleinthevillageandthepeoplewereafraid (gasp for breath)  etc.   So practice reading slower.  Now you have time for the rise and fall of pitch, the louder and softer of emphasis, the facial expressions and tonal quality that express the character’s fear, anger, joy, sarcasm, laughter.  In real life, much of the meaning of what we say comes with these things–with the pace of the utterance, its interruptions, the shadings of the voice that tell the listener this “No!” is disbelief and that “No!” is anger and that “No” is agreement.  So when you interpret the printed words on the page, give them the full expression you were thinking of what you wrote them.

When you’ve improved your control of your voice…now it’s time to consider the venue and the time alloted.  Many times you won’t be the only reader in the venue:  you will have an alloted time.  Yes, of course, your entire story is important.  So is everyone else’s.  Few things are as annoying to the other readers, or the venue manager, as a reader who goes overtime, and the longer you go overtime the worse it is.   Unless you are given an hour (rare) you can’t read expressively more than a page of double-spaced, standard-ms. size material per minute.  Fifteen minutes, fifteen pages, max.  Thirty minutes, thirty pages.  Listener attention span for one voice–even one expressive voice–starts decaying at thirty minutes, the length of some TV episodes (and they’re interrupted by, shortened by, commercial interruptions.)  So if you have an hour to read, don’t read the whole hour.  Take a break midway or tell them upfront you’ll have a Q&A at the end, and stop early enough for it.   If you have thirty minutes, carve out 10 for questions/comments at the end.  It’s far better if they want more, than if their eyes are glazing and you’re losing them.   Mark your book or manuscript with alternate ending points.  If you sense a dip in their concentration, stop at the next mark as if you meant to.  I usually decide on a passage that, to me, is characteristic of the whole and shows the character in their most vivid personality, then print it out, and mark the print out.  I also time myself reading it at slightly different speeds, and pick one.  You can also edit out bits (whatever way you want to mark that; I find it easier on a printout), add in underlines or a highlight marker to remind you what to emphasize.

Note: this is NOT a comment on any other reader at the library event.  Nobody who gets up to read in public deserved to be bashed for doing it “wrong”–it something that has to be learned and heaven knows I read in a fast monotone trying to cram too much into my time when I first read aloud in front of others.   It’s a direct response to what someone asked me, who said they were afraid to read their work aloud and lacked experience and liked how I’d read mine.   Reading your work aloud is a very useful skill, and it’s accessible to anyone.  Everyone makes the same mistakes early on unless they’ve had voice coaching (I hadn’t) and this is intended to help those who are scared at the very thought.  Practicing your voice, practicing your pacing, learning how to time your reading so you “fit” your space…these are learnable skills.  And as you learn them, the fear retreats.  I got better.  So can anyone.