{"id":7881,"date":"2019-04-16T06:52:26","date_gmt":"2019-04-16T10:52:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=7881"},"modified":"2019-05-13T08:58:22","modified_gmt":"2019-05-13T12:58:22","slug":"painless-public-readings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=7881","title":{"rendered":"Painless Public Readings"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"microphone\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

If you write, you may receive invitations to read from your\nwork to a book group, at a public reading, or for a bookstore event. It\u2019s a chance\nto connect with an audience, to find places in your work that still need<\/em> work, and to build fans. But\nwriting doesn\u2019t prepare you for reading. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Viet Thanh Nguyen, who won a Pulitzer Prize for The\nSympathizer<\/a><\/em>, has written a spot-on essay for lithub<\/em> on \u201chow\nnot to bore your audience at a reading<\/a>.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before I give you Nguyen\u2019s tips, here\u2019s an important one\nfrom Walter Moseley. He told an audience at Princeton last year that \u201cthe\nlonger I read, the fewer books I sell.\u201d Author venues like Noir at the Bar,\nMystery Writers of America, and my own Princeton-based writers group limit\nauthors to 10 to 12 minutes. A taste and a tease. Nguyen\u2019s tips and a couple of\nmy own:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. A reading is a performance. Writing is storytelling and\ngood storytellers put some pizzazz into their reading. Your audience wants to\nbe moved by your words and<\/em> how you\nshare them. He recommends listening to skilled readers, like author T.C.Boyle\n(here reading from his The Harder They Come<\/a><\/em>,\nstarting 7:50 in).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. Create a script, rather than simply reading from your\nbook. With a script, you can enlarge the type (I use really big type\u201418 to 20\npoints), so you don\u2019t have to bury your head in the pages, and you can see the\nwords easily even if the lectern is poorly lit, a lesson learned the hard way. Mark\nyour script with underlinings and squiggly lines where you want to speed up, slow\ndown, get louder, pause. Number the pages. Circle words you trip over in rehearsing.\nYou may trip over them again. Authors with younger eyes tend to read from their\ntablet or cell phone, but paper never has a low battery. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. \u201cPractice, practice, practice,\u201d Nguyen says. And time\nyourself. Cut out a paragraph here or there if, at the twelve-minute mark, you\nwant to reach a particular point. A description that seems slow to you as a\nreader, probably is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4. Make eye contact with your audience. Repeatedly. Those rehearsals\nyou did will let you take your eyes off the page for longer too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

5. Be aware of how close to the mike you need to be and cement\nyourself  there. A little movement  is fine, especially with the arms, but avoid\nweaving back and forth, shifting your weight from one foot to the other in a\nseasickness-inducing way. Plant your feet and keep them planted. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

6. How you look is important. \u201cDress up, whatever that means\nto you,\u201d he says. It shows you are rising to the occasion. If certain colors or\noutfits perk you up and you feel good wearing them, choose one of those.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

7. Bring energy into the room. \u201cYour energy level will be the room\u2019s energy level, which comedians understand,\u201d Nguyen says.Here\u2019s the bottom line: Once you\u2019re on stage, you\u2019re a performer. \u201c<\/strong>You are putting on a show, whether it is for five people or fifty or five hundred. That\u2019s what people have come for. If they just want to read your words, they can do it at home. Respect their time.\u201d Don\u2019t be boring. And if you\u2019re really prepared, you won\u2019t be. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And see advice from Jane Friedman<\/a>‘s blog: “How to Plan a Book Reading that Wows Your Audience”!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Photo: Pete on Flickr, creative commons license.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you write, you may receive invitations to read from your work to a book group, at a public reading, or for a bookstore event. It\u2019s a chance to connect with an audience, to find places in your work that … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5453,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Painless Public Readings -- tips for authors invited to read their work. It's not a \"reading,\" it's a performance!","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[62,174,63,64,60],"tags":[1547,1278],"class_list":["post-7881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-authors","category-first-draft-blog","category-marketing","category-promotion","category-storytelling","tag-public-readings","tag-viet-thanh-nguyen"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vweisfeld.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/microphone.jpg?fit=444%2C424&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-237","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7881"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7881\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7944,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7881\/revisions\/7944"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}