Performing my prose

Over last weekend I volunteered to read a story at a new local con, the Subaquatic Steampunk Weekend, held at the Submarine Museum at Gosport, Hampshire.

This was more of a performance reading than the genteel sort of reading one might do as an author at a literary festival.  We were performing in large tent, using a PA system.  Oh, and we were competing with the noise from the music stage across the way too.

Having done my readings it got me thinking about the performance skills workshops I've done over the years.  I think the most challenging was the one led by an actor (sadly, I can't remember his name), at Eastercon a few years back.  He was getting us to read our own texts, but putting emotion into the reading as an actor would.  He kept asking us things like "how does she feel about the mountains.  Does she love them. How can you show that in your reading?

I confess that I didn't really grasp the idea of showing a smile in my voice,  and for me, this whole area of exhibiting emotions in public is rather a challenge.  This is partly a personality thing.  As a quiet introvert, my default state is quiet conversation and lot of listening to others talk.  Performing anything requires me to switch on something that isn't naturally there.  I have to remember to raise my voice, project, make an effort to be heard.

It's something I've learned to do over the years. I started teaching creative writing partly because it had an element of public speaking to it.  I can still remember my first few classes, standing in front of twenty people, all of whom were looking at me.  And they were listening to me too - actually listening to what I had to say.

I'm well past the state where I even notice that now. I've been a guest on a Deadly Dames panel at Purbeck Literary Fesrival, and I've been a panellist at two World Science Fiction Conventions.  I've co-presented sessions on self publishing at Portsmouth Literary Festival and Winchester Writers' Festival.

Public speaking no longer holds any terrors for me, but there's still more work to be done.  I need more experience of working with microphones, and I still haven't figured out how to show that my character loves the mountains through the use of my voice.