Convention readings: what to read, and how to get an audience

You are on the program at a convention, and you get a reading slot. Hooray!



So, first question first. What do you read?



This is a trick question. I don't know your work, so how could I make any specific recommendation? What I will do, however, is suggest a few things to think about in choosing a work to read (or read from).

1. Consider whether you have a work that needs more visibility. Maybe you have something that has come out recently but from a smaller press or magazine which is more difficult to access; reading a work like this can increase the number of people who know about it.
2. Consider whether you have a work that will be coming out soon. If you've sold a story and know it will be hitting shelves, or online sites, in relatively short order, it's good to relay this message to a potential audience and give them a bit of a teaser.
3. Consider whether it is your best work. You might have a work in progress that is really exciting you at the moment, but be careful to consider that it may change a great deal in revision. Would you want people to hear the story as is if this piece of it may change dramatically later? Perhaps not, but you probably wouldn't want to read something that later you'd regret having shown in that form.
4. Consider which part of your image as an author you are trying to project. I have two sides as an author: my science fiction side, and my fantasy side. I'm currently trying to grow my fantasy side so that I can be more three-dimensional as an author, so I chose at my local convention to read a fantasy story (currently under consideration by an editor) that I am very proud of.
   
   
5. Consider what the overarching theme of the convention is. At WorldCon most of my programming was directly related to my status as an Analog writer and an expert on alien languages and language design, so it only made sense to choose a science fiction story to read. (I chose "Cold Words" because it will be coming out in anthology form soon.) It wouldn't make any sense to read science fiction at World Fantasy Convention, for example. And some reading slots specify the genre required, so it's best to go with that.

The second issue is, how do you get an audience to come to your reading? If you're a big name author already, obviously you don't have to really worry about this unless you're scheduled back-to-back with something else really compelling. But for most people this is an issue. My very first reading never happened because I was scheduled at the last minute, on the last day of the convention, and everyone had already left. The ever-wonderful Dr. Stanley Schmidt appeared, but as I told him, "I think you know this story already."



This might lead you to conclude that you should wish never to be scheduled on the last day of a convention. However, being scheduled on the first day isn't so great either - because you have virtually no time to drop your own name or invite people to attend.



I suggest a multi-pronged approach. Make sure you personally invite people you know who you know will be attending the convention. You can also issue public invitations through blogs or social networking sites, but it's hard to measure how effective these are. I don't suggest accosting random people in the halls and inviting them, unless you feel really comfortable talking to strangers. What I can suggest, though, is putting in a small plug for your reading at the end of panels you are on, just as the panel closes. Especially if the panel topic is related to the reading you will be giving, the chances of you finding interested parties in the panel audience is a lot higher. Thus I tend to mention my science fiction readings in alien language, linguistics or anthropology related panels. Worldbuilding panels are open to the suggestion of either fantasy or science fiction. Another approach that has been successful for me is to make up a flyer announcing your reading (with its location, the title of your story, and a blurb about its content) and post it up in public flyer areas of the convention, including near the door of the room where you will be reading. I made mine orange so it would stand out!



In the end, it doesn't matter if you're reading to two people or to thirty - give it your all. If you're a tepid reader because you've been put off by a small audience, those few members of the small audience will be unlikely to invite others to come back for a reading by you. Believe in the story, and give yourself to it. Make your story come alive, and then the reading itself can become a wonderful incentive for people to want to come back and hear you read again.



Note: special thanks to Lillian Csernica for teaching me so much about this topic!

Why read your work aloud?

It's always a good idea to read your stories aloud. I know many people who do it. For years, I read every word I wrote to my husband (bless him!) on a nightly basis. I still read aloud to him occasionally (though kids and life make a nightly session impossible), and I've practiced for readings with him, too.

To my mind, reading aloud is an important test for any story - and it works on several levels.

The first thing that reading aloud can do is give you some distance on what you've written. Sometimes you spend so much time going over and over the words on the screen that you know them by heart, and you stop being able to see problems that might be there. Reading aloud is one way to push that text away, and put it into a context where you can be more aware of what's actually there, rather than what you think/know is there from the million times you've run your eyes over it. Printing out the story and looking at it that way can have a similar effect, but does require more paper and ink!

The second thing that reading aloud can do for you is give you a sense of the rhythmic feel of your prose. As you go through, awkward spots will give you pause, or even cause your tongue to stumble. When this happens, it's a good idea to change what you've written - because if it makes you pause or stumble, chances are your readers will have the same problem.

Those two aspects of reading aloud are helpful from the very beginning of the writing process. Once you've gotten a bit further in, you may be interested in designing character voices - and reading aloud can help you here, too.

If you've never had the experience of "reading in voices," I encourage you to try it - either with your own work or with the stories of others. You don't need to alter your voice in any extreme way; nobody needs to morph into Frank Oz to experience how this can help. Put yourself into the character's mindset as you do when writing his/her point of view, and see how your voice comes out. A strong character voice will give a distinct feel to the sound of your reading.

This can help you in two ways. First, if your writing is falling out of the voice into a more generic mode, you'll hear it. The sensation of that voice will change and you'll start sounding more like a generic narrator. Second, you should notice that your voice needs to change when you change points of view. If this doesn't happen, it's a red flag that maybe the voices aren't distinct enough. I actually surprised myself when I practiced reading The Eminence's Match aloud, and I stumbled when I first changed scenes. Suddenly I wasn't in Nekantor's voice any more, I was in Household Director Samira's - and I had to stop and think through what she should sound like when I read. That prepared me for how I might have to change my reading voice again when I hit another character point of view. Fortunately, the voice differences were already present in the manuscript (I just hadn't read it aloud in quite a while!). It was really fun to think about what to do with my reading tone in the various scenes, and the reading at BayCon turned out to be gleeful fun for me.

In any case, it's always a good idea to read your work aloud. You can learn a lot about it (and about reading it to others, a useful skill), and even help to push your work to the next level in revisions.

It's something to think about.