Friday, 1 July 2011

Reading out loud



So I'm about to drive off down south in preparation for doing a public reading at Sh! in London tomorrow. I'm looking forward to it - I'm nervous, but I haven't got to the rabbit-in-the-headlights-panic stage ... yet.

When I first started writing stories back in 19mumble90, it was with a new group of friends who wrote stories to read out loud to each other. That group is still going, though now I've switched from horror to erotica I admit I don't contribute so often! (They would faint if I tried. Seriously.)

I don't have a great voice, but I don't mind reading out loud ... much. I just concentrate on trying to do the story justice. Don't gabble. Don't drone.  I've filled my copy of the book with little pencil notes, tweaking the text to make it more intelligible to a listening audience. Removing plot details that don't add anything in an out-of-context excerpt. Adding the odd "he said" and "she said" to unattributed dialogue. I owe it to the story.

Which in this case is my Best Bondage Erotica 2011 tale: The Ingénue. Corruption of the innocent! Men in bonds!

Where and When? Here

And  as for how nervous we're all going to be - Justine Elyot (who's going to be reading there too) says it much better than me in her post The Fear :-)


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3 comments:

  1. Jo1 July 2011 at 16:07

    You will all be fabulous.

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  2. Fulani1 July 2011 at 17:23

    It's probably a bit late to say this but it will all work out fine. In terms of advice (which you won't get until after the event!) - pick on someone at the back of the audience and read to them as though it's one-to-one. If your voice reaches them it will reach everyone.

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  3. Janine Ashbless2 July 2011 at 07:58

    Thank you guys!

    The best thing about doing this is meeting other people - readers and writers - and finding out what a nice bunch they are :-)

    Okay, fingers crossed for tonight!

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