Are You Leading Your Readers Well?

One of the areas of specialization I work in is Leadership, in particular the fundamental skills one must have in order to interact effectively with their employees. This too is relevant as an author to the reader. Now don't get me wrong - I'm not saying an author IS a formal leader in the corporate sense - I am referring to the notion that we are leading our readers on a journey! So as a writer I struggle with the constant idea that someone might, hopefully, one day read (and enjoy) my work, and as I create I can't help but keep that in the back of my mind. So what are the essential skills of leadership that relate to writing, for me?

1) Basic social skills. 

I can hear you, "what is this chick smoking?" but seriously, how many people/managers have you worked with over the years who lack this?  As a writer, you greet your reader with your very first words. Hands up who has ever struggled with that first, crucial sentence? 

You introduce your reader to your characters, to the plot, to the feeling of your story. I’ve worked with a leader who does not greet her team. She does not say good morning upon arrival, she does not say good night - even in direct response to an employee's greeting. You speak when spoken to, are acknowledged only at her need. Imagine how this makes her employees feel? Would they want to go on a journey with her? So many people are promoted into leadership roles because they’re good at their current job. Unfortunately, those who can do, cannot always teach or lead. I’ve seen some steady, average performers make exceptional leaders, while outstanding performers have not had a clue. As a writer you need to acknowledge your reader, introduce them to your story, and be presently aware of the experience that you wish to give them. It's only polite.

2) Empathy.

Reflection of fact and feeling. How do you want your reader to feel? What is your objective? I find that it's much easier to write about things I have experienced myself (a challenge considering my passion is fantasy) because I have walked in the shoes of my character and experienced the fact and feeling I am describing. 

A leader needs empathy, or at worst, needs to know how to fake it. Recently I heard of a situation where a person had to inform their manager of the passing of a family member. Phone calls were not returned, text messages ignored, emails not responded to. Finally the poor sod had to contact another person in the organization just so they knew for sure that somebody was aware of their situation. In this case the leader didn't even make the effort to acknowledge the issue and fake sympathy, let alone go so far as to display empathy. Upon the employees return to work the death was not even acknowledged. So life goes on, a week later apparently, in this manager's eyes.

But what is my point? As a writer, we need to walk the emotions we want our reader to experience. If we want our reader to cry, then we too should be moved to tears. Walk the talk people, and if you can’t, fake it til you make it!

3) Listening skills.

A vital skill in leadership, and also in general! Ever tell someone something and know they're hearing you, but not understanding you? Frustrating, yeah? Many encounters with Call Centre staff often result in this phenomenon. Well, as a reader you need to know that the writer is LISTENING to you, and as a writer you need to be aware of your audience. It’s called showing each other mutual respect.

This is a subtle art form to master. I am always wondering about my reader: as they read my writing, what are they THINKING? How am I HEARING their thoughts and am I understanding them?

I'm probably not making sense, so let me try and explain.

I'm going to call on Wilbur Smith's Eqyptian series here, which I love dearly. In his first novel, River God, Smith paints a picture of main character Queen Lostris in such a way that the reader falls in love with her (as was his intention). She is an exotic, creamy skinned, green-eyed brunette who the lead character, Taita, loves unconditionally. We spend the entire novel reading of Lostris' exploits along with that of her family and kingdom. In a follow up novel, Warlock, Lostris is referred to repeatedly, and one of her descendants is described, again in reference to her great beauty, slanted green eyes and “dark, glossy tresses.”

Fast forward to the final novel in the series, The Quest, where we again meet the same character Lostris, reincarnated.

But her appearance is completely different, as is her name. In the earlier novels, Lostris’ “discarded” baby name was Lanata. This was repeatedly emphasized due to the fact that the love of her life chose to name his weapon Lanata also. In The Quest, Smith changes that name to Fenn, so now the character we’ve known and loved as Lanata, is now Fenn. What he then also does is change the characters appearance.

Now, imagine if in the fourth Harry Potter novel JKR suddenly decides that Harry James Potter is now Henry Scott Potter, with blond hair, blue eyes and a heart shaped scar on his chin. I mean, it caused enough of a scandal when she changed Hermione's middle name from Jane to Jean in HP7! Well, this is exactly what Smith chose to do. His changes were THAT drastic and also came accompanied with a huge amount of inconsistencies, errors and changes to the personalities of characters from previous novels. It was like both the author and the editor were asleep at the wheel – the Wilbur Smith forums EXPLODED after the novel was released, and not for the right reasons. So my point is instead of being taken on a journey, I found myself stuck in a pit-stop of confusion, and yes, with feelings of betrayal.

Smith did not listen to his readers, nor did he write with respect for them and the emotions they had invested in his characters.

Then we have the complete opposite happening elsewhere where authors are taking Listening to a WHOLE new level! Lauren Kate, author of the best selling Fallen series talked in a recent interview  (03/08/2011) about how she worked WITH her fan base to draw inspiration for the plot of her next novel, Rapture. She has woven their ideas and experiences into it, in homage to them and as a way of interacting with her readers in a way that she normally wouldn’t get to. This is quite extreme to me, and a concept I'm not entirely comfortable with, but I'm prepared to wait and read, before judging.

4) Finally, the ability to motivate, inspire and get people to act on your instructions because they WANT to, not because you force them to.

As a writer, you need to inspire and motivate your reader to want to drink in every last word. Has anyone had the pleasure of wading through Justin Cronin's The Passage, or Christopher Paolini's Inheritance series?

In both situations I found myself skipping ENTIRE PAGES of prose in an attempt to get to a place where something ACTUALLY HAPPENED. The Passage is a novel that really split reviewers. I saw a lot of 1 star reviews interspersed with 5 star reviews. Cronin had a good story on his hands and for some parts of the novel I couldn’t put it down, but his execution was flawed. He went off on huge tangents, and his editor... well, I don't know what his editor did, but it didn't seem to be a lot. I won't go into it all of the reasons I thought this novel could have been SO much better, but I'd be interested if anyone else reading this agrees with me.

Fast forward to books like The Stand, It (both by Stephen King), Harry Potter, Charlotte Brontë’s celebrated novels (who I've literally only just started reading), and Jane Austin... I know this is a small snapshot but these guys KNEW how to capture, motivate and inspire their reader to READ and RE-READ through meticulous planning, execution, passion and skill.

So where was my inspiration for this ramble? Well, I'm currently sitting on an airplane, flying interstate to deliver a session to a group of Team Leaders where the objective is for them to create their own “Leadership Charter.” This is in addition to all the pre-existing leadership paraphernalia that exits throughout the billion-dollar organisation that I work for. This session will be where these Team Leaders create and agree to a defined list of behavioral statements, as a means for THEIR managers to then hold them accountable to.

Why is this necessary? Because the Leaders of these people do not have the skills to inspire, motivate, drive performance and lead their people to a point where they WANT to act consistently without coercion. It's a way of the leaders having a list of behaviours that they can then now wield as a stick for non-compliance “you helped to build these behaviours, and agreed to adhere to them, and now you’re not I’m going to punish you MWAHAHAHAHAHA!”

I, as the designer of this session, have called this deficiency out loud and clear and said WHY are we not looking at the reasons these peole are choosing not to act, instead of just creating yet another method of driving their accountability?

But nobody is, or wants, to listen.

As a reader, have you encountered authors like this? As an author, is it something you consider? What are your thoughts?

Quality Assurance for Self Publishers!

The opportunities that eReaders have presented to the wannabe author to self publish have, for some, revolutionised their dreams of eventually becoming an author with real books, on real shelves, in real bookstores (while they still exist, anyway).  Taking on the task of writing, publishing and marketing your own novel has become an outlet for authors who can’t get a look-in with agents or publishing houses – or perhaps don’t know how to.

Matthew Riley is one of the standard true self-published success stories. His first novel, a cracking good read called Contest, was originally published in a self-funded run of 1000 copies and Riley put in the hard yards and actually convinced local bookstores to stock his book. It was then picked up off the shelf by Pan McMillan editor Cate Paterson, who read the book and signed Riley up, with Contest going on to become a best seller. Matthew Riley is now one of Australia’s best selling authors, and a personal favourite of mine. 

What Riley did exceptionally well, though, was deliver a good quality product, by himself, up front. It was such good quality an editor of a major publishing house noticed it. It was clearly edited very well and written in Riley’s fast paced style.

Not everyone, however, has this natural talent, attention to detail, funding or a network of support to assist with this.

I’ve written some novels, and although I am meticulous, reading and re-reading obsessively, when I pick it back up some weeks later all I see are the flaws and typos and I can’t understand how I missed them the first time!

And it’s here where a lot of self-published new authors are falling over. They are publishing on Kindle for a minimum sales price, and as an interested reader and supporter of these novelists I then download them. I actually reviewed a great one a few weeks ago (see SEED here). That being said, it’s often rare for me to encounter a novel where it is not riddled with typos and overly descriptive dialogue (where the novelist relies on the characters to explain in absolute detail everything that has happened, will happen and might happen, in the book). Or worse: pages and pages of back-story that result in me skimming past full pages of writing. One of my fellow bloggers and author Roland Yeoman wrote a blog recently about the five deadly sins of writing, but there is a LOT more advice out there for budding writers on the “do’s and don’ts” of self publishing.  The reality is this though – based on my experience as a reader, I would NEVER self publish without relying on my network to read it first, and provide editing advice. I would NEVER self publish without verbal editing - reading my book out loud (to the wall, or to my pug) , and I would never self publish without… wait for it… wait for iiiiiittttttttt…

A spellcheck.

Seriously. Type errors are one thing, easy to do especially if you produce all your writing on a keyboard (I try to hand-write when I can). But incorrect spelling?

Not good enough.

Even if someone IS only paying .99c for your product!

If you’re self publishing, I would assume that you probably want to be picked up by a publishing house (unless you’re wildly successful online) so wouldn’t you want to produce a top-quality product up front? So don’t do it on your own! Work hard to establish a network around you, participate in blog communities, join chat boards of like-minded people, ask your friends. Anything. Just don’t publish a poor quality product if you can help it.

I’m going to try and learn this lesson in advance.

Epiphanies on Writing

Isn't it strange what shape and form epiphanies can take?

I've had a few in my life: moments of revelation where you see situations and opportunities so very clearly. One was when I was going through a horrible time in my personal life. In my darkest hour I was walking down my street, crying, and a pink rose fell out of a neighbour's bush and landed right in front of me on the sidewalk. It looked like it had been perfectly sheered through the stem with a pair of scissors, although I knew that was not possible as there was nobody around. I picked it up and carried it with me that day, choosing to see it as a sign that everything would be okay. And it was. Just a few hours later everything resolved itself, but I kept that rose alive as long as I could as a reminder of the power of positive thinking, and what it meant to me on that day when I’d completely lost the ability to be objective about my situation.

My most recent epiphany was about writing. You see, I've always wanted to be a writer, as a little girl I used to go through mountains of notebooks writing what was for the most part gibberish. I still have books that I "self published" as an eight year old, rambling stories about unicorns, complete with illustrations and held together with yellowing sticky-tape.  As a teenager I excelled in English and Literature, and was even known on the odd occasion to complete assignments for friends and siblings purely for the pleasure of it (although one time I did get busted writing a Shakespeare essay for my sister - we had the same English teacher who unfortunately recognised my writing when compared to what my near illiterate sister had produced for previous assignments. Luckily she had a sense of humour). My penchant for reading and writing was something I most certainly inherited from my father, whose obsession with writing poetry and lyrics drives my mother insane to this very day.

My choice of reading material as a child also raised eyebrows. My father, the avid horror/thriller reader had an amazing collection of hundreds of books. None captured my imagination more than Stephen King, and at age ten I remember the teacher asking my parents if they were comfortable with my choice of book in class: Stephen King's "IT." Her concern was related to the extreme horror, sex scenes and adult content. The fact that a ten year old was comfortably tackling a book upwards of 1100 pages didn't seem to phase her. Dad admitted that while he wasn't happy about it, all attempts to stop me had simply encouraged me further, so instead of preventing me from reading, he had tried to censor my access to his collection. So he took a selection of his more intense novels and moved them.

Naturally, when I noticed that Thomas Harris' "The Silence of the Lambs" and Bret Easton Ellis' "American Psycho" had been relegated to the top shelf along with a few others, it was like waving a red flag to a bull. I took several precarious trips up that bookshelf to retrieve them, with great success. My first choice was The Silence of the Lambs, and I had that confiscated several times before dad gave up. My attempts to read American Psycho (the only book in Dad's collection with a RATED "R" sign on the cover) ended in serious trouble. Dad caught me reading it once as I curled up under his desk. He tore it out of my hands and said if he EVER saw me with it again I'd cop a hiding. Since Dad had only ever smacked me once in living memory and it was not a pleasant experience, I took him seriously and it was many, many years later that I attempted it again. Once I read it, I understood why Dad was so concerned.

Around the same time, in recognition of my "blossoming talents," my father also presented me with an old-fashioned ink-ribbon typewriter that he'd picked up at the Sunday market for a steal. On the same trip my mother had also found a full collection of second hand Sweet Valley High novels that they both agreed was more age appropriate for me. I fell in love with both gifts but was especially enthusiastic about the typewriter. Ink-ribbons were hard to come by and while I used them until they wore through, mum and dad were gracious about keeping me in good supply. Reams of paper were churned through as I mastered the ancient typewriter. It was, as my little brother would say, "old school," you really had to PUNCH down on the buttons like you were angry with them, and it took my little wrists some weeks to get used to it. The letter "A" didn't work, so I would leave a space and hand write it in later, and the "Y" button landed half a line below the rest of the letters, giving the text a wonky look. That being said it was still with pride that I handed in my school assignments in typewritten format, in the age just before computers, that was certainly a novelty.

Amazingly, I got so proficient with the old typewriter that I could touch-type at a fantastic speed; so fast in fact that the letters would jam up and I'd need to slow down. The clickety-clack of the keys drove mum to distraction, although years later when I started playing the Piccolo, practicing for hours after school, I think she secretly wished for the return of the clickety-clack! So in case I haven't articulated myself clearly, as a child reading and writing were my obsessions, and I'd spend hours creating fantastical stories which were, in my eyes, absolutely brilliant - not that I'd let anyone read them!

I never knew what happened to that typewriter, it was replaced by an electronic model a few years later (again, found at the good old Sunday Market) and I literally used it to death. I am not overly sentimental, but it would've been nice to keep that old manual typewriter, it was in great condition and would probably be a collectors’ item by now. More than that though, it would be a reminder of one of the happiest times of my childhood, in that stage between innocence and the realization that things around you are not as trouble free as they once seemed. If I asked my mother what happened to the typewriter, she'd probably know, but I suspect it went to the tip, and if that is the answer I don't want to hear it.

But back to epiphanies! The older I got the less writing I did, it was a gradual decline that started around the age of thirteen, and once I hit my senior high school years and had a job, a boyfriend, band practice etc it completely dropped off the radar. That was until a period about five years ago when I became extremely unwell. The extra time in bed afforded me the leisure of concentrating on it, but once I recovered it faded again as a priority.

A few weeks ago my grandmother sadly passed away, and my family packed up and headed to my mother's hometown four hours away for the funeral and essential pre-arrangements. I was reading in my hotel room (shocking I know) when my mum rang and told me that they'd written the eulogy but couldn't get it right, and could I please come over and see what I could do with it?

They presented me with what they'd done, and while I had to be highly respectful of the original content, I made enough changes to ensure it flowed beautifully, and by the time I'd finished all present gave it their seal of approval.

The next day the eulogy was read out at the funeral, and while it was incredibly sad, what I was not prepared for was the thrill I received hearing the funeral director read my words to the audience. I hung on every word, cringed when sentences were not delivered with the intended rhythm, noticed when certain key words were not emphasized, and relished the sentences that were delivered with the appropriate pace. When people laughed I felt a sense of satisfaction, and although short and respectful, I hoped that all involved were pleased with my work. It was after she'd finished, when I was headed home that evening, that I had my epiphany: I'd do anything for that thrill again, of hearing my writing being read to a captive audience, and its played on mind ever since... hence the creation of this blog.

So is that a tale I should tell? That a re-written eulogy was my inspiration for finally making a commitment to my writing? It's amazing the form in which messages can come, but maybe it was my grandmother's way of putting me back on what had always been my intended track? I’m not sure, however I intend to use this opportunity and capitalize on it, in any way that I can.

Have you had any epiphanies lately (beside the one where you realised I am extremely long winded?),

Signing Off,

Tripping Tipsy