Writing as performance: An introvert's guide to being on stage.

Or: how to talk about your book when you spend most of your working life in sweatpants

(With Ann Patchett in Nashville, in front of a painting inspired by The Dutch House)

Hello! Firstly, apologies for last week’s missing newsletter. I got back from the US tour a week ago - no time to write while travelling every day - and the last seven days have been a predictable mixture of jet lag, administrative backlog, and trying to spend as much time as possible with neglected offspring and animals after my many absences. Plus I was just so… tired. Not just jet-lag tired; the kind of tired that comes with having been ‘on’ for extended periods of time when you are pretty much a hermit in your everyday life. Like happy-to-not-speak-to-a-living-soul for-48-hours tired.

It’s a weird thing, the way the modern writing life includes the requirement to perform publicly, at least if one wants to sell books. Most writers that I know (with a few honourable exceptions) are definitely some way along the introversion scale. We are exceedingly comfortable with our own company. We live mostly in our heads. We wear slippers. When a publisher makes an offer for your book they might ask - alongside the more literary concerns - if you have a social media presence, or whether you have any kind of profile. What you probably don’t expect, some time later, is to find yourself on a stage, sporting a microphone clipped to your shirt, talking to hundreds of people about yourself and your books, and trying to achieve the same sort of relaxed fluency that you have spent years cultivating in your writing. And looking completely confident while doing it.

The first time I was asked to do this, some time back in the Noughties, I had to pitch my then-book to the in-house publishing sales team. Nice people. People who really wanted my book to do well. However, the idea of public speaking even to 20 smiling well-disposed human beings filled me with such fear that I had to type out my ‘speech’ and hide my face behind the trembling pieces of A4 as I spoke.

Some time after this, someone at the publishers suggested gently that I might find press training valuable. I vaguely remember a gentleman in a sharp suit spending a morning teaching me to consider how I might finish a sentence before I started it. He advocated mentally rehearsing: “I pause and I breathe” before I began my next sentence. Unfortunately, the next time I appeared on the radio, it just meant that my brain helpfully yelled I PAUSE AND I BREATHE in my head at every point when I should have been formulating the next sentence, so that all my energy was used just stopping myself blurting those words out loud like a loon.

My then-publishers sent me on a library tour. This actually was a stroke of genius. I made numerous trips to libraries around the UK during the next couple of years, small and large, sometimes speaking to audiences of 20 or 30, sometimes just two - and one of those might just be nodding off in a warm environment after a liquid lunch. What this did was allow me to hone some public speaking skills in a safe environment, polishing anecdotes and working out what people found interesting; all in front of groups of people who probably didn’t expect too much of me. Or were possibly just waiting for the rain to stop.

After Me Before You came out in 2012, the audiences became exponentially bigger, but that wasn’t as daunting as it would have been without the library tour. For a good few years, especially when touring the US, I would be expected just to stand up on a stage and talk for 45 minutes. Yup, just me. I found through trial and error that this actually worked better when I had no notes; when my brain knew I had them, even tucked away on notecards “just in case”, it refused to work in the same way and my speech would become halting or tail off periodically altogether. Perhaps this knowledge comes naturally to trained performers, but I needed that jolt of adrenaline to be able to string my anecdotes together, to read a room, to try and keep a thread.

These days time spent on stage is a lot easier; most writers at events are interviewed, often by other writers or professional moderators. In the US, among others, I was interviewed by Jodi Picoult and Ann Patchett; two writers so good and so popular that the pressure was off me, as I knew a good proportion of readers would be just as interested in what they had to say as anything I came up with. But also because they too have spent years learning how to inform and entertain an audience; how to read when things aren’t working, how to make a large auditorium feel like an intimate space. It was… whisper it… a lot of fun. Something my 2001 self would barely have believed. Incidentally, in closing, Ann told the audience at Nashville that while I would love to sign their books, they mustn’t keep me too long as book tours were tiring. I have never had a queue move more politely and efficiently. When Ann Patchett talks, you listen.

Recently I did an event where I found the audience puzzling; they didn’t laugh as much at the jokes; didn’t always seem to understand my reference points. Things that had entertained people consistently across three different countries just weren’t working as well. I am used to feeling out an audience now and this one was definitely harder to win over. I think we got there in the end, but it was effortful. I discovered afterwards that the event was organised by a literary society, and was un-ticketed. In other words, it was full of people who probably didn’t know who I was, or at least had less investment in the evening. It made me wonder if when readers have spent money to come and see you, they are already predisposed to enjoy themselves. They already want to like you. Especially if they’ve had a drink first (my favourite kind of audience).

So in my 25 years of experience, these are things that audiences don’t particularly care about: what authors wear or what our hair looks like (although I probably fret about this more than anything else); the reading of book excerpts (this can actually dull the general mood, or slow it down); a particularly lengthy performance (most people like to get home promptly).

These are things that in my experience they love: honesty, intimacy - the sense that we are all friends together; stories about embarrassment or failure, stories about famouses, hearing about the writing process itself (there are nearly always writers or wannabe writers in the audience); questions (and yes, there will be a “where do you get your ideas from”, although there is always something new and surprising too).

And these are the things that in my experience writers love: a well-stocked green room (it doesn’t have to be posh, but it should be warm enough to get changed in and hopefully contain some kind of food. A cheese plate is a particular win); working microphones (nothing kills the buzz faster than a faulty sound system); being interviewed by people who have read the book (you will be surprised how many haven’t, and we can always tell); and comfy seats (tall stools improve visibility for us shorties but can be a bit anxiety-inducing if you happen to be wearing a skirt). Bums on seats. Always bums on seats. Even if the sight of a filled auditorium still gives you a little wobble.

We also really really love a signing queue. And as far as I’m concerned, never apologise for bringing more than one book, especially if it’s well-thumbed, yes I’m happy to dedicate it to Aunt Nelly (although “I love you” messages are a bit weird to write), yes a selfie is okay, as long as you’re not obviously unwell, and yes I do love to chat for a few minutes but I can’t answer detailed questions about your work in progress if there are people behind you. Basically we love to meet readers. Maybe there are some writers who don’t but I haven’t met them. I’ve said in previous newsletters how with this book in particular the readers I’ve met have changed the experience of touring for me, and for the better.

So now it’s done; no more audiences (except for a couple of literary festivals later in the year) and back to my solitary desk. I will miss the people; the reminder that actual readers are on the other side of the equation. But it will be lovely to be back in my imaginary world, and not talking, especially about myself. I’m pretty tired of the sound of my own voice. I’m especially tired of doing my hair (first person to comment “oh you did your hair?” is banned). And my dogs always like my jokes.