With the start of the promotion season here, I thought it might be useful to some folks for me to pass along a few useful tips for doing a successful dramatic reading of your work.

     Some of this information comes from my years as a professional (got paid) standup comic, but I have also done a hundred voice-overs for TV commercials, professionally wrote radio ads, acted in radio plays, as a hobby I have a comedy group that performs at conventions, and I have done countless readings from my novels over the past 22 years.

     If you want to see a truly masterful reading, catch Harlan Ellison or Marvin Kaye. These writers give superb dramatic readings. Forceful, clear, and highly entertaining. Learn from the pros.

     Okay, let's start with some basic stagecraft:

     (A) Speak clearly. Keep your hands away from your mouth, no cigarettes, no chewing gum.

     (B) No funny accents! (even professional speakers don't use these because they rarely work correctly)

     (C) Practice. Do the reading into a tape recorder, then play it back. Its amazing how many mistakes you will hear, slurred words that you could have sworn were said clearly, a sentence rushed here, another done too slow, etc. So jot down notes, then write cues in the margin of the material to be read, then read it again to see how you're doing.

     (D) Rule of thumb. If this is a handheld microphone, keep the microphone an average distance from your mouth the length of a thumb resting on your chin. If it is a clip-on mike, then don't worry about it. If a gooseneck microphone at a podium, the rule of thumb applies again. No mike? Good luck.

     (E) Wear glasses if you need them.

     (F) Assure privacy. If at all possible, bring a doorstop to hold the door to the room where you are doing the reading mostly closed, but not completely, so that you will not be interrupted by outside noises. This also eliminates disturbances by people loudly opening the door to see what is going on inside. A $1 doorstop can make, or break, a reading. No doorstop? A simple note on the door can often achieve the same result.

     (G) Print the material is a big clear font. Many times the lighting at the podium is weak, so reprint the material in a 14 font, or even bigger, so that you don't have to squint and angle the paper about to read it while on stage.

     (H) Keep a glass of water handy. Even if you have practiced a lot, you may be nervous now. (especially those first few times before a live audience) So have water close at hand.

     I always suck on a honey-flavored cough drop before a reading to coat and soothe my throat. This way, I can put as much power into the work as I want, and will not blowout my vocal cords and end up whispering for the next few days.

     (I) Know the damn material! Don't just grab a book from the Dealers Room and choose a random chapter. Study the material, read it so many times you almost have it memorized. This enables you to glance up from the work and connect with the audience by showing them your face. Just a glance is often enough. But it gets boring for them to only see the top of your head.

     (J) Don't dress in a distracting manner. This only pulls the attention of the audience away from the work being read. I once caught a reading by a very talented, very new, female writer, who walked out on stage in a micro-mini skirt and six-inch high heels. Watching her up on the elevated stage, every guy in the audience turned off their ears and spent a pleasant half hour looking at her - clearly visible - lace panties. Dress conservatively and give your writing a chance to shine through.

     (K) Don't be afraid to correct the text. What 'reads' well to the eye, does not always 'sound' good to the ear. So go over the material and fix the syntax here and there. Then go ahead and spell a difficult word phone-net-tick-lee so you will not stumble over it when reading aloud. Remember, you are weaving a dream here. This is a dramatic reading, not a high school recitation.

     (L) Be sure to pause. Always take advantage of the one aspect of your writing that you have absolutely no control over when it is being read in print - the dramatic pause. Timing for pauses is based upon breathing: a comic pause to heighten a joke is (on average) three seconds. A dramatic pause, six to eight seconds. Anything longer than that, and it looks like you're stalled.

     (M) Mark your time. If they give you a ten minute slot, or an hour, be certain you will not run over and ruin the next person's reading. In radio and TV scripts, the average time is a minute per page. But this does not always hold true reading a short story. So time yourself and know what each piece will actually run.

     (N) Hecklers. God forbid you have any, but you will be more self-assured if you know how to deal with them. Never engage them in direct conversation, as that only encourages the idiots. Use a siderail to confuse them. Heckler, "You suck!" You, "Ah! (three beat pause) Spaghetti." Then go right back to the reading. Nine times out of time a non sequitur like this rattles their brains and they shut up (especially if they're drunk). This has never happened at a convention to me, but better safe than sorry.

     (O) Choose your material. A piece of hardcore vampire erotica is going to flop badly if read at the Baptist Minister conference. So find something your audience can identify with, and always remember that kids might be in the room. If you're going to do Erotica, or graphically bloody Horror, then have a notice posted.

     (P) Goofs. Everybody makes mistakes, they are an essential part of live theater. If you flub a word, sneeze, drop a paper or whatever, for God's sake don't apologize! Just resume where you stopped and keep going as if nothing had ever happened. Be cool.

     (Q) Encore! Okay, you did great, the next writer has canceled and the audience is chanting for more! It never hurts to have a second piece ready just in case. This makes you appear to be consummate professional. A short five minute back-up piece is perfectly fine, just as long as you have one all ready to go. I always make sure that my back-up piece is funny, but this is a personal choice.

     This pretty much covers the basics. There is a lot more to learn, but that can only be acquired by actually doing readings. To recap: know the material, practice, dress appropriately, prepare the text in advance, have water handy, then hit the stage with confidence and blow'em away!

     As always, best of luck,

     Nick Pollotta