My bloody words were coming out of his mouth.
Here was an actor with over 20 years experience and he was reading out the words to a story that I had written.
He stood on the little stage and spoke my words.
I was standing at the back of the room, palms sweaty, squirming at every noun, verb and preposition.
He read on. The audience listened, laughed, nodded.
Then the story was over and they applauded politely.
Wow.
Then I thought about how I would write about it.
Did you find he cared? I find that when someone else reads my stuff, even if they are a good reader, I very rarely sense that they care, the words become empty and hollow. They don't know me and I don't know them, and my words out of their mouth conveys an impression of falseness. You hear it in audiobooks read by someone other than the author. Get it over and done with, it's a job. Maybe it is only when one hears one's own words, because you know they don't have what you had in you when you wrote them. On the other hand, if you write Coronation Street for a living then maybe the actors give it more than you had in you when you wrote it. What was your experience?
ReplyDeleteWell, I definitely got the impression he cared. Particularly given how enthusiastic he was about his Tuesday writing group, which he was obviously prepared to miss for the story's sake.
ReplyDeleteI'm still struggling to imagine what in the story suggested a northern narrator though...
Yes, I also got the impression he cared. Maybe because he did some writing as well so was more respectful towards it and didn't just approach it as a gig. We had a chat beforehand so I tried to explain what I was aiming at but he brought interpretations that I hadn't seen (or that weren't clear in the text, like the Northern accent...) so it was an interesting exercise. I felt he did it justice, you can hear him on the Liars' League site although I gather the first sentence is missing...
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