Alert: A World First!

Dueling Story Nights on Monday

New York versus Portland in a Story Night Death Match!

But first a story…

Years back, David Sedaris, Jonathan Lethem, Michael Chabon, Heidi Julavitz, and yours truly were shipped to Barcelona. For a week, we gave talks at the Institute of North American Culture. None of us seemed to understand the junket. Who was paying for it? What was the purpose? Chabon guessed that the CIA paid the bills. The World Trade Center attack was still fresh in everyone’s mind, and Chabon said we’d been trucked to Spain as cultural goodwill ambassadors.

Whatever the case, in regard to presenting our work, Sedaris gave a hard-and-fast rule. While on a book tour, he advised, never read from the work you’re promoting. Instead, read from the next book. To do so gives the audience an insider peek at future work. And it allows you to beta test future stories.

Like a play opening in smaller, distant markets before it opens in New York, this allows the writer to find out what “works” and what needs work. For instance, years after Spain, Sedaris stopped in Portland on a book tour and told the following anecdote.

He’d been allowed to hang out in the autopsy department of a major American city. He didn’t say, but I’d bet it was Phoenix. There, the staff break room featured a large window that allowed employees to observe autopsies in progress while they ate their lunch. On this day, Sedaris described how a small boy had been riding his bicycle and had fallen and apparently stuck his head. A beautiful, blonde little boy. He hadn’t a scratch on him, but now he was naked and dead on the autopsy table. As the staff watched through the window, the attending physicians cut across the boy’s forehead and slowly peeled his face down, stripping the skin away like a mask to reveal the dark-red musculature beneath.

At this point, a lunch-munching staffer pointed at the dead child and said, “You see that dark-red color of the underlying muscle?” His mouth full of half-chewed potato chips, the staffer continued, “That’s the color I want to paint our rec room!”

In another city the anecdote might’ve worked, but not in Portland. Sedaris had so vividly described the dead, naked child that people in the audience had started to weep. When the punchline landed, the only sound was people choking back tears.

I’ve never seen that anecdote published. Granted, I might’ve missed it, but I’d wager that what eventually went into print was muchly fine tuned after that test run in Portland.

Likewise, on some book tour I was reading the short story Romance which included the line, “So we go to Lollapalooza, and we pitch my tent…” And it always got a laugh. I was stumped. What was funny? Until a younger person told me that young people say “pitch a tent” to describe getting an erection.

So, on tour you find out what works, and what needs work, and where the hidden laughs are hiding.

That said, Story Night is your best way to beta test your work. Whether you present work in New York City or in Portland, you’ll get the genuine, honest feedback no workshop can provide.

A couple things to keep in mind:

Always practice reading your work, and time yourself. The New York events have a firm 15-minute limit. Don’t read fast to stay within that window. Fast reading will only confuse and exclude your audience. Instead, edit the story to allow for pauses and laughs.

And don’t over imbibe. Yes, you’re nervous. Nervous is good. People can sense that, and they sympathize. But if you get loaded you don’t do your work any favors.

And if you sense you’ve lost the audience, don’t pause and self-consciously say, “Just a little more… almost done… I’m almost there.” Just read. And take note of where the energy lagged. And revise as need be.

The details about the Monday, Sept. 12th Story Night in New York are Here.

The details about the Monday, Sept. 12th Story Night in Portland are Here.

In closing…

Besides road testing your work, the best aspect of a Story Night is that it helps you meet like-minded writers. Doing so, you can create a workshop, or at least a peer group that helps you continue to produce work.

It can also be a friendly competition. Learn from each other. From your mistakes as well as your victories. If you’re serious about writing you’ll eventually have to tour to promote a book. In Spain or Portland. And you might as well get used to reading your stuff in front of an audience.

Welcome to the job. See you on Monday.