Monday, October 18, 2010

Notebooks: How to Choose What to Read at Your Reading

What happens to the notes that you take at all the ba-jillion writing conferences/talks you attend? If you’re like me, they sit around, unlooked at for years. I’ve decided to spend the week digging up some of those notes and pulling out some nuggets. These are paraphrased (not direct quotations), attributed as closely as I can, considering I’m pulling them from scribbled notes.

David Everett in a talk about how to give a good reading; undated, but maybe 5 years ago. I don’t remember the name of the conference, but it was held at Towson University in Towson, MD:

On selecting what to read when you’re giving a reading:
--the first person works well
--not too much dialogue; not too many characters
--little to no set-up necessary
--action is key
--defined scene/section is preferable