When Public Speaking Goes Wrong
There has been a lot on social media lately about why women should accept invitations to public speaking events. As in all areas of society, it seems we are in the minority when it comes to standing on the soap box. A quick search on Google shows that there are many more male public speakers than female; a search of a leading speaker agency shows 11 pages of men willing to impart their wisdom and only 2 pages of women. The women listed are far more advanced in their careers than the men.
It seems that we need evidence to be confident in our abilities, years of experience, a slew of awards. I suspect that a few years ago there would only have been a couple of women on their lists. Change is slow but lately I’ve been seeing more posts encouraging women to speak up and agencies like Propela and Speaker’s Corner actively promote diversity in public speaking (though it is questionable that diversity should even need to be applied to a female expert).
As a writer I have been reading my work in public for around eight years and encouraging others to do so as the co-director of a spoken word group called Rattle Tales. My first public event was in a coffee house in a snow storm and my leg shook so badly I thought I was going to fall off the stage. No-one noticed. In fact, people congratulated me on my reading and I was asked back again. I have read my fiction and given talks about writing many times since. It’s a bit of a buzz if truth be told; you feel like you can do anything after you’ve stood up and addressed a room full of people.
A few weeks ago I was set to give a talk at a writers’ conference in Brighton, England. I was one of the six all-female team of organisers. The previous weeks had been filled with shared behind the scenes duties, catering, co-ordinating volunteers, venue management, as well as trying to sell tickets and promote the event to press and public. A huge amount of work goes into an event of this scale, not many people realise how much. On the day I was down to speak twice, both in the afternoon, a talk on entering short story competitions and a panel discussion about approaches to publishing.
I knew my short story talk off pat but I also practised beforehand as I always do. I’d had a few personal disappointments that week, a failed job interview; several fiction rejections and stress about my son’s secondary school allocation (an hour’s bus journey or 2 trains away) were all playing on my mind. It was also my first talk since my mother died in November.
As I wasn’t speaking until the afternoon the morning was taken up with setting up tech, catering co-ordination, moving tables and chairs, dealing with attendees and volunteers, everything from putting out biscuits to making tea and coffee. The team didn’t stop. It was stupid because I have a disability, a condition which causes severe arthritis in my hips, resulting in breakages and hip replacements. I walk with a stick outside but that morning rushing around the venue I didn’t use it.
For most of my adult life I have pretended that there is nothing wrong with me, that I can do anything anyone else can, I’m only just starting to realise that this isn’t the case. After lunch I managed to sneak into best-selling author Erin Kelly’s talk on psychological thrillers. She was fantastic, engaging, informative, funny, talking so fluently on the subject that there wasn’t time for questions. I was next. During Erin’s talk I’d started to feel unwell, the room was stuffy, my heart raced and my temperature rose. It all seemed to happen quickly, I was suddenly in front of 50 plus people with a mic and a Powerpoint presentation and I lost it. I shook uncontrollably, I ummed and ahed and coughed, I held the mic too close or too far away. I didn’t say enough about my slides, forgetting most of the extras, including the writing exercises I normally do.
At one point I thought I was going to have to stop but somehow I managed to get to the end and finished five minutes early after a couple of questions. People were bored. I’d have bored myself if it hadn’t felt like I was going to have a heart attack. By the time we’d had a coffee break and I was sitting on the publishing panel I was absolutely fine. I spoke with other members of the team afterwards and expressed the concern that I was awful and had let everyone down. I was surprised when the feedback forms came in that lots of people didn’t say how dreadful my talk was but most people said it was good. They do say that you always think things are worse than they are but then one respondent had me pegged, and called it ‘absolutely worthless’. I think this is a tad harsh, and they did complain about everything except the food, but they had a point.
I’m not telling you this to discourage you, rather the opposite. I gave a bad talk, I know it and anyone who had the misfortune to listen knows it, but nobody died (at least not literally). One talk didn’t go as well as it could have. One of my friends told me that they would never give a presentation after a morning like I’d had; my husband (a prolific public speaker) assured me that he occasionally freezes on stage. Sometimes it just doesn’t work out. Some of the people who were at my talk will remember me as a bad speaker; they probably won’t buy my book or come to hear me read, but so what? In the scheme of things it’s nothing. It certainly won’t stop me speaking again because that really would be a failure on my part, to run for the hills because of one little mishap – most men wouldn’t do that. If you are asked to read your writing to an audience, do a talk about your work or take part in a panel discussion I urge you to do it. The worst that can happen isn’t really that bad.
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Erinna Mettler is a UK-based writer and mentor. Her first novel, Starlings, was published in 2011 and was described by one critic as doing for Brighton what The Wire did for Baltimore. She is a founder and co-director of The Brighton Prize for short fiction and of the spoken word group Rattle Tales. Her stories have been published internationally and short-listed for the Manchester Fiction Prize, The Bristol Prize, The Fish Prize and The Writers & Artists Yearbook Award. Her career highlight so far was having a short story about vintage underwear performed by a Game of Thrones actor in the literary tent at Latitude Festival. Erinna’s new short story collection on the theme of fame, Fifteen Minutes, was published by crowd-funding publisher Unbound in 2017 and has been shortlisted for a Saboteur Award.
Fifteen Minutes by Erinna Mettler
Gripping, witty and perceptive – Laura Wilkinson (Skin Deep)
A tramp wanders through New York on the day John Lennon is shot, a doctor remembers a Muhammad Ali fight from his childhood; a mother’s Harry Potter obsession follows the death of her child.
Intentionally or not, celebrities past, present and future assert their influence over the lives of us all. Addressing this very modern phenomenon, these stories offer an unflinchingly honest and thought provoking picture of the world in which we live.
Fifteen Minutes is a short story collection about fame, present through the extraordinary eyes of unabashedly ordinary characters.
Category: Contemporary Women Writers, How To and Tips
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