You may feel that you will always be nervous as a public speaker, but it’s not true unless you have a disorder. I know some speakers who brag about still being nervous even after doing the same speech for ten years. Please. I don’t need that kind of pressure. Part of the problem is that we fail to recognize the difference in excitement and anxiety. Discover the difference and your public speaking will take a turn to greater confidence.
Excitement: This is an opportunity to help people.
Anxiety: I hope I don’t mess up.
Excitement: This is a solid presentation that is easily applied.
Anxiety: Is this a bunch of confusing garble? Will anyone know what I’m talking about?
Excitement: This is a new crowd. They’ll be getting the best material for the first time!
Anxiety: This is a new crowd. If I blow it, I’ll never be invited back.
The more you speak the less nervous and the more excited you will (should) become. It’s possible to reach a level of zero nerves and while sensing a positive confidence. This is what athletes and top speakers call “the zone.” It’s a place where the presentation flows seamlessly without conscious effort.
These are the keys to making the switch from anxiety to excitement…
#1. Speak for experience, not just speaking experience. Speaking does more than give you experience with your words. More importantly it will help you learn to handle various situations. You discover what to do when the audience doesn’t laugh. When a point doesn’t connect. When technology fails. When the room is not set up right. You will begin to realize that you are more concerned about these issues than the audience ever will be. And it relaxes you.
#2. Live your message. Many speakers stay nervous over time because they have good information, but they don’t live it. Deep down we know if we are being honest with the audience or not. If we’re not, if we compile a stack of information and try to go in and act like an expert, we should be nervous. “Live your message” sounds cliché, but don’t be fooled. There is an unmistakable difference between the speaker with real passion and contrived enthusiasm.
#3. Grasp the value of your message to the audience. What are you giving an audience that they can’t easily find elsewhere? That can emerge in the form of information, style, relevance, practicality, experience, and the like. When I speak I work extensively with the planner to make sure I will deliver what that particular audience specifically needs. That instantly increases the value of the talk. It’s adapted, but not canned.
#4. Reflect on each engagement positively. Process each event for what you can learn and apply next time. What to avoid and what to expand. Don’t get so emotionally involved that you think things like, “I was so embarrassed! I’ll never speak again.” Our minds magnify encounters and make them much better or worse than reality. Refuse to get caught in the trap of negative evaluation.
Practicing those four areas will give you confidence. You do not have to keep getting nervous. You will not be nervous for the rest of your speaking life. Ultimately it will come down to belief. Those who believe they will always be nervous will always be nervous. Those who don’t believe, won’t. And that’s not oversimplified.
Paul Evans helps over 24,000 people and companies each week with their Public Speaking He also publishes a multimedia newsletter for Presentation Skill Training.
Certain genres are renowned for being more suspenseful than others: horror, crime fiction and romantic suspense, but each and every book, no matter whether it’s an Historical Romance or a Paranormal Fantasy, HAS to have a level of suspense interwoven between the pages!
All stories need to have this element, otherwise the reader isn’t going to want to turn the page, it’s as simple as that. So if you’re interested in what makes a suspenseful page turner, then please read on…
Creating conflict in your novel is a given, otherwise there would be no story. If all went smoothly it would be as dull-as-dishwater, wouldn’t it? They all lived happily throughout the story and ever after, yawn…
I’ve listed seven ways you can inject suspense into your novel:
1. Introduce your characters to their worst nightmare!
Find out about your characters beforehand. If possible, write up their likes and dislikes etc, and most importantly of all, find out what it is they fear most? What is it that causes their hearts to thump loudly, beads of perspiration to form on their upper lips, and the hairs on the back of their necks to stand on end? Find out what that thing or things are, and then give it to them, both barrels. For example, if your heroine is petrified of flying because her parents died in a plane crash, create a story where she HAS to take a journey on an airplane. If your hero fears water because he almost drowned as a young child, put him in a position where he HAS to get back in the water to rescue someone.
Introduce them to their worst nightmare and watch how they react!
2. Lull them into a false sense of security
When your character is really frightened of something, throw in a red herring. For example, if your heroine thinks she hears a noise outside, allow the plot to let her fears grow and grow. Let it be something quite innocuous, like the dustbin blowing over in the wind. Then, when she has reassured herself, breathing a sigh of relief, petrify her to death by placing a prowler outside her back door!
3. Throw the spotlight on at least two people
This might sound a little obvious, but for goodness sake, don’t make the villain of the piece stand out a mile. Instead, have suspicion fall on at least two, possibly three characters. This will have the effect of your reader not really being sure until the end, when the other shoe falls! But, by all means, leave some clues and some red herrings along the way!
4. Pacing
Pacing is important to create suspense. In general, short, snappy sentences will enable the reader to race ahead so they feel their heart is beating in time with the frightened protagonist. Longer sentences tend to slow things down. You might want to speed things up for a car chase or slow it down for a love making scene. Imagine your novel as if you were watching it on the big screen. How would it be filmed? What would that particular scene look like to the audience?
5. The calm before the storm
Make use of the weather to good effect. Thunderclouds brewing overhead, often give the reader the feeling that something is about to happen [prophetic fallacy]. A bolt of lightening hitting the night sky, power lines down, a stranger at the door, etc. Think of the last time you watched a horror film; didn’t the weather come into somewhere?
6. When all goes well, throw in a dead body!
When you hit a sagging middle of a novel, and you find there’s no where to go, try throwing in a dead body. This doesn’t necessarily mean that a character has to be killed off, although you might want to do just that, it can mean that something unexpected happens, such as the birth of a baby, etc. Something that injects a little more oomph into the plot!
7. Setting
Setting is very important as a tool to create suspense. What about that dark stone staircase covered in cobwebs? Or the elevator that suddenly stops in between floors? Choosing the right sort of setting can make or break a novel. And sometimes, placing the object or person the protagonist fears in an innocuous setting can make the story all the more horrifying.
Be cruel to your characters and watch them run for their lives!
Lynette Rees has written many short stories and articles. Her first romantic suspense novel, IT HAPPENED ONE SUMMER, will published at Wings Press Inc from May 1st, 2006.
Her second romantic suspense, RETURN TO WINTER, is due for publication at the same site in December 2006.
Visit Lynette’s website here:
http://silverlady00.tripod.com/
Many of my clients have backgrounds in teaching, hosting workshops, or public speaking and yet they came to me still lacking the skills necessary to give a compelling interview. This is because they didn’t understand the differences between the two and had no idea what to keep from public speaking, and what to set aside.
On the plus side, anyone with public speaking skills is used to speaking before actual human beings and is usually less nervous about tacking interviews than the average first timer. A speaker will usually have experience in using a microphone, and this too, is a bonus. Speeches, workshops, or classes must be performed within a certain timeframe, and this will come in handy when a producer or host advises you how long the interview will last. So will use of the outline that you hopefully use for your speeches.
If you’re a good speaker, you will also be aware of how pauses, volume, word emphasis, speed, and pitch will make whatever you have to say much more interesting. And hopefully, you learned that a monotone, mumbling and vocal crutches (such as ‘you know’) are no-nos. If not, you may want to do a bit of homework or work with a coach.
So now that you know that public speaking and interviewing are not the same, let’s explore some of the differences.
As a speaker, you are blessed with a targeted audience that is there to see YOU-an audience that may have paid for the privilege. In radio and TV, you have no special audience. You’re attempting to get the attention of anyone listening or viewing-a general audience whose attitude is “I’m busy. Prove to me why I should spend some time with you.” If you don’t work hard to convince them that you are worth spending time with, you’ve lost them. But instead of walking out of the auditorium, they’re turning you off or switching among the many other channels available.
In public speaking, you are usually monologing, but as a media guest, you are being interviewed- having a conversation with someone else. That someone else is usually the host and he or she, not you, is in control of the conversation. How to gain control is a topic for another time, but the idea is that someone else is directing what you will be asked and where the conversation goes, you must be ready for anything. You would never give yourself a curve ball when giving a speech, but someone interviewing you must likely will.
During a media interview, it’s important to keep in mind the distractions that do not exist in an auditorium. When watching TV or listening to the radio, people are working, driving, cleaning, eating, taking care of kids, etc. And most of us have short attention spans-that TV remote or those radio buttons seem awfully tempting as we constantly search for something better. Allow these distractions to challenge you to be more focused, succinct and entertaining them ever before.
Roberta Gale has spent 24 years on the radio in major cities across the country and can currently be heard on KFYI/Phoenix. Her programs have aired nationally on Westwood One Radio Networks and ABC Talk Radio Network. Roberta was named one of the Top 100 Talk Hosts in the country by the “bible” of the talk Radio/TV industry, Talker’s magazine. Roberta Gale Media Coaching provides training to authors, experts, spokespeople and businesses. For more information: http://www.robertagale.com.
Writing articles as I am sure many of you know is a very popular way of increasing the amount of backward links that you have pointing to your site. In theory, the more of these backward links we are able to obtain, the more traffic our site should receive. There are however some very important things to take into consideration when writing and submitting your articles as you do not want to be wasting your time and you do not want your site to get dropped by the major search engines or put in some sort of sandbox.
The first thing to remember is that Rome was not built in a day. What I mean is if you have a new website, about for example hair loss, you may want to reach the top ten in Google for your keywords within say six months. You hear that one way to do this is by building up good number of backward links to this hair site. You think that the more the merrier and start pounding out one article after the other and are very proud of yourself after the first month because you were able to write fifty articles all pointing to your new hair website.
I believe this approach to be totally wrong. The hair loss websites which are in the top ten of Google have probably been around for quite a number of years and will without doubt have a number of quality backward links. If your site sticks around for a long time and you continue to build up its backward links it will go higher and higher in the search engines over time.
The one thing you do not want to do is to raise any red flags with the search engines. A new site which has eight hundred backward links after one month could raise this red flag. The search engines will now probably not trust this site and could easily put it in some sort of sandbox until it decides whether it is kosha or not.
In my opinion it is important to build up the number of backward links to a new website fairly slowly. When writing articles, I would personally only write one article with a link to a new website per week. Of course if you have ten websites, you are able to write ten articles if you only decide to have one link on each article etc.
I also think that it is very worthwhile to only submit the same article to around five or six of the different article directories. I would submit the article in total to around twenty-two article directories but would have around four variations of it etc. The differences in each article are not massive but are big enough to make it more original. There is a big thing being debated at the moment in webmaster circles about the potential damage that can be caused by duplicate content. From what I have read, everybody seems to have a different opinion on this subject. My opinion is that it is better to be safe than sorry, therefore why take the risk? It would be good however if the major search engines could clarify their position on the subject, but lets face it, that is never going to happen.
In conclusion, my advice is to enjoy writing articles, have patience, build up the number of backward links slowly and to submit different variations of the same article to the directories.
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Stephen Hill helps to promote a number of websites including: stuttering treatment guide to anti-aging quit smoking tips |
There is a way to virtually guarantee your publication within a
single year. No, it has nothing to do with self-publication.
This path is not for dilettantes, and will push you to the
limit, but it has worked for dozens of my students, and it will
work for you.
It is based on writing principles first proposed by two giants
in the publishing field, science-fiction writers Ray Bradbury,
and Robert Heinlein, over thirty years ago. And no, you don’t
have to be a science fiction writer. No matter what your
ULTIMATE goal–novel, screenplay, playwright, or poet, you can
adapt this method. It is designed to address literally every
major problem you have or might encounter as a writer.
1) Write a story a week, or a story every other week. 2) Read
10X as much as you write. 3) Put your stories in the mail. Keep
them in the mail until they sell. 4) Never re-write except to
editorial request.
And there you go. Now let’s look back at the steps for a bit of
further explanation.
1) Write a story a week, or a story every other week. These can
be as short as you wish. No, it doesn’t matter if you want to
write novels, or your ideas tend to emerge from your
subconscious in long form. If you’re a newbie runner training
for a marathon, you’d start by running around the block,
wouldn’t you? You wouldn’t start by running twenty-six miles,
that’s for sure! Everything you need to know to write a book is
contained in a short story, and writing 100,000 words of short
stories will improve your writing far more than that same
100,000 words devoted to a novel. Scriptwriting? Before you can
write a script, you need to be certain you understand
storytelling. I mean REALLY understand it, subconsciously. Short
stories give you a chance to hone your skills. Poetry? Well, in
this case, write a poem a week! Non-Fiction? Sure! Write an
article a week! 2) Read 10X what you write. There is nothing
sadder than a young writer who doesn’t read for fear of
“contaminating his style.” This is complete self-delusion. A
writer DESPERATELY needs to read everything she can get her
hands on…and of the very best quality. Personally, I read one
act of Shakespeare aloud each morning, to simultaneously improve
my writing and speaking ability. 3) Put your stories in the
mail. Every week, or every other week, one of your stories
should be submitted to an editor who pays money for publication.
Frankly, it doesn’t matter how much. Money is a very cold
equation, something different from pats on the back, cheers,
contributors copies or even awards. When an editor cuts you a
check, there is a lack of warm fuzzy feelings, and a
down-to-earth “will my readers like this” that is completely
different from the accolades or criticisms of your writing group
or class. THIS is the feedback you need: a check that clears the
bank. Get your stories out! And web publication is just fine in
this regard–as long as there is money. Even a penny a word–or
less!–is just fine. 4) Don’t re-write except to editorial
request. Once your story is finished and initially re-written,
move on. Don’t re-write endlessly, trying to get it “perfect.”
You’ll learn more by writing a new story than re-writing an old
one endlessly.
If you’ll do this, I promise you your first sales within fifty
stories. At the story a week level, that’s one year! Just one
year from today, you could be a paid author. And for any real
writer, that should be an idea exciting enough to keep them up
late, and get them up early, typing away, knowing that that
first acceptance check is less than 365 days way.
Public speaking has aspects related to time of day that you must know about. The first speaker of the day for an early morning (7:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m.) program should not expect hearty laughter. People are not conditioned to laugh a great deal in the early morning. Many won’t even be awake yet. Use more information and less humor. I was asked by a sales speaker to open up an early morning public seminar. He said, ‘I just want you to get them laughing before I start speaking.’ I told him that it was not a good idea, but he insisted. I opened up the seminar with some sure-fire humor to test their responsiveness and got little response. I cut my material and brought the speaker on stage. He couldn’t get them laughing either. I sat in the audience and watched. By 10:15 a.m. they were laughing at just about anything.
It’s important for you to know when NOT to expect hearty laughter. It would be a waste of time to use your best speaking material at a time when laughter normally wouldn’t be expected. If you didn’t know that early morning programs aren’t the best for laughter, you could have your confidence shaken so badly that the rest of your presentation might suffer. Also, keep in mind that I am giving you general principles. You might run into a lively group sometime. Just don’t expect it.
Many consider brunch to be the best speaking time of day to expect a responsive audience. It is late enough that the folks who sleep late are now awake, but not so late in the day that early risers are starting to get tired. Lunch is generally a time for good response for the same reasons as brunch.
In the afternoon people are starting to get tired. Audience members will retain less because they are not listening as closely as they did in the morning. You can use more humorous speaking and less hard information, but don’t expect laughter to be as intense.
The last speaker of a long afternoon or evening program should not expect a great response, again because folks are too worn out. Keep your presentation short and crisp and acknowledge the lateness so that the audience knows you care about them. One time I was the last speaker on a long program in Baltimore, Maryland, for a food service management company. I was being introduced at 8:35 p.m. on a Monday night in the fall. What do you think the mostly male audience was thinking at 8:35 p.m. on a Monday night in the Fall? Of course! MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL! I got up and said:
There are three things I would never want to be: 1. a javelin catcher; 2. the scoop man at a Donkey Basketball game; and 3. the last public speaker on a long program. (I looked at my watch.) It’s now 8:40 p.m. I’m going to limit my remarks to 15 minutes. I guarantee you will be in the hospitality suite in time for the kickoff. I kept my promise.
Do you think I had more of their attention than if I had not made the comment? You bet I did! Even though it had been a long day, they all had a good laugh during my talk. A little care for your audience will go a long way.
Copyright © 1998 - 2005 Advanced Public Speaking Institute
Tom Antion provides entertaining speeches and educational seminars. He is the ultimate entrepreneur, having owned many businesses BEFORE graduating college. Tom is the author of the best selling presentation skills book “Wake ‘em Up Business Presentations” and “Click: The Ultimate Guide to Electronic Marketing.” It is important to Tom that his knowledge be not only absorbed, but enjoyed. This is why he delivers his speeches laced with great humor and hysterical jokes. Tom has addressed more than 87 different industries and is thoroughly committed to his clients’ needs. http://www.antion.com
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I thought it might be a good idea to talk about over-used phrases in romance novels and short stories. This isn’t just for me to have a moan and groan, but for you writers to consider avoiding over-use.
We’ve all done it at some time or another — picked up a book by a well known or even not so well known author and put it down again, wondering if it is worth carrying on reading it through to the end.
Why? We’ve got fed up of over-used phrases. I’ll give you an example. Recently, I got into the writing of a popular romance novelist. Her books excited me, I couldn’t put them down. After reading 3 of them, I purchased yet another, only to be very disappointed. I had the impression that this was a book she had written in haste.
Why? She had used the same phrase over and over. She used it so much in her book that now it’s my most hated phrase. What was it? “She rolled her eyes.”
I know a lot of writers have used this phrase from time to time. I think they can get away with it if it’s used very sparingly. Personally, I don’t like the phrase, as to me, it conjures up visions of two disembodied eyes being rolled across the floor.
The author had used this phrase so much, that I even found it used twice in the same sentence! I got the impression that the book she had written, although the plot was excellent, was written in a hurry.
Another phrase I’ve noticed popping up in romance novels is the ‘over-stuffed armchair’. To be honest, I’m not even sure what an over-stuffed armchair looks like. Is a chair like this so bad that polyester filling oozes from its insides? Do customers have a right to complain if they have purchased an ‘over-stuffed armchair’?
“Dear Sir:
The armchair I purchased from your store last week looks decidedly over-stuffed. If you do not send someone around to remove some of the stuffing, then I shall be forced to contact the ‘Armchair Police’, who will investigate the case.
Yours,
Mrs. Couch Potato.”
Other readers have their say:
* How did she manage that?
Ami Weaver says the phrase she dislikes is: “She schooled her features…” Ami goes on to say: “How do you school your features? This one is perhaps not overly common, but there is one author in the category romance arena that uses it constantly. And it makes me cringe.”
* How ridiculous!
Hilary Evans from Iowa says: “I review erotica on a regular basis, and I have to say my pet peeve is any pair of ‘moist panties’ throughout the novel. It’s the most ridiculous saying, and some authors just use it over and over and over. Ugh!”
* Was she right or was she wrong?
Heather Truett says: “I recently read Queenmaker by India Edghill, and she ended almost every chapter with ‘She thought she knew, but she was wrong.’ Now, I notice that kind of phrase everywhere. Every character always thinks they know…”
* Over-active head movements
Amie Cleghorn says: “I read this book one time where ‘She tossed her head’ all the time. When she wasn’t tossing her head, she was shrugging her shoulders. And, yes, she could speak!”
What over-used phrases do you dislike when reading a novel or short story? If you have any, send them to me at: peaceful_writer@yahoo.com
Well I’ll just get back to my over-stuffed armchair, sit down for a read, toss my head and roll my eyes, thus schooling my features. Hopefully, I won’t have to step over any moist panties en route!
Note: Lynette Rees lives in South Wales with her husband and two teenage children. She has been widely published, both online and in print. Her debut romance novel, “It Happened one Summer”, is due for release with Wings Press Inc., in May of 2006. To purchase Lynette’s e-book for beginners, CRAFTING THE ROMANCE STORY IN A NUTSHELL, click here:
http://www.ebookad.com/eb.php3?ebookid=20996
About the Author
Lynette Rees has had many articles and short stories published. Her debut novel, IT HAPPENED ONE SUMMER will be published by Wings Press Inc., in May 2006. Visit author’s website here:
http://silverlady00.tripod.com/
