Here's a core question when writing books, essays, etc.:
"Because we are typically writing alone, how can we get enough helpful reader feedback? After all, oral storytellers get real-time feedback, which speeds up the trial and error process enormously!
A possible solution question:
"Might there be new ways to elicit reader feedback that would shine new lights on works in progress?
Testing the Question
To test that solution question, I created a purposely brief written "story." Then I asked one of my listening buddies, Dr. Sharon Livingston, to read it aloud to me:
Some years ago, my wife Pam told me that she wanted a cat.
I reminded her of something she knew well, "But I'm allergic to cats!"
Pam said, "What if I could find a cat you weren't allergic to? Would that be ok?"
I said, "Sure! That would be great!"
A week later, Pam reported on the results of her research: she had found a breed of hairless cat that doesn't bother people who are allergic to cats.
I said, "Wow! I didn't know there were such cats. What are they like?"
Pam told me what the cats looked like and how much they tended to cost. Then, as an afterthought, she added, "And there's an odd thing: those cats do bother people allergic to horses."
Oh-oh! Reluctantly, I told Pam what had happened many years ago—on the day I first went to an allergist. He gave me a skin test: a series of about 20 "shots" in which he injected tiny amounts of common allergens just under my skin.
When he'd given me the shots, he got up to leave the room, saying, "I'll come back in about 15 minutes. If any of those injection sites swell a little, we'll know those are the ones you're allergic to."
I looked down at my arm and said, "Swell like this one?" I pointed at a large, circular swelling. It was getting larger as we watched.
The doctor said, "That's impressive! Do you know what we just established that you're highly allergic to? Horses."
"So, Pam," I said, "the only thing I'm more allergic to than cats is horses!"
We both felt defeated.
After a fewmoments, I said, "I know you don't want a dog. But at least there are several choices of hypoallergenic breeds. Wanna take another look at them?"
That's how we ended up with Roxie, our cuddly, 8-pound, hypo-allergenic Miki dog!
After Sharon read the above story aloud to me, I asked her three questions:
1. "As you read that story, Sharon, what did you imagine?"
Sharon's answer: "I imagined that you, Doug, had a psychological reaction to the cat, not a physical one."
2. "What did you feel as you read it?"
Sharon's answer, "I felt sadness that Pam didn't get her wish. And I felt angry at God for having created allergies."
3. "What did you learn from reading my story?"
With a smile, Sharon said, "I learned that my feelings might not always have been connected to reality!"
What Did I Learn from This Experiment?
Sharon would likely never have said any of those things if I had asked her to "critique my writing"—or even to appreciate it and offer suggestions. But when I heard her responses, I learned things that I almost certainly would not have learned from ordinary coaching or critique.
What was different about these questions?
My three questions prompted Sharon to notice and share more of her moment-by-moment reactions to the story. This gave me an inside view of one listener's emotional responses to my written story.
Significantly, I found Sharon's answers to my questions to be unexpected. And it's the unexpected answers that teach us the most!
Indeed, Sharon's responses surprised me at several points:
Sharon suspected the narrator (me), at least for a while, of using "allergies" as an excuse not to have a cat;
Sharon identified strongly with Pam and saw my objections as creating obstructions to what Pam wanted;
In time, Sharon was able to notice that some of her reactions were not called for by the story;
By the end of the story, Sharon's thoughts about the narrator (me) actually shifted.
Ways I Might Change the Story?
Here are some useful changes, then, that I might want to consider, based on Sharon's candid responses:
I may want to begin differently, to avoid being incorrectly perceived as making excuses about why we couldn't get a cat. (On the other hand, was that my intention all along? If so, how might I make that clear?)
I might consider ways to establish the context of this cat-or-no-cat decision.
For example, our previous dog had died about three years before. Did one or both of us feel lonely for a pet? Or reluctant to risk that kind of sorrow?
Also, Pam's three daughters were now married and looking for more permanent places to settle down. Did that make us more (or less) eager to have a pet to love?
In short, were there additional aspects of this decision that readers might need to understand?
I may want to think carefully about the overall tenor of Pam's and my decision-making about getting a cat: To what extent was it adversarial? Cooperative? Were we establishing positions or exploring possibilities?
Through this process, I gained insight into some of Sharon’s inner, moment-by-moment responses to my story. Those, in turn, gave me a chance to reflect more deeply on my options and intentions for this story.
Sound Like Oral Telling?
When we tell oral stories to live listeners, we also get moment-by-moment responses. We watch and listen to our listeners' changing facial expressions, posture, breathing, and more.
During in-person telling, this level of immediacy keeps us in touch with our listeners throughout the story. If they look puzzled, for example, we add the information they seem to need. If they look deeply engaged, we feel encouraged to take them even deeper into the story experience. Throughout, we get immediate feedback on how involved they are and how they feel about what they're hearing.
But when someone reads a manuscript, the immediacy of their reaction is much reduced. Yes, readers might say later what they especially liked and what they took away from the story. But that kind of feedback, by itself, can skip over their more immediate responses. Their feedback tends to become more abstract, more conceptual, and more about their opinions than about their experiences.
Can We Increase the Immediacy of Reader Responses?
To get responses from readers on a more visceral and personal level, I suspect that we'll need to ask different questions than we typically do. The experience with Sharon shows that it's possible, at least some of the time, to get a greater level of immediacy from our reader's responses.