Audience Engagement

By Victoria Robson

I may never meet them, but books where I feel I know the author are the ones I love best. There’s something in the tone and style of their writing that resonates with me, and at some level soothes me, I feel held by the story, irrespective of plot and the novel’s cast of characters.

When I sit down to write, one of the (many) things that hovers in the space between my imagination and the words on the page is the question: are my readers with me? Have I managed to communicate the essence of my thoughts, and have I successfully suggested enough of the things I’m holding back? Is my imagination connecting with theirs? Does anyone reading this care? 

In short, do my readers and I have a relationship? And how do I cement that connection with people I don’t even know?

Big questions. 

So, RWC asked an expert. For Bibi Lynch, journalist, broadcaster and Circle member, being able to connect directly with a range of discerning audiences across digital and analogue platforms is essential to her success. Drawing on her 30 years’ experience of writing and broadcast – most recently talking about sex, dating, childlessness, and midlife – she told our last Real Writers Circle how she does it.

Foremost, to engage your audience’s attention, Bibi said, you’ve got to be the real deal. You can’t hide or obfuscate. You can’t be vague, you need to be specific: don’t say you feel sad; go all the way, be truthful and say you feel utterly betrayed and want to kill someone – if you do.

Second, don’t write something you don’t mean. Honesty resonates. Have the courage to speak about things that aren’t talked about. Go there. People will respond.

And third, humour helps. It makes your point more palatable to your readers/listeners by making them feel safer.

I think all the above apply to not just non-fiction writing and memoir, but to our fictional work as well. As I mourn the end of Happy Valley, I’ve switched to watching Last Tango in Halifax to get my Sally Wainwright TV fix. As I watch, I wonder, how does she do it? How does she hook us and pull us along for the ride?

Applying Bibi’s rules, I think the answer lies at least partially in the way she draws her characters. They feel complete, honest (see Catherine and her relationship with Clare). Their traits are specific (Tommy Lee Royce’s menace) and their motives sharply outlined (Ryan – we wondered, and then we understood).

She doesn’t hold back on either plot, conflict, or emotional intensity. It’s all going on in Yorkshire. (A fatal, pyrotechnic showdown in the kitchen anyone?) She goes to places we don’t usually see in TV dramas – in her case Halifax, Hebden and Harrogate – and follows unexplored narrative plot lines (in LTIH, a romance between two people in their 70s – written a decade ago). 

And, while she charts new TV ground, she’s really funny (LTIH every second moment).

Sally sets a high bar. But I think Bibi’s principles can be applied by all of us to our work as we seek to form a bond with our readers. Making that connection is so satisfying as a writer, and as a reader too.