LTUE - Creative Reading

Last Saturday, while at the LTUE Symposium author Tracy Hickman spoke on Creative Reading. His keynote address was so amazing and touching that he received a standing ovation. Below are a few of my notes from his speach. I hope you find it helpful in creating a meaningful experience with those who will read your works.


Creative Reading
Key Note Speaker: Tracy Hickman

- Story is meaning - The author should see the reader as his/her partner in creating meaning and experience within the story. Let the reader see, smell, feel, time things, and imagine characters without necessarily having to write the words on the page.

Principle #1

No Book Lives Until It Is Read

- Literature is an art form where the final performance takes place while the original artist is not present

and

- the meaningful experience in all literature takes place in the white space between words.

- It is the reader that creates the meaningful experience

Principle #2

The Lord Is In The Still Small Voice

- The Spirit speaks to us from between the words

Principle #3

We Are Changed By What We Read

- Change is the only constant and what we experience cannot help but change us in turn.

So remember, that the READER is the author's partner in meaningful creation. As a result, who knows what words are in you that will change someone's life.


I don't feel like I really did justice to Tracy Hickman's thoughts during his key note address. Each prinicple was elaborated on by examples and stories that I did not feel I could mention here as they are his personal stories. If he wants them shared with you I'm sure he will tell you one day in person.

Overall, the point he was trying to make, is that when a reader picks up your book to read your words come alive for that reader. More than words though, the reader will usually see an image in their mind and will create and add details to that image in their mind that were never written on paper. So everyone who picks up your book could easily have a different experience from your story than anyone else has. The story becomes personal to them. They may like it...they may hate it...but they have taken it within them and have made it their own.


I hope this clarifies my notes. Feel free to let me know if you are confused or if you have any questions with any of my notes from this year's "The Life, the Universe and Everything" Symposium. Until then, keep on writing and never give up hope.