Getting up close and personal with the reader experience

I attended my second ever book club meeting last night. As an author experience I don't actually think that there's anything more petrifying....nor rewarding. I get extremely nervous as the date approaches and can think of little else in the run up to my entrance. Sitting before a group of people I don't know, each one brandishing their copy of my novel appears to trigger the voice of Michael Caine in my head - don't shoot until you see the whites of their eyes. As I settled down with my well needed glass of wine, taking a deep breath before the onslaught began, the book group leader looked me square in the face and declared that the new buzz in book groups was something called the "reader experience" and that this is what we should try to ascertain when analysing the story.

I trembled inside at the sound of those words. However, once the other participants in the group cottoned on to the concept, I found myself, for the first time in the enviable situation of watching and listening as people I did not know related how the book had affected them, how my story had provoked recollections and memories, how my novel had mirrored real events that had happened in their life.

Suffice to say, I have survived both experiences and found them to be enriching and thought provoking. When you write you don't realise that your work touches people. When you imagine a person, a situation, an ending, you don't think, "I'm going to write that because it could have a profound effect on my readers". You write because you write. But the reader reads for a multitude of reasons and each experience is personal.

With this concept at the forefront of my mind in recent days, I found my eyes drawn to an article in today's Saturday Independent (page 28 12/01/2013 if you've got it handy). Prisoners getting a new chance - thanks to a love of Andy McNab. A project called Quick Reads invites authors to pen short stories to help adults with literacy problems learn to read. Besides the obvious benefits of being able to read, for self-confidence, improving chances of getting a job when leaving prison etc, the article reminds us that reading is not just a skill. Being able to read a book can bring you peace, friendship and inspiration. Maurice, a 46 year old prisoner on remand awaiting trial encapsulates the reader experience in a brief sentence. "It's an escape from things and takes you out of yourself....You get absorbed in a book. I felt isolated in my cell, and mental health issues can kick in. I was encouraged to come to the day centre as a distraction."

Funny how I too, in times of dark despair, have turned to my favourite authors to transport me away, but with my writer head on, I had not made the correlation between my reader experience and the writers journey. Both are solitary. Both are in some ways entirely selfish and inward looking. Yet without either, I would be but a shell, living an existence rather than living an experience.

Thank you book groups for helping me see this truth within myself. If there are any other groups out there who'd be willing to read Sugar Cane and invite me along for the meeting (I bring wine and nibbles), please do not hesitate to get in touch. You can email sugarcane.book@gmail.com or tweet me @sugarcanebook or find me on facebook. I'd love to do this again and again and again. xxxxx

E.E.Fry