Last Friday I went to the pub. I don't do that as much as I used to; I'm fed up of second-hand smoke and hangovers. Age has overtaken me and trampled me under its rather heavy boots. Last Friday was Neil's birthday, though, so I went along. There was a live band, as there often is in this pub. The band were decent enough. They knew how to play their instruments and they put a reasonable amount of energy into it. If they didn't get all the songs sounding exactly right, well that's not so easy to do in a pub with limited equipment. But despite this, there was an enormous gaping chasm of difference between this band and professional bands I've seen, and while watching the band, I realised what it is.

You see, I was watching the band, but they weren't watching me. Not only weren't they watching me, they weren't watching the audience at all, they were staring off to the side, the guitarist so much that at times he seemed to be trying to outdo owls. That, it seems to me, is the fundamental difference between a professional band and an amateur band. It's not the musicianship, it's not the songs, it's whether or not you look at the audience.

And that, in turn, made me wonder if the same thing is true with writing. You see, a rock band needs to engage the audience. If it doesn't, it's dead. And a writer needs to do the same thing. The writer needs to look the audience full in the face and make them join in. Now, I don't mean you have to follow the audience. That's not what a good rock band does. You have to make the audience follow you. To do that with your writing you have to lift your head up and see who you're writing to. You have to forget about the words for a moment and look at how the story and your writing is affecting the people reading it. Decide what you want them to think and feel, and force them to think and feel exactly that. If your prose is a little less polished, and your grammar is a little shaky, who cares? As long as the reader is being engaged, is nodding their head, is dancing, is singing along. Look them in the eye, and do it together. Otherwise your audience will go home.