The importance of confidence

Laurie Stone: "If the solo performer leaks anxiety or need to the audience, they’re dead."

Laurie Stone, author and critic who wrote for the Village Voice in its glory days, explaining how she takes inspiration from standup comedians when she writes:

The way I think a piece of writing comes alive to the reader is you trick the reader into making the reader think the story is about the reader. How do you do that? You do that by never letting the reader think you need anything from them.

For me the great model of this for text is stand-up [comedy]. The reason I mentioned stand-up is you’re alone. You’re in your box speaking, and you want people to stay in front of you, to listen to you. If the solo performer leaks anxiety or need to the audience, they’re dead. The audience wants to sit back and not care about the performer’s need to be reassured or to think they’re going to fail. So a lot of that self-deprecating humor doesn’t really work in stand-up. What works in stand-up is for someone to just start talking to you with a lot of confidence and a belief that you will listen.

Not sure if I agree that “self-deprecating humor doesn’t really work in stand-up.” But I think she’s onto something about not letting anxiety show. The more you sweat onstage, the more they start to lose faith in you. But when they think you need nothing from ‘em, they’re more likely to give it up.