The Power of Kind Words

The day before my dad died, when I was sitting beside him in hospital, an email popped up on my phone from a woman who had taken it upon herself to trace me in order to let me know in advance that she was going to give me a shit review on Amazon. Quite simply she didn’t like the story. I never think my books are going to satisfy everyone on the planet, but I did wonder if she ever stopped to think how much her words would sting me, what exactly I would be doing when I got her email. If she experienced a sense of pride imagining me opening it - me, the smug bitch who needed to be taken down a peg or two for having the affrontery to be a novelist - and not as someone who would read her words whilst my heart was breaking as I held the hand of my beloved father on the last full day of his life? In the old days (pre-internet) she would have been cross but then forgot about it because it was all too much effort to track me down and then write a letter to the publishers to be forwarded. But these days, it's much easier to vent, so much easier to spew bile.

Guess what - we authors feel very deeply, we mine into our emotions and that's what makes us write the words that affect our readers, make them laugh, cry, rejoice.

Words, are powerful tools. A simple ‘thank you’ – said or withheld – can change the course of someone’s day, often beyond.  But with power comes great responsibility, as Spiderman’s uncle once said.  Words, as we are seeing more and more, can pull someone back from a brink ...or push someone over it.

Where once upon a time we might have shared a discussion about someone on the TV with a friend, we now use the internet as ‘a mate’. We parade our feelings about people we don’t know – to people we don’t know. Some might say ‘we have freedom of speech so what’s the problem with that?’ Well, just because you can write something, doesn’t mean you should, love. Words are often like handguns; they should be used responsibly, with care and sense not wantonly as if we were power-drunk cowboys. Our safety catches are off; the internet has stripped away our awareness of empathy, how much we can affect other people with what we say. We can shoot directly at targets that bleed these days. Did I say how powerful words were?

We’ve all done it.  It’s too easy, too habit-forming. We’ve all thought ‘Jesus wept’ when we’ve seen someone a bit non-conformist on Only Connect/Love Island/Question Time.  Some people take it to extremes, want to grind someone they can’t stand underfoot, even though they’ve never met them or are likely to. Most of us have taken to Twitter at least once to parade our observations to people we don’t know looking for what - affirmation that we’ve got our thoughts right? Until you’re at the receiving end of a trolling you have no idea how much those comments wound. We have developed a thirst for hate, Twitter has become the gladiatorial arena and anyone in the public eye is a potential bear to be poked with a stick for entertainment. No longer do we just turn to our partner in the lounge and say ‘look at the arse on her’, we have to submit our words to the internet where the person with the big arse might see them, even copying in the generously proportioned person to ensure they see them – possibly even adding a hashtag to make trebly sure. What have we gained by going that extra distance to the keyboard and doing that? Do we go to bed happier for it? Do we think what effect our words might have on that person if they read them and do we savour their distress?

We live in a negative age. We are more likely to rage online about a meal we’ve hated than one we have loved. Maybe it’s time to flip the coin. Maybe it’s time to reconnect with the kindness inside us – a quality that is often mistaken for softness and weakness, not for the strong, life-changer… life-saver - that it can so often be.

Words can be gentle hands or weapons, and we are producing a generation who see cyber-bullying as the norm. Schools should be teaching their pupils how to use words with care and thought. It’s too easy to hate. It’s too easy to think that there is only one opinion on anything and it’s mine and it’s the right one. Once upon a time there was healthy discussion, now a difference of belief is tantamount to a thrown-down gauntlet.  There seems to be a culture of ‘I believe in peace and love and tolerance to all people, unless you think differently to me then I want to kick your head in, you f-ing cow’.  One careless word, one thought voiced in error leads to outcries to ‘cancel’, to extinguish a person’s career, to take away their livelihood and profession in a world where the goalposts are continually moving. Once upon a time a mistake was 'tomorrow's chip paper', now even the smallest of innocent errors hangs around for ever, like mustard gas. And, to paraphrase Jesus who puts it better than I could, are we all really that pure that we can be classed as the 'without sin' crew worthy of casting the first stone'? Nope - are we hell.

Take for instance a word that swam into my radar last week. Not so long ago ‘queer’ was a word that had been thrown into insult jail. Now it has been released and labelled as de rigueur. I can't keep up with what I can and can't say and if we get it wrong, there seems to be an army of enraged people waiting to highlight it to the planet, refusing to let it die as the clumsy mistake it was. With every passing year we get closer to 1984! The world feels like a field full of eight foot pot-holes full of dissolving acid. No wonder anxiety levels are at an all-time high. Maybe it's time to take a moment just before we put fingers to keyboards to type in something derogatory and think what negativity we are releasing. Maybe think of that tweet being directed at us and how we'd feel reading it. 

           

No surprise then that the sales of the books us commercial fiction writers pen are rising. Our books full of kind people, friendship, love and acceptance, fictional communities who pull together and bad guys are thwarted.  Does this not signify a clear desire for millions of readers to escape this hard and unforgiving world? Or maybe to find hope that kindness will somehow leap out of the pages and become real?

There is no word for our genre of fiction – one primarily written for women by women – because no label really fits which doesn’t sound dismissive. Chick-lit has become a derisory term and in no way describes the depth, the intricacy and craft of our writing.  Women’s fiction (note: there is no ‘men’s fiction’)? Somehow it sounds sniffy, as if it is fit only for creatures with smaller brains and intellect; something for the little lady to read inbetween doing the cooking and washing, as if our lives are less important somehow. (Fem-fiction?  Not for me; anything with the prefix 'Fem' makes me think immediately of a sanitary towel.)

'I don't read romance, I read proper books.'  Like Doctor Zhivago. A love story. Hang on... it's by a bloke. Let's reclassify it then as an epic masterpiece. See the problem we women of romance have?

BUT...

Whatever you call it, our books have the power to transform, to cheer and inspire, to act like aloe vera on troubled souls. In our works women sometimes find templates of healthy relationships for the first time, solace, motivation to change their lot. And they do, because they write and tell us about it. Though I don’t think any of us set out to alter the fabric of someone's existence when we wrote our manuscripts but our aim to entertain and tell a story often ends up having a massive influence on someone who desperately needs direction – and finds it within our pages.

Maybe it is time for life to imitate our art. For kindness and forgiveness and acceptance to be allowed to flower instead of being stamped out by big boots of intolerance and literary snobbery given the potential is has to be the salvation for so many. Until it does, we shall continue writing our tales of a nicer and infinitely more considerate world, of hope and 'within reach' happy endings. Our ‘little women’s’ books which seemingly have a power not really to be sniffed at. 

Why I Wrote a Quick Reads Title

The literacy levels in this country are appalling. One in five adults has the reading age of a 5-7 year old.  Sorry, ignore that – it’s gone up to one in six. About eight million people in the UK. That means they can’t read the instructions on a packet of tablets or a simple road sign. Because we don’t just read for leisure – reading is a life essential skill and its effects are far-reaching. 

            Why did I agree to write a Quick Reads book?  Because I was asked. Simple as that. Except timing played a big part because I’d just been into prison to give a talk to the ladies in New Hall about my career, hoping to show them that small life changes can lead to big changes. I met women who were determined never to enter the prison system again after being released. But without skills of reading and writing, they would gravitate back to their small, familiar but dysfunctional circles, from which they might have had a chance to escape had they been more literate. Reading really does transform lives.

            Once upon a time, adults who sought help were given the equivalent of Janet and John books, children’s simple stories which did nothing for their already low self-worth. Quick Reads are a selection of stories written by best-selling authors for adults. We’ve all taken care to deliver tales which read every bit as well as our longer novels because we want to encourage not to patronise. They look like books for adults – because they are books for adults, with adult themes and language. The only difference is that they’re shorter, the sentences aren’t long and complicated and full of clauses and the vocab is simpler. Why use ‘discombobulate’ when ‘confuse’ will do the same job? I defy anyone to read one of our books and spot any real difference - a whole load of people front stage and behind the scenes have taken care to make it so. They’re directed at adults who need help to build up their reading skills, who are off-put by thick tomes of dense passages, but they’re available to anyone and the font is slightly larger too for those with reduced eyesight. Perfect for a ‘quick read’ (see what I did there) or for those people who have suffered a stroke or have an illness which means a shorter more easily absorbed story is preferable. Jojo Moyes calls it a ‘gateway drug’ and she’s right; it is a perfect taster for the rich world of books out there, all waiting to be read.

Personally, I can’t remember a time before I could read and I’ve always taken this wonderful skill for granted as much as I have breathing. The prison visit made me think long and hard how essential it is and I spent a day away from work writing down all the instances when I read something: cooking info on food packets, the dosage instructions on the dog’s medicine, a form to fill in to apply for mum’s attendance allowance (29 pages long), a train timetable, a text to a friend... so many occasions where I needed to be able to write and read. Being able to utilise these skills opens up a door to a much bigger, more satisfying – and safer - life. 

            We absorb so much vocabulary and information without even trying when we read. People equipped with a wider store of words are more confident because they feel able to interact more with others and are better equipped for what life throws at them, they’re more resourceful. Those with better literacy skills get better chances, better jobs. It can be no surprise that there is a correlation between a restricted vocabulary and low self-esteem. 

            Reading is a magnificent sleep aid. It rests and relaxes a brain, powers it down. 

            Reading also sharpens our ability to focus and concentrate, skills we are in danger of losing with this modern technological age which presses us to multi-task. We watch TV whilst texting or checking in to see what other people's take on things are on Twitter.  When we go to watch a band, we record it on our phones rather than just being there in the moment and enjoying it first-hand. Reading demands our whole attention to make sense of what is going on. Being forced to do one thing only but properly lessens our stress levels – no shit Sherlock!

            Reading switches our brain into the mains, gives it power, improves memory function, staves off dementia. It’s a ‘use it or lose it’ muscle that needs stimulation.

            Reading gives solace and escapism for people with anxiety, the poorly who need to forget for a couple of hours that they are hooked up to a drip. It distracts from stress. 

            Reading a good story can do what no film can: allow a tailor made hero and heroine fashioned from our imagination to play out the story in our heads. How many of us watched Fifty Shades of Grey and thought ‘Nope, didn’t imagine Christian like that’? It’s a lovely, gentle pastime. One in three adults do not read for pleasure. What a travesty.  

            Reading educates us as we read factual books about the experiences of others, makes us see what is possible, encouraging us to make changes for the better. Reading gives people insight into what healthy relationships should be. I've had more than one letter from a woman who didn't realise she was actually living in an abusive relationship until she read objectively the experience of one of my characters and the penny dropped. And she got out. Reading gives us a wider understanding of the world in general. It reminds us of the impact of people’s actions upon others; prompts us to be mindful of the pleasure we can give, or the harm we can inflict. It reminds us to be sympathetic and empathetic, things which can be overlooked in today's world.

            Reading is free if you use the library – millions of books out there to improve and lengthen your life for the price of… well… absolutely nothing. Quick Reads books are there in your libraries now – or in bookshops for a very paltry £1.00 each.

            There are wider implications upon society for reading. Being literate unlocks more chances in the job market. More vacancies are filled. The pressure on the welfare system is relieved. Literacy improves confidence, lessens stress – that impacts on the health service which is groaning under the weight of patients with mental health issues.  The economy benefits, crime levels drop. All from people being able to read a little more.

            Our education system is suffering. Excessive accountability and figure/target satisfying, the pressure for data dumps has been taking our teachers away from teaching. Grass roots: children need to read and write adequately because almost EVERYTHING in their future adult lives will depend on it. Government, let our teachers flipping teach – that’s why they joined the profession in the first place. And these days if there isn’t already, there should be a component to the curriculum on how to use language in this techno age. Responsibly. Not purely for trolling on the internet. 

           

            So why oh why was the Quick Reads charity ever in danger? Why did it have to be rescued by one woman, the far-sighted philanthropist and author Jojo Moyes, when publishers could have clubbed together in a joint venture or – preferably – the government could have stepped in to pledge money to keep it open. It would have been cheap at the price for the savings they’d have made elsewhere. This is base level stuff. It doesn’t need a team of financial experts to see the return they’d get for their cash. 

            

            There are only advantages to learning how to read. Reading is a key to a life enriched. A life enhanced and changed, a life happier and more fulfilled, a life with more choice and less stress. And it could – and will for many – start with a book priced at a quid. Tell me a better investment than that? 

More information about the Reading Agency can be found here.