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What do you hope to achieve through your Substack newsletter?
Substack gives me the opportunity to share ideas about story and story structure to a wider potential group of readers than a blog or email newsletter on its own might. Given that story is at the heart of everything we do, and the main way in which we make sense of the world around us, there is bound to be something of interest in 'Exploring the Story of Story' - not just to other writers on Substack but also to anyone out there who is interested in story or who is looking for something different to engage with - an individual voice, with an individual and unique take on a topic - especially a topic as universal as story. And of course there are perks for subscribers - subscriber-only posts and special offers. It's worth signing up for it. What's more, between March 2022 and February 2023, I'm running a monthly writing course and competition in the section of my Substack channel entitled 'The Art and Craft of Writing: Straightening out the stories - polishing up the plots'. Whether you're an experienced writer, a developing writer, or an aspiring writer, you're bound to find something of interest here. And everyone's a winner: there are freebies for every entrant - a free eBook for the first 50 entrants and a $10 Amazon gift voucher for the top prizewinner every month.
How did your writing journey begin?
Your question is deceptively simple. Where does any writing journey begin? Do you put a pin in a timeline at the point where you produce your first original work? Or do prior derivative works count as steps on that journey? What about the craft of putting pen to paper to form letters? Or your first ideas, still wondrous, amorphous, unformed ... ?
I remember vividly an early years class where I was given an outline drawing to colour in - something I'd done at home and was good at. I handed my work proudly to the teacher, noting that I hadn't gone over any lines. The teacher seemed a bit annoyed. In a cold voice, she just said, "Well done." And then she said something I wasn't expecting: "Here's another one to do." It was of a similar level. I felt gutted. Instead of praising me or taking me to the next level, she just put me in what I felt very vividly at the time was a prison of mediocrity. I wouldn't have put it in those words then, but that was the feeling. She could have so easily asked me to use patterns in my next attempt, or to use different directions of lines - following the contours of the outlines, or to experiment with dark and light areas. But no.
The experience has stayed in my memory to this day. I've not thought about it for years, nor is there a direct link between what happened then and what I do now, but the dots are there and I could connect them if I wanted to.
One of Leon’s books
Nowadays, I'm able to do what I wasn't empowered to do then - continue to explore, discover, stretch boundaries. It's what I've always wanted to do, from those very early days. When I've achieved something in a medium I enjoy working in, I'll try doing the same thing, slightly differently. And when I compare and contrast the results, I find I grow internally - and my work improves. Across all of my creative work - whether it's doing blackwork embroidery (something I'm an expert in) where I work in and out of the holes framed by fabric threads, bringing something into being out of nothing, or whether it's working with story structure, analysing it in a way which reveals the hidden connections between essays, stories, mathematical proofs, and business pitches (you may not realise it, but they all follow the same story structure, a structure I refer to as the Quest structure in my book, Story and Structure) - I look to explore the link between content and form. The outlines need to be coloured in - the colour needs to meet the outline perfectly. But in that space which joins and separates, I come to life. I dance. I create. My writing journey begins and ends there anew with every piece I write - it's the space from which story emerges and to which it returns - a space between apocalypse and genesis, which is one of the ways I describe it in Story and Structure.
Do you prefer pen and paper writing or the keyboard?
It really depends on the task - it's easier to type an email - and if I'm working with symbols, it's far easier to use pen or pencil (it's usually pencil) and paper.
Your question made me reflect on my experience writing in different media, though - my first long-form attempts as a pre-teen started out as a hand-written manuscript that developed into a typewritten play script. When I did my graduate thesis, I was working on a stand-alone word processor - then came computers, and now we have voice recognition and mobile phones. Each interface affects thought structures, use of language, and approach to writing. I'm grateful for having spent years working in the field of rhetoric and storytelling. These remind me of the power of the spoken word - and the fact that the written word is just a symbol of the spoken word, and the spoken word is just the thin surface which covers the symbolic ocean of thought, in which terms swim as plankton, get consumed by whales, and beautiful clown fish hide in coral reefs formed by one's innermost thoughts, emotions, intuitions, memories, and the unspoken currents of experience which travel through us and animate our mind to produce thoughts.
What is a story structure consultant?
Hey, that's me - I'm a story structure consultant. And there aren't many of us around. Think a mix between 'developmental editor' and 'critique partner' but with knobs on. Where my work as a story structure consultant stands out is through the insights I bring to the storytelling process because of the unique way I look at story and how it works - an approach revealed in detail in Story and Structure. As a result, the people I work with benefit from greater understanding and appreciation of each element of the story they're working on. Their telling becomes more robust, credible and multi-dimensional. I help people find plot holes and fix them - quickly and efficiently. I help them see the shape of the whole story they want to tell (or that wants to be told through them - which is more often the case) more clearly. This helps them 'get' deeper insights into each individual character's story line and explore the important elements in those story lines in more detail, while achieving clarity around what the less important details are for the reader. And following on from that, we look at the best way of telling that story - from a reader's perspective. It's an approach that can be applied equally to fiction and to nonfiction. It's not just for writers, storytellers, and presenters - it will also be relevant to narrative therapists, folklorists, creative writing teachers, anthropologists, literary analysts - anyone who loves story or works with story in any way. It's powerful stuff.
What level of tutoring do you do? Do you find that you are also learning when you teach students?
I work with students from 9 upwards - I've taught students younger than this - but they're generally more advanced intellectually than their peers. One 7-year-old student of mine published an impressive picture book recently. In writing it, she used a looping Quest structure to help her shape the narrative in a way that worked with the characters' story lines. And yes, I'm constantly learning from them, and they from me - perhaps because I favour a traditional tutorial approach, in which open-ended exploration in the service of truth shapes the conversation.
From Leon’s tutoring service
On the other end of the scale, I work with adults, from university students to independent learners, particularly those interested in exploring topics related to the traditional liberal arts or the work of George Spencer-Brown, who was my mentor. A good example of the former is a lecture I gave on the integrated and integrative quality of the Trivium topics; a good example of the latter is the on-line course I put up on YouTube for free taking people through a close reading of Spencer-Brown's Laws of Form, the book which was so important to me in allowing me new insights not only into the way story works, but I use it to teach students how Classical Logic is SOOO much easier if you use Spencer-Brown's approach which I've shown to be consistent, and far easier and more visually intuitive than any other symbolic approach out there, including Venn diagrams, Euler's circles, or Carroll diagrams.
You are also a voice coach! How did you enter that kind of work?
It started when I was a young lad growing up among the souks and bazaars of Alexandria, Egypt, where I was lucky enough to catch a wonderful oral storyteller as a school child, who still worked in an unbroken oral tradition captured in and popularized by the stories of The Arabian Nights. The first time I heard her tell a story, I was hooked, and I remember being fascinated, even as a schoolboy, by the power she was able to wield over her audience – not just by the way she used words, but by the way she used her voice. On another occasion, at a choir rehearsal going through an arrangement of Silent Night, I remember distinctly the quality of a powerful contralto soloist soaring melismatically over the rest of the choir while we just hummed the tune - it was a beautiful experience on any day, but on this particular day, it was magical. I couldn't hum. I couldn't breathe. I didn't need to. I was totally lost in the music. I looked around and wondered how anyone else could do anything but stand awestruck, dumbstruck while that phenomenal singing transcended time, unfolding in and through eternity.
From Leon’s voice coaching service
That was when I decided I wanted to spend a good part of the rest of my life finding out how the human voice could have such power over human beings. I was able to sight-read almost anything you put in front of me and spoke five languages, so I fell naturally into the job of a voice coach and rehearsal pianist with opera companies. I joined the British Voice Association and trained in the Estill Voice Training Method with founder Jo Estill. I found myself doing quite a bit of work with musical theatre performers and actors, and gradually ended up doing more and more work with public speakers and presenters as a voice and public speaking coach, helping them bring speech, voice, story to life - in them. Most of the work I do now as a voice coach is in the corporate sector. I 'walk the talk' - I lecture and present myself. I've also performed as a storyteller and performance poet, and have done poetry residencies. It's hard work, but I enjoy the thrill of the performance.
Can you tell us about your embroidery design work?
There's a story behind that, too. Growing up, I was surrounded by crafts - paper, scissors, buttons, bits of string. My father, who was Polish, particularly enjoyed doing Polish paper cuts. On my mother's side, my mother painted and designed soft toys. She was a founding member of the British Toymakers' Guild. My grandmother designed jewellery, made furnishings, and had all her clothes made to measure. There were always bits of thread and materials lying around for me to play with, so I played with them.
At school - girls and boys alike - were taught to do clay sculpture, embroidery, woodwork - I never really got into woodwork, but I enjoyed the regularity of stitching. I did it as a kid, but then gave up. When I was at music college, I got German Measles. I didn't fancy reading or watching the TV. My wife was clearing out cupboards and found a simple Bargello cushion kit she had been given a few Christmases back. She wanted to give it to a charity shop as she figured she would never get round to doing it but I ended up making it up for her instead. At the time we lived in a small top-floor studio flat with no garden, so she asked me to create a garden on the sofa. Six needlework cushions later, I got tired of working other people's designs and decided to create my own.
Embroidery examples
I got interested in the history of embroidery. When I first tried to recreate it, I didn't really know what I was doing, but I enjoyed the fine work and when people looked at it and said, "Wow! How did you do that?" I realised I'd achieved something that people admired, and that I enjoyed doing, so I delved further into it. I took classes at the Royal School of Needlework and was lucky to find a superb teacher in Jack Robinson, a precision engineer and exceptional embroiderer who wrote excellent books on Blackwork embroidery and whose works appear in museum collections. It was thanks to him I pursued embroidery further. Lucky breaks allowed me to travel to the US and to Europe as a teacher.
I'm particularly proud of having been the first person in 400 years to have correctly described how a particularly complex embroidery stitch called Plaited Braid Stitch was worked. My designs have been included in numerous books and magazines and many are available on Etsy. It started out as a hobby, developed into a business and continues to be one of the many things I enjoy doing - very much. I continue to publish in the field and as I'm particularly interested in teaching and passing on my skills and knowledge, I'm open to approaches if anyone wants to learn from me.
Pretend you wake up one morning and the Internet has been destroyed. What's the first thing that you do?
I'd most likely start the day as I normally do - by brewing a cup of coffee. Once I found out that the Internet had been destroyed, I'd probably continue to enjoy drinking it while scouring my ginormous collection of books to choose one to read.
Thanks to Leon for agreeing to do this interview! Check out his Substack!
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