The Novel Coach- What coaching and writing novels have in common (part one) by Andrew Parrock
Introduction
This blog looks at some similarities I have seen between coaching and novel writing, as my experience in these two activities has grown over the last six years. It’s such a strange idea that I feel I must describe how it came to be, so that you can make sense of it.
Where did this idea come from?
I can vividly remember my first ever coaching session, given to me free as a taster by Rachel Bamber of ‘Brighter Thinking’ [1]. I had been asked to bring a subject about which I wanted to get some clarity. It was a drizzly November in 2015 and I was meeting her in the Café Nero on the corner of Waterloo Bridge and The Strand.
After discussing the weather (this is England, after all!), Rachel asked me what I wanted to talk about. I had done my homework and said that as I was approaching retirement age, I wanted an idea about what I could do with myself once I stopped working. There followed an intense 40 minutes where I did a lot of talking and thinking, pushed relentlessly but gently by Rachel’s skilful open questions. No hiding behind “yes” or “no”, I had to answer. What emerged were two things:
I wanted to pursue my nascent career as a writer of historical fiction
I was interested in becoming a coach.
There was more; could I combine these, perhaps in a website/blogsite? Excited with this new idea I took the train home, fizzing with ideas. One thing I knew for certain; coaching was a powerful tool for unlocking the buried ideas that people had, and for unlocking their potential.
Six years later, what has happened? I took a side-step and worked close to the centre of my organisation for 20 months, gained a formal coaching qualification, become an accredited senior practitioner coach with the EMCC, set up an internal coaching programme in the part of the organisation I work in, self-published my first novel [2] and am now seeking an agent for my second novel, which will eventually feature on my new website. Oh yes, and I partially retired, staying to ensure that the aforementioned coaching programme becomes firmly established.
As my experience as an author and as a coach has grown, I have seen some surprising similarities between these two very different activities. Several conversations with Yvonne have helped reveal these and persuade me that other coaches may find this useful. This blog examines these and draws a tentative conclusion as to why that might be.
The similarities
I think that there are five things that the practice of coaching and the practice of novel writing have in common. These are;
Contracting and Research
Show don’t tell.
Getting the reader/client to do the work.
Having patience with the unfolding story
Flow state; being ‘in the zone’.
I will look at each of these, describe what they feel like for both my coaching practice and my novel writing over a two-part series. In Part one, I want to focus on the framework and mindset as a coach-author (the ‘being’) and in the second part I will focus on the internal and external processes for coaching-writing (the ‘doing’).
Being a coach-author
The realities of holding a few professional identities, a coach and an author, as well as my other professional identities, there are overlaps in the way I am in these roles in that I use a similar framework and mindset to achieve the responsibilities associated with them. Whilst the intent of applying them to achieve different goals will vary, the similarities in the observable processes are hard to overlook, and how subtly they influence, overlap and shape my experiences and practices in each of these areas, and this is what I want to share in more details in part 1.
Contracting and Research
For me, as a coach,
…contracting with a client is a vital step in the creating the coach/client relationship. While coaching is essentially an extended conversation between coach and client, it is a conversation with a purpose.
That purpose is what the client wants to achieve, and which the coach is there to help them achieve.
The contract sets the boundaries within which that conversation can occur.
For example, we might be talking about the client’s performance at work, say, about how they engage with their senior colleagues in order to get something vital done that the senior people may not appreciate is important. The conversation may well stray into their past lives, the things that make them believe certain things about themselves that limit their current performance. This might also stray into the client talking about their background and past experience, building up my understanding of them as a person, in their current work/life context. If I feel that the conversation has lost contact with the contracted goal then I ask my client where the conversation is going; ‘how does this relate to the goal we agreed at the start?’ is a question I have asked. If the client can see a link they can carry on. If not, then the fuzzy grey boundary has been crossed, and we can refocus our conversation.
In my example, my client could see a link so we continued, but that led them to reflect and ask later for our contract to be changed to accommodate the new understanding they had about them self. This was something my client felt strongly enough about and I felt it was still within my competence (I am not a counsellor). It’s a matter of fine judgement, but the contract between me and my client, that we agreed at the start of our coaching relationship, provide a framework, a set of boundaries, that both sides agree should not be crossed. Chapter 24 of ‘The Complete Handbook of Coaching [3], at page 367 says “Contracting can be thought of as the coach and coachee coming together to decide what destination they are aiming for and what methods they want to use to get there.”
My coaching is done as an ‘internal coach’. This creates another point; this process of understanding my client and the things they feel are preventing them achieving their goals has another, invisible, client in the background. With coaching about work issues, the client’s employer (more usually their manager) may well have an interest in the outcome, even though they can never be a part of the coaching conversation, nor can they ever know what we have said. Nevertheless, I do have them in mind, because any benefit for my client will, I believe, feed through into benefits for their employer, for example through better staff retention, better staff engagement and productivity.
For me, contracting is about setting boundaries within which coach and client will work towards the goal that my client has set for them self.
For me, as an author,
… the research I do before I start writing is a vital element in the jigsaw that is the creative process. I write historical fiction. Readers of this genre want to be transported back into the past, to get a feel for the events and the experience of the people living in those times. I enjoy the ‘Legion’ series by Simon Scarrow, set in the Roman Empire in the 1st Century CE. My reading also takes me out of the ‘military’ sphere into less martial stories, covering, among other things, London in the V2 blitz of 1944 [4], the court of Oliver Cromwell and his family in 1657 [5] and the experience of women in the Trojan War [6] What readers want is accuracy of the description of events, locations and culture of the societies they are reading about, to let that transportation happen. For the author, that requires a lot of research.
For my second novel set in medieval Japan in 1331, I found myself learning about the position of women in Japanese society, clothing, agriculture, as well as the politics and events of that time. It is easy to prevaricate and ‘do more research’ as a way of not picking up the pen and doing the actual writing. So there is a limit, which is also a question of judgement, to answer the questions;
what am I aiming to achieve with this book, this chapter, this paragraph, this sentence?
what impression do I want to leave in the reader’s mind?
I want the story to flow, for the reader to be gripped and keep turning pages to find out what happens next, to care enough about the fictional characters that they feel glued to the pages. I am seeking to create an impression of the location, the weather, the clothing, just enough to give the reader’s imagination something to work on.
The way that works for me is that, once I have a feel for the events and setting by doing the research, I can then sit down and write. I have an idea of where I want the plot to go, a picture in my mind of how it will start (usually from a cliff-hanger ending of the previous chapter), and I then start to write. Sometimes the characters do things I did not expect, say things I did not expect, as I get into my flow (see later), my pen skittering across the page leaving its spider’s webs of words and sentences behind it. Sometimes I stop because I have to think through the potential options for different directions the plot might take, or different ways to describe a set of events for maximum effect, all the time ensuring that events are moving towards the ending, which has been determined by the real history of the period, which I have planned. In the first draft there will be gaps, inconsistencies and errors. No matter, that’s what later edits will correct. It’s more important to write, and keep on writing. The research has provided me with the material and the framework for the story to develop.
The things common to both contracting and research are that they provide
a goal,
boundaries, and
an audience
for the coaching and writing processes.
The goal gives me as coach and client, and me as author, something to aim for. It is flexible because it can change as a result of the evolving conversation or plot. But nevertheless, it is there at all times.
The boundaries give me a framework within which I can move freely, using my experience and creativity, to choose a path from the many that can make progress towards the goal.
The readers are the people I am effectively contracting with to provide them with something they desire, whether it is entertainment, better understanding of a particular period in history or, for a coach, a more motivated and satisfied employee.
Show don’t tell.
Moving freely within a clear set of boundaries is liberating, unleashing my creativity (I was told once that ‘imagine’ is one of the most powerful words in the English language). At the same time there is a process and structure that enables the outcome to be reached in a satisfying way for the audience. This time, let me start with my identity as an author, as there is more written in this area, before turning to my work as a coach.
Show Don’t Tell’ is an instruction that every budding author will come across eventually if they do any kind of study around the craft of creative writing. A good in-depth examination can be found in Sandra Gerth’s book [7], although there are many more. I will give a brief summary for readers who have not yet studied the craft of creative writing.
You will remember that I mentioned previously that my aim as an author of a novel was to engage the reader so well that they keep turning the pages. Getting lost in a book is one of life’s rare pleasures – I have only ever read one book in one sitting, many years ago when I had the time to spare; but there are still books that keep me up far too late to read just one more chapter! One of the techniques to create that engagement is ‘show don’t tell’.
When readers are being ‘told’ when the author is giving them the conclusions and interpretation that the author wants them to make, this is telling them what to think instead of letting them think for themselves. Of course, the author does have a conclusion and interpretation they want their reader to draw, but they also want to engage them such that they stick around to want to reach those conclusions.
This is where ‘showing’ comes in. By ‘showing’, the author is providing the reader with enough information for them to draw their own conclusions; the reader is a witness to events, not hearing a second-hand report of those events. Showing takes longer than telling, requiring skill and patience from the author, trusting that the longer road will create more engagement with the reader.
For an example, I’ll use the well-known children’s tale of ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’. Jack is the only son of his widowed mother. They are in penury, with only a cow to keep them from starving. Things get so bad they have to sell the cow. Jack takes it to a market but meets a trickster on the way who persuades him to swap the cow for a handful of magic beans. I’ll use the moment in the story when Jack returns home after having bartered the cow for the beans;
‘When Jack told her he had sold their cow for a handful of magic beans his mother reacted angrily and was very upset’.
Compare that to this version:
Jack burst through the cottage door, beaming in triumph. ‘Mum, we’re saved!’ he shouted. ‘Look what I got for the cow!’ Jack said, opening his hand to reveal the five beans he had bartered for their cow. His mother stared at the beans in his open hand. She said nothing. Her eyes narrowed and her face began to darken.
‘Beans? Five beans? Five MISERABLE BEANS!’ Her voice rose with each word until the final ‘beans’ became a shrill squawk, then she collapsed onto their only spindly chair and buried her face in her arms. Her shoulders began to heave and her sobs cut through the thin sleeves of her dress to assault his ears, draining the grin from his face.’
The first is a short description of the events on Jack’s homecoming, just a summary, like a journalist reporting on the event. The second, which takes more words, more time, and more effort to write, puts the reader right into Jack and his mother’s cottage at the vital moment. The reader is not told that Jack’s mother is angry, then upset. It describes what she says and does, leaving the reader to reach their own conclusions (not too difficult for most people to do). But by describing the scene, showing the reader what is happening, they become involved in the story, and most likely they will have an emotional response to it. Did anything run through your mind in the second example compared to the first?
By ‘showing’, the reader can start to trust that the author is there for them as a guide, not telling them what to believe or think. So the reader has their own agency, to reach their own conclusions and so be more engaged in the unfolding story.
Showing in the coaching context
This point about the reader’s agency and their engagement with the unfolding story also applies to the client of a coach. One of the first things I was taught when studying to become a coach was the ‘non-directive principle’, the practice is never telling a client what to do. The coach’s role is to help their client discover their own pathway to their own solution.
So a coach should never give advice, even when they feel that there is a clear path that their client should take; that would be the coach’s solution, not their client’s. This is the coaching equivalent of ‘telling’.
Instead, the coach must take it one step at a time, one question, one silence, one discursive ramble around the houses to let their client hear their own words and see themselves in a different light, and so discover their own personal answer. That is the coach’s equivalent of ‘showing’.
Like ‘showing’ in the creative writing context, the non-directive principle takes longer than just telling the client what to do. The coach needs patience, to trust that the approach will work even when the client rambles or takes an unexpected direction. Doubt can creep into the coach’s mind, the client may doubt that they have the necessary experience, or drive, or whatever, to achieve their goal. ‘Showing’ necessarily involves more emotion than ‘telling’; that’s the coach’s doubt and uncertainty, but in the end makes a much more lasting impression on the client than telling ever does. By working it out for themselves it is their solution, and they are likely to be more motivated to put that solution into effect.
Just as a reader who has puzzled out some aspect of a story is more likely to want to carry on reading. Consider, for example, when you as a reader first encounter a major character in a story. In the past, many authors used to give detailed descriptions of their characters. That is usually not the case today [8], where authors sketch a character briefly and leave the reader’s imagination do the rest, giving them more ‘agency’ in the creation of the story as it unfolds in their imagination. The author is the reader’s servant or guide, not their master.
Stephen Joseph describes it like this [9];
“The coach stays with the client’s agenda. The coach does not introduce new material or prompt the client about how to think about the content of what they [the client] say, or what direction to go in.”
By adopting a non-directive principle, a coach builds trust with their client, because the coach is there for the client.
Must a coach and an author always ‘show’?
The skills and techniques used for both ‘show and tell’ and the non-directive principle are theoretically similar in that they are examples of the coach/author’s intent of enabling their ‘client/reader’ to move freely within an implicit structure guided by clear boundaries towards achieving an agreed goal.
That is not to say that coaches must always be ‘non-directive’. There may be times when a client wants direction and direct challenge from their coach. Parsloe and Leedham [10] have said;
“Being directive is not the same as telling someone what to do. But it does move away from a more rigidly ‘non-directive’ frame of coaching. Most of our clients value the flexibility of coach-mentors; we have heard time and time again from clients who have previously been coached about how frustrating it was if their coaches stayed in a completely non-directive space when it was not the appropriate position.”
This is something I asked my supervisor about. As a coach, could I ever move into ‘telling’ by adopting a mentoring approach. He asked me what the effect would be on my client, and whether I ever asked my client for their permissions to shift into ‘mentoring mode’. I had not, so he asked me what the effect might be if I did. I concluded that they might welcome my experience, as long as I pointed out that it was my experience, which they could take or leave depending on whether they found it useful. So when I’m coaching I do slip into mentor mode, but ask permission first. I have never been refused, and my experiences have been found to be useful for my clients. My decision to share my experience is a conscious decision because I must ask myself how useful that might be to my client before even asking their permission, which helps me maintain the correct distance from my client; its my story which may help them, not my story for the sake of it. So I can choose between ‘showing’(being non-directive) and telling (mentoring), and use them as the situation demands.
Likewise, there are also times when an author can deliberately use telling. Sandra Gerth [6, chapter 6] provides eight situations where ‘telling’ is a better choice than ‘showing’. For example, if there is a scene where it is more important to move the plot forward, without distracting detail, then the succinctness of telling is the right tool to keep the reader fully engaged. Getting the balance right is the aim, just as in coaching, getting the right balance between a strict non-directive approach and offering a directive challenge is crucial to the client successful achievement of their goal.
Both disciplines have a ‘showing’ practice that takes time to develop, relates to the emotions of the reader or client, and thus is more likely to engage their attention and motivate then to stick things out until the goal is reached. This also involved building trust between coach/author and client/reader. They also have a ‘telling’ practice that is fast but less emotive, but which can be the appropriate tool to use under the right circumstances.
Some conclusions and insights
There are some wider conclusions I have drawn that will be described at the end of the second part to this blog.
At the core of both practices is ‘show, don’t tell/non-directive principle’, with the awareness of when to use and when not to. These are at the core because of their importance to the client/reader being strongly engaged with the process of coaching/reading a story.
Around both practices is ‘contracting and research’ because that sets the arena in which the coaching and story-telling can happen.
Both coach and author are aiming for their client and reader to be motivated to either change themselves or to continue reading: the first to serve the client, the second to entertain.
I am struck by how similar coaching and story-writing are. Maybe I should not be surprised, because both are essentially creative processes aimed at enlightening others, either about themselves, or about other people in other worlds.
Andrew Parrock (MSc, CMgr, MCMI) has, since graduating in 1980, been a teacher, a tax specialist and a manager. He spent 10 years as a volunteer mentor with undergraduate students at UCL and, later, Brunel University as part of the National Mentoring Consortium. He discovered coaching late in his career and has now become an accredited coach at Practitioner Level with the European Mentoring and Coaching Council (EMCC).
References and notes
1. Rachel Bamber, Brighter Thinking. http://www.rachelbamber.com/
2. Legion in Exile, by Andrew Parrock, Kindle, 2017. https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B074XGCDSR/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
3. The Complete Handbook of Coaching 3rd edition, eds Cox, Bachkirova & Clutterbuck , Sage, 2018.
4. ‘V for Victory’ by Lissa Evans, 2021 Doubleday
5. ‘The Puritan Princess’ by Miranda Malins, 2020, Orion
6. ‘The Silence of the Girls’ by Pat Barker, 2018, Hamish Hamilton
7. ‘Show, Don’t tell’ by Sandra Gerth, 2016 , www.ylva-publishing.com
8. There is a wonderful play on this in the short story ‘Kathleen’s Tale’ in the anthology called ‘Hag’, Little Brown Book Group 2020; Johnson, Logan, Glass, McBride, Carthew, Snaith, Booth, Little, Gowar and Okojie. The author, adopting the style of a knowing narrator, directly addressing their reader, tells us deliberately that she will not describe Kathleen, as that has no direct bearing on the story.
9. ‘The Complete Handbook of Coaching’ op cit, Chapter 4 The person-centred approach- Stephen Joseph p56
10. ‘Coaching and Mentoring- Practical techniques for developing learning and performance’ by Eric Parsloe and Melville Leedham, edited by Diane Newell, chapter 14; Roles and responsibilities in coaching and mentoring, pp 277-278
