A Matter of Presentation?

Failure often feels so bad because of the effort in trying to succeed. And it’s usually your own specialism at which you try hardest.

I got quite good at selling my used stuff, it was partly out of necessity when times were hard. You can excel at something through practice and sometimes desperation. But lately I’m floundering. Trying to sell my vintage speakers I no longer had space for. From the views, quite a bit of interest but no one was prepared to make that final commitment. What was I doing wrong? I used to be good at this. So I kept adding more photos, tried a different description, put out reduced offers (which i realise can seem obviously desperate).

Now I can really see myself failing to make a sale for the first time ever, unless I lower the price way below value. Was it their unusual bi-wire design apparent when viewed closely? Or was I somehow getting the presentation wrong?

I thought I had learned something from the ultimate sales challenge – a book by an unknown (or relatively unknown) author. It’s not that i’d claim to be a success, just that I could see were I had gone wrong … only when it was too late however. And so much I’d learned about presentation. Or thought I had. What a potential reader takes in in those crucial seconds. But again, like those hifi speakers, I was trying to sell something unusual; far from anything generic. The skill was in reassuring a potential reader/buyer that their time and money was worth investing, over the thousands of others competing for their attention.

Perhaps in both cases I had overthought the whole presentation process, and that had appeared as desperation, overly obsessed with detail – stuck amongst the trees instead of seeing the whole forest. The problem is you can never truly second-guess what others are taking in from that first minute, or it’s often a few seconds before deciding whether to move on.

Sometimes it can all come down to whether the right person in the right mood happens to see what you selling.

Just a matter of luck?

My published books:

World’s Beyond Time UK Worlds Beyond Time (US)

The Captured (US) The Captured (UK)

If only….

If only i’d thought of that sooner – could be my epitaph. A typical perfect-vision hindsight that taunts me.

In life you get many chances to make amends for mistakes, and move on without dwelling on it. In writing this is true in an even less consequential way. Up to a point. I would contend writers are more obsessed with their mistakes than non-writers. It could be a confidence thing, maybe tending to be more conscientious, more cautious. More neurotic. Because, perhaps like many an artist or artisan, we see perfection to be an attainable reality. And so getting it wrong and realising too late, when that book has been published or submitted to an agent/publisher, those mistakes linger in your psyche prominently as any life regret. The older you so wishing you could pass down that knowledge to the younger: ‘just leave it one more day, look at it with fresh eyes tomorrow’, despite originally feeling you’d been procrastinating.

Even authors of the most acclaimed novels wish they could rewrite them. But this noble aim for perfection is no more realistic than seeking nirvana. It’s always out of reach – just, it can feel. There will never be that masterpiece, never that feeling of peace. And yet: always striving for better, always feeling you’re falling short, I don’t think is a bad thing.

The next novel usually does seem like the better one – The One – regardless of whether it is or not. Just another step towards that elusive magnum opus.

And while those writing mistakes can live on to be viewed by anyone who cares to. Is it not worse when you do get it right and no one really cares?

My published books:

World’s Beyond Time UK Worlds Beyond Time (US)

The Captured (US) The Captured (UK)

Download The Chosen for free while it’s still available.

Power of Imagination

One morning asleep with the radio on I dreamt she appeared instead on TV – engaged in some discussion of business and financial matters. Well, I hadn’t taken in what was being said, just remembered this young woman in a faux-leather biker jacket, light frizzy hair tied back, and a noticeable gap between her front teeth – one of those attractive imperfections (unlike the ‘uncanny valley’ perfection of an AI generated image). But what was curious is that – as far as I know – i’ve never before seen this person or anyone who looks like her. I was captivated.

All in my mind?

I sometimes feel like my dream-world is more vivid and, yes, better than reality. But I wonder if I try to conjure up people that seem convincingly real, to compensate.

Is this what we fiction writers share in common – a need to compensate for what’s missing in our lives?

Most of us dream of those we have lost, be it human or a pet. But of those that have never existed…?

Writers always strive for authenticity (or at least verisimilitude), the life we’ve had or never likely to have and make you believe it all really happened (or some variation). Sometimes it feels like I really have lived that life – feel a biting nostalgia when seeing a 1960s car that I know I have never even sat inside.

I don’t believe a good imagination is the same thing as the ability to visualise another’s description. I’m not great at that – I can get frustrated at pages of detailed world building common to SF. It’s what you visualize on your own terms, when maybe a suggestion is enough, that maybe sparks some connection – and even fulfils a need. That’s the power of the imagination.

My published books:

World’s Beyond Time UK Worlds Beyond Time (US)

The Captured (US) The Captured (UK)

The Chosen now available for free on D2D for a limited time only

http://adriankyte.com/

Making the Effort

Reading fiction takes effort. Reading science fiction often takes more effort. But it should never feel like a task. Anything that says “rewards the patient reader” I would tend to avoid, even though some truly are rewarding.

I downloaded two volumes of a book by a well known author at discount, which got off to a promising start. Now I’m struggling. After reading the excellent Upgrade by Blake Crouch – an intense page-turner – this latest novel feels comparatively like hard work. Maybe it’s because i’ve become lazy and my attention span is not what it used to be. After all, the voluminous space saga was never a problem for me in my 20s, 30s and slightly beyond. Those Peter Hamilton doorstoppers, I ploughed through them all – gladly. Yet here I am now getting bamboozled by the welter of characters, their roles and histories, the detailed descriptions of bizarre aliens and their environments. It feels like I am failing in not properly envisioning the scenes. And yet, if you ask me what’s wrong with the writing, the plotting, world-building, I can’t quite put my finger on it; there are no bad sentences. The writing is as agile as the action scenes.

I have, however, noticed a change in style generally in constructing a successful novel that’s altered over the last decade, that a debut author should probably adhere to, to sell. The previously best-selling have the latitude of loyalty from the reader that will invest – and likewise from their editor. There is the risk of the writer having a clear vision of their book and wanting to add authenticity by adding reams of detail. And therein lies the alien description conundrum; you, the reader, have never seen that strange world or that multi-limbed creature, so the author can’t just skip over it to get on with the plot. Maybe that is why earth/human based novels have wider appeal.

Still, there is the art of finding the familiar in the alien that a skilled SF writer can achieve. A challenge I’m not sure I’d pull off.

My published books:

World’s Beyond Time UK Worlds Beyond Time (US)

The Captured (US) The Captured (UK)

Download The Chosen for free while it’s still available.

http://adriankyte.com/