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)

From the Personal

I started off in writing fiction assiduously avoiding anything that remotely resembled autobiography. To me using one’s own life felt like the practice of a writer who’d run out of good ideas. But when you’re young and bursting with inspiration (oh, and not lived all that much) you scoff at those would-be novelists who think their life is interesting enough to be documented for the general public.

Nowadays it’s never as simple.

Autofiction really is a thing in literary circles. Not that my past is so interesting that I should plunder those experiences as if they were gems to be marvelled at when represented in some shinier form. Fiction for me has been about, well, making stuff up. Although it is said good fiction always contains a kernel of truth.

My last novel, The Chosen, reads mostly like a memoir. But to believe it you’d have to accept some extraordinary events. That’s not to say it’s all made up, or even – to use that cliche – telling a lie to reveal a deeper truth. The art is in extrapolating from real experience.

I wonder if in this age when facts (empirical evidence notwithstanding) have never been so much in question – never so challenged by beliefs and opinions – that fiction has a useful role. Maybe some readers only trust what seems plausible rather than the ‘Experts’ view. Perhaps this is especially true of my genre of science fiction. And indeed two centuries ago most scientists never imagined their ‘facts’ could be overturned.

As well as providing an escape from the worst of reality, I think fiction has a crucial role to question accepted truths and conventional wisdom. Ideas of a good life, of beauty (superficially at least ), of normality have changed noticeably in the last two decades alone (although I accept that is a personal perspective – the ageing process). And maybe that questioning can be done more powerfully through a protagonist’s thoughts and experience. Even if it’s someone you may not like.

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.

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/

Missing the Obvious

Last Wednesday riding my bike in rural Sussex I nearly collided with a car. I’d started to turn onto a branch road just beyond a bend, raising myself to look about but somehow not seeing the oncoming vehicle. Of course he was speeding, but still there should have been a far enough view. Only my split-second subconscious reaction saved me from – at the very least – a month of pain. Then another seemingly obvious but more embarrassing thing to miss: a long hair growing out of my ear, like the affliction of some neglectful old man, it could have been obvious for weeks (though lighter and finer than my main unusually coarse hair). Just a brief glance in a mirror surely enough… but no, not for all that time! Had anyone else noticed? Were they too polite to point it out? My thoughts ran troubled.

But I have a track record of missing the obvious, not least in my writing. More than just the odd comma in the wrong place, glaring stylistic errors – basic stuff that should have been eliminated in the second draft but somehow went out for submission or even publication (about which I have expounded in previous blog-posts).

So how is it possible to miss what later seems so obvious?

It’s impossible to take in everything in your environment, no human brain could cope; a case of: this is what matters, this is what I expect to see. Not consciously processing what doesn’t. But maybe I take that to an extreme.

Still, the eyes, the perception of another can be a scary prospect, especially when turned on your life’s work. The novel you thought you’d written may be something quite different to them.

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/

Letting It Go

It’s so difficult to finally let it go – that book you’ve spent over three years refining to perfection. Well, not quite perfection, just to a point where you know (or rather think, to be honest) that it can’t be improved. It’s been through a final round of tinkering after having felt inspired by other authors (in their brilliance) to see a new way of writing a particular scene. So yes, I had finally attained that wisely objective judgement; seen the forest for the trees; risen above my limited dogged view of the kind of novel I’d originally set out to write; been on a journey of enlightenment – no less. Anyway, that’s what I prefer to believe.

But I suspect not everyone will read it that way. They might well appreciate the fulfilment I got from immersing myself in the life of a character less ordinary, but by the same token see indulgence where I aimed for authenticity, lack of discipline rather than untrammelled literary expression.

I fear the scrutiny of The Editor more than the general reader – including those notoriously fierce Amazon reviewers that even the most acclaimed writers are not immune from. The whole business of publishing, so easy to think, it’s a jungle out there.

In the meantime I have put out my own free – self-edited – version of The Chosen (provisionally titled), which really is a way of safely testing the water, and trying out yet another renewed blurb-style précis that still doesn’t seem quite right. Also, one literary agent insists that it should be read by someone other than myself before submitting. And since the thought of anyone who knows me reading my fiction would be cringe-inducing (at this point in my life, at least), I’d rather only push it on strangers. Not that I’m in the business of writing thinly-veiled autobiography, it just might look that way. In parts.

Yes, maybe my coyness could be a problem if by some faint chance I become successful.

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

http://adriankyte.com/

Science Fiction Anomaly

As a writer, reading a good book – I mean one where the talent of the author really shines through – can produce simultaneous reactions: envy and inspiration (okay, occasionally despondency). Currently I’m reading The Anomaly by Hervé Le Tellier, a bestselling science fiction thriller, that many would read far quicker than me, but I tend to study and reread instead of simply enjoying the ride.

I’m rarely one to review or promote popular novels, such that they’d ever need my contribution (the screen adaptation rights have already been sold) but here’s an exception.

I try not to view other writers/authors as competition. And here is a chance to study how it’s done so well (if not perfectly). How can he break so many ‘rules’ of contemporary fiction – such as head-hopping within a chapter and many POVs, not all of them likeable, even occasionally slipping into author omniscience – yet still produce something that is cogent and coherent enough to keep the reader utterly absorbed. I guess it’s the old adage about mastering the rules to know how to break them, or perhaps as a French to English translation you subconsciously allow more latitude.

I’m always obsessed by what makes a great work of fiction. The Anomaly seems to achieve it’s (you might say) lofty ambition, gripping as a thriller with the depth of a literary novel, but also a serious take on SF concepts such as simulation theory. To appreciate a book on different levels is a rare thing. Not that many writers set out to write just a good yarn even if that’s what they modestly claim; though maybe as a reader I expect too much, to not just be entertained but find solace in fiction, to relate to that which at first glance seemed barely relevant to my life. Science fiction, of course, has this problem – something I’ve grappled with as a reader and a writer struggling with the [hopefully] final draft of The Chosen. The premise can seem like high concept, but, as exemplified in The Anomaly, you can be surprised at the depth of characterisation and literary sensibility as well as the science.

You can check out my published fiction, linked below.

My published books:

Worlds Beyond Time (US) UK

The Captured (US) The Captured (UK)

http://adriankyte.com

Is it Worth the Pain?

This is probably a truism: A writer needs to be dedicated and focused to achieve success. Well I haven’t managed anywhere near the required level of dedication or focus recently.

I can say I’ve had an excuse, having recently gone through a bereavement. But this post is not specifically about grief. It’s about how emotional pain can affect writing fiction. So excuse me for not opening up in much detail.

So that much posited question: Do you need to suffer for your art? Have the experience to create good writing about it? In my case I thought about the worst possible emotion, guilt (or guilty-regret) as it felt at the time, not because I committed some egregiously wrongful act but rather failing to do all I could in those final days. Not something I’m comfortable discussing further here. Only, I went back to rewrite how my protagonist described guilty regret, simply: “it’s corrosive lingering grip”. Of course, I could use a more detailed description, with the words pervasive and relentless thrown in. But generally the fewer words the better.

I wondered if I maintained some carefree happy state would I be able to write so convincingly about a character’s pain? Probably not, though a more talented writer may well be able to.

So: is it worth the pain for the sake of good writing? It seems at the moment definitely not. I’d rather just try to learn from other writers even if that appears less authentic. But it’s possible in the long term I will reflect differently. Well I can only console myself with that possibility.

My published books:

Worlds Beyond Time (US)

The Captured (US) The Captured (UK)

http://adriankyte.com

That Right-Time Writing Sweet-Spot

Most people have at least one time in their life they wish they could relive – whether to recapture a feeling of joy, contentment, maybe even comfort, or just to have the chance to do it all again but better. Mine was after completing the second draft of my latest WIP. A notional time and a false nostalgia perhaps, when otherwise bad things were still happening. Yet I remember that feeling of having reached a comfortable place in my latest project – a point where I believed I had something that could amount to a novel; in other words not the incoherent mess of the first draft, though still considerable room for improvement. How much work it needed, I had no idea, but the third draft and possibly another was always factored in. So at least a year before any thought of having to submit it and face the prospect of all that … stress, uncertainty, disappointment, disillusionment, or even despair. Well all those in culmination is the bleakest scenario rather than a given. But now with that precarious stage looming (that I have admittedly offset through yet another edit) I long to return to the time where I had reached that writing sweet-spot, and all those possibilities had opened up – to dream, to hope.

Yet paradoxically I not only could but should have delayed clicking that final send (which I often do with these blogs). Every time without fail I regret submitting an MS that soon becomes starkly obvious was below required standard – and am mystified how I could have ever judged it good enough. Maybe one day the lesson will be learnt.

Yes, for any remaining followers, it has been a long time since my last blog-post. Perhaps I should not let life get in the way so much, or make excuses that it’s not the right time – it hardly ever feels the right time to write and post these.

My other works of fiction:

Worlds Beyond Time: Amazon UK US

 The Captured: Amazon.co.uk

The Captured (US)

http://adriankyte.com