Bring Imagination to Life

A writing coach (whose name escapes me) said a while back that “a good author should be like a good movie director, and describe each scene and character in great detail, so the reader knows exactly what you are imagining”.

Here at RTG HQ, we totally disagree. In our humble opinion, a good author should NOT describe everything in great detail. A ‘movie-watcher’ and a ‘reader’ are different things entirely.

For sure, a few readers do like everything laid out for them, so they don’t have to use their imagination. But here’s the rub…

A true reader likes to read a good book to stimulate their imagination.

In a movie, the director crafts each scene on behalf of the watcher. Many brilliant directors and producers are super-skilled at doing this, and many movies are excellent because of it. But by the nature of the beast, those watching are actually seeing someone else’s imagination.

It can’t be any other way. A movie is a visual interpretation of the writer’s ideas. If the director gets it right, it’s because most people agree with his vision. But for movie-makers, it’s a lot harder when the movie is made from an original book.

How many times have you heard someone say “well, the movie was good, but the book was better”?

There’s a reason for this, and it is why we do it the way we do.

We often hear authors who have been fortunate enough to have their book made into a movie say that they’re “so grateful the book has been made into a movie, but it wasn’t quite what I had in mind when I wrote it.”

Why is it so difficult for movie-makers to get a ‘movie from a book’ right for everyone? Because ‘difficult’ is the wrong word. Impossible is maybe nearer the mark.

For the answer, head back to the opening paragraph. In a nutshell, imagination is in the mind of the beholder. Or in our case, the reader. And, unfortunately for even the most brilliant of movie directors, everyone is different.

We know from the comments and reviews we get that people find different stimulations from reading our work. That’s great… but it tells us something. When a reader lets us know they enjoyed a book because of such-and-such, sometimes that such-and-such never even occurred to us! That’s part of the ongoing learning process that only those who read our work make possible.

However, we learnt one lesson a while back, which in our view is crucially important.

Don’t waste words.

When applied to bringing imagination to life, that means NOT describing every little detail. Some authors spend half a chapter describing a scene, and another quarter of it describing the character in it. They might as well be a movie director.

Most readers like to have their imagination stimulated… not replaced by someone else’s. Getting the level of description right is a fine line, and something that can’t be taught by writing coaches. It’s often the division between good and bad writers.

An RTG book sets a given scene, often describing a setting in some detail, but trusting in our readers to envisage the rest of the details the way they want to. We try our best to bring imagination to life, not bludgeon it to death.

Okay, it doesn’t please everyone. Nevertheless, an increasing band of readers are starting to see that our brand means more than just not following the herd.

We do things the RTG way, in the belief that those who enjoy our work appreciate that we bring their imagination to life.

We would love to hear your comments on this post. Do write and let us know, or submit a guest blog if you agree, or feel like challenging our perceptions!

Richard ‘never the same book twice’ Green.

It’s an ‘Alan’ thing…

How cool is this?

Maybe we started something? One of our wonderful UK readers, Linda, was so taken with Alan she decided to make herself one! Fabulous… even down to the hood on his jacket that won’t fit his big head…

We must confess, seeing one of our characters come to ‘life’ is an awesome thing. When that character isn’t even human, it’s universally better!

Brilliant, Linda… we want an Alan too!

Wondering what on Earth we’re talking about? If you’ve not read Daisy’s latest, ‘The Wiltingham Incident’ yet, you might be. No spoilers here, so you’ll just have to read it! Here’s a brief clue or two…

It’s hard to argue with what’s right there in front of your eyes. Daisy being Daisy, she’s still going to try!

A streak of flame spears across the night sky, and moments later something thuds into the ground in a farmer’s field just outside Great Wiltingham. Daisy and Aidan go to investigate, but before they can reach the incident, a fleet of black vehicles race past, followed by several army trucks.

Turned away before they can see anything useful, it only serves to fire up Daisy’s curiosity. The next night they sneak back to the scene, and discover a temporary building erected in the middle of nowhere, heavily guarded by armed army personnel. Undeterred, they manage to get close to the mysterious structure... and then discover a lot more than they bargained for!

‘The Wiltingham Incident’ is a laugh-a-minute story that even taxes Aidan’s galactic-sized brain, in a... well, galactic kind of way! Oh, but then someone mysteriously disappears.

Now we’re off to buy some knitting needles! Unless Toys-Are-Us decide to start stocking Alans of course…

Have a great week, be happy, and enjoy the reads.

Kind regards,

Richard, Ann, and the crew

Welcome to our new website

Not Just a Website

Our first-ever blog post is to welcome you to the brand new RTG website! Hundreds of hours have gone into creating it, so we really hope you like it.

It’s taken a whole lot of blood, sweat and tears (okay, maybe we exaggerate about the blood and tears bit) because it isn’t just a website. In many ways, it’s a new concept. Why?

Fair enough, it’s first and foremost a website. Even so, like the RTG books themselves, it’s designed to be different.

Bear with us here...

Where our books are concerned, it’s our belief that for a while now there’s been too much of the same-old, tried and tested formulas. While there’s nothing wrong with that (some authors have seen great success writing what their fans are ‘used’ to) it’s not what we do.

Maybe it’s because as the author, I get easily bored. I can’t package up the same old story in different wrapping. More likely, it’s because we really want to bring you fresh, original stories, which aren’t influenced by what everyone else is doing.

We’ve not achieved that by being weird, out-of-the-box, or writing stuff only a few people like. It’s simply that our mission is to provide everyone with a breath of fresh literary air, and to read enjoyable books which are not like most that have gone before.

So, when it came to the new website, it needed to reflect that philosophy.

Plus, it’s a whole lot more...

One of the main aims of the website is this –

An ever-increasing number of books are now offered for sale on an author’s own website. This is nothing new. What is new is that we offer direct-buy facilities as our primary option.

Yes, our books are available through the usual worldwide platforms... Apple, Barnes and Noble, Amazon, Kobo, Borrowbox and more, but we would love you to buy direct.

If you’d like to do so, there’s a big discount available. Ongoing, every time you purchase. (See ‘The Bookshelves’ for more detail on that.)

It’s there to make our books cheaper for you, but it’s just one of several provisos we handed ourselves...

·         To make it just as easy to buy direct as anywhere else, and to offer you options as you do.

·         To provide longer previews of the series and standalone books, which you can either read on the website, or download for free to read at your leisure.

·         To care about every customer, and not see you as some third-party retailers do.

That’s why it’s a new concept.

It’s also why in the coming weeks you might see our books popping up on ecommerce sites where you don’t normally find ebooks. With these sites we control our own destiny, and are not in the hands of others. That’s something very important to us.

Sorry, Amazon

You’ve been an invaluable asset in the past, making it possible for people like us to get published in the first place, without having to persuade traditional publishers we’re one of the 0.5 % of authors who are worth their time. We’ll be forever grateful for that.

Sadly, you’ve now got too big for your own good. The shark in the small pool tends to gobble up all the minnows, as its natural instinct.

Although tended might be a better tense.

Some of those minnows managed to avoid being consumed, and grew up. Our VIP subscribers are well aware we’re no fans of Amazon. At one time they were the only choice for those wishing to be published. In recent years that’s changed, and quite frankly, in 2022 others now do it better.

We apologise to our Amazon readers for that humble opinion... many of you found us through Amazon, and it is still your favourite source of ebook acquisition. We have no problem with that... which is the main reason we’re still on there.

This year however, Amazon has shown themselves up to be a little out of touch with what’s happening. Especially with Kindle Unlimited.

Admittedly, we had many of our books in KU until recently. Bit by bit we’ve taken them out of the progamme, because, well... to be honest, it’s outdated. Feedback from our VIPs and others showed us being in KU was actually harming us.

Amazon didn’t like us leaving. Watching yet another author removing their books from KU wasn’t what they wanted to see.

Let’s leave aside their underhand tactics of re-enrolling our books in KU without telling us, after we’d said we didn’t want them in the programme anymore. What is more telling is that suddenly the page-reads of those that were still in KU apparently plummeted.

We’d expected a reduction on page-reads in July, but five days of zero reads, from a regular daily read of 1 - 2,000 a day or higher?

We’ll say no more.

Our decision to leave KU and ‘go wide’ (selling the books on our own website and the other platforms) was well and truly justified.

As was the decision to build a brand new platform, and market the RTG books in a different way.

So here it is. We’d love to know your thoughts on our efforts, and if there may be something else we can do to make your reading experience better. We do listen!

Please comment on this blog, or use the contact form on the website, to tell us what you think.

How brave are we!

Richard, Ann, and the crew