Every
writer may have moments he/she would rather forget: a gaff during an author
talk, noticing bowl had been spelled bowel only after the book has been published. Yes, I have noticed this
confusion in a few books – trad published as well. Well I did a book talk the other
day – an event greatly anticipated as always. Little did I know what was in
store.
Book
Talk Agonizing Moments
I
had prepared a book reading for the author event from my novel, Falling Awake,
a story that relates on how a mother, mired in debt, performs routines for a client.
The woman’s twelve-year-old son, after overhearing the word ‘voyeurism’, misconstrues
the word to mean an audience watching a show, like the X-Factor. His mother
does not correct him on the definition, too embarrassed.
He
also assumes his mother’s evening performances is for a glitzy show. In this
vein, he makes her a cat mask to wear. His mother is bewildered at how this project
could cheer him up in the face of his father’s desertion and losing their home.
She doesn’t tell him the seedy truth, instead fostering his fantasy and letting
him make her the cat mask.
Classic
Author Talk Moment
The
excerpt of my book described a climactic moment when the mother’s client
appears unexpectedly in her garden. Her son is there with her cat mask providing the
setup for an excruciating moment mired with misunderstandings.
Great,
I thought, this is an ideal material for keeping an audience interested and alert!
How can it fail? Only trouble was, my book talk took place at a city library, meaning
I could not know who would turn up.
The
audience during my author event included an 80 year old lady with memory loss,
and a tramp who would explode with laughter for no apparent reason. The woman
was very intelligent and well-read, but had trouble communicating. She also
(perhaps because of her age) nodded off a few times. The tramp laughed at comments
that had no comic value, and otherwise stared into space.
What Not to Do During an Author Talk
Only
after the event had finished, did I realize that I had talked about voyeurism
to a tramp and an eighty-year-old lady. Had that really happened? The lesson
from this is that a writer must never make assumptions about the reading profile
of an author talk. In future, I will prepare several excerpts and choose the
one most suitable for the audience that happens to arrive. What a steep learning
curve!
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