Writers receive lots of conflicting advice. One such piece of advice involves following your heart or following trends. Do we write the story we are passionate about, or do we write the story we think will best interest the reading public? Do we build the field of our dreams, or try to speak to the dreams of others?
I recently posted this on Facebook:
Confession: I want to write a novel about mer-people, mermaids and mermen. Something dark and dreamy with sea trenches, kraken, and sunken treasure. Question: Is the CBA ready for this?
Does this sound like an interesting book to you? And should that even matter to me? I mean, as an artist shouldn’t I be driven by a higher set of principles than whether or not my story will fit into the market? Of course, if it doesn’t fit into the market, then my chances of writing future books suffers, my readership remains small (or non-existent), and my vision remains largely my own.
Anyway, I received some interesting responses to my proposition. One of the comments came from a member of my current publishing team:
Why not? Go for it. The issue is more if that is something people are interested in these days….
As much as I’d like to follow my mermaids into “dark and dreamy sea trenches,” the truth is… I don’t know if anyone else would follow me. Sure, I can plant my feet in defiance and feign the principled artist. But if writers need readers, then is it wise for a writer to completely ignore where readers are currently grazing?
So what’s an author to do?
Like so many things in this business, the answer is complex, nuanced, and uniquely individual. Complicating matters (and underlying this debate) is this unanswered question:
Do books birth trends, or do trends birth books?
The author who can answer that will have a leg up on the competition. Was there a “trend” toward sparkly vampires before Stephanie Meyers captured the zeitgeist? Or has Meyer’s “vision” started the trend? Was there a “trend” towards boy wizards and YA fantasy before J.K. Rowling penned Harry Potter? Or did Rowling’s epic birth the trend? If we knew the answer to those things, it would make our decision a lot easier. But, in a way, I think our inability to crack that question determines the answer for us.
Unique visions and market trends seem to work together. Or to put it another way: Popular books uniquely capture or build upon market trends. In this sense, an author needs both artistic vision and market savvy.
So if you write it, will they come? Not unless what you write resonates with those lurking in the cornfield. And knowing what resonates with readers is not always the easiest thing to calculate. Face it: Some of the ideas you have as a writer, and some of the passion you have for a certain story — like my mermaids — must wait. Because following your heart and following trends are both important.
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Question: Do you think books birth trends or trends birth books? When you write, do you lean more toward following your heart or following trends? Do you have a particular story you’ve refrained from writing because of the market?
“Do you think books birth trends or trends birth books? When you write, do you lean more toward following your heart or following trends? Do you have a particular story you’ve refrained from writing because of the market?”
The book has to birth the trend, but then the trend can supercede the orginal book by diverging into sub-trends.
As you know, Mike, I lean heavily on romance but have decided to call my novels love stories/non-tradtional romance. Not that they could start a trend, but their realism with a redemptive theme would be a good trend in the romance genre for CBA. I’m not writing category romance just to follow a trend or a genre mode.
Last question: I tried to write specifically for the romance formula and actually kept the novel under 90,000 words (a record for me), but it was painful to write. I labored over “fitting in” to a code I don’t believe in. So: no.
I think everyone has done this: You lie down in bed and start thinking about something important, like Christ’s death on the cross, then thirty minutes later your thinking “I wonder if Moses would beat Brock Lesnar in a javelin throwing contest.” And you think how the heck did I get from the cross to this?
My point is that every trend has a path that it journeyed on to get us to where we are. Take any modern trend and if you had the time and energy I bet you could trace its evolution and link it to some trend in the past. If something does spawn that is so new and so different, it usually dies. People need context and time to adapt.
So I think the trick for an author is to have the vision to see where the trend trail is heading and get there before anyone else does.
Dude.
I’d follow you to the briny depths of madness on that one.
Following its publication and less-than glowing reception that Moby Dick received, conventional wisdom is that Herman Melville was so stricken by grief that he decended into depression and then died unfulfilled. But in a letter he wrote to his buddy Nathaniel Hawthorne during that time, I don’t detect a hint of concern.
In fact, one of the most inspiring things Melville wrote in response to Hawthorne was that he did not view Moby Dick as his masterpiece, or tragically misunderstood. In fact, he didn’t care about its reception at all, instead he excitedly obsessed about his next work, hinting that it would be larger in scope and deeper in meaning than even Moby Dick.
After all, he wrote, “Leviathan is not the biggest fish;–I have heard of Krakens.”
Mike – Melville didn’t live to go where you want to go. Go there, please. Justice, if not readership, demands it!
At some point, someone has to take a chance on something that starts a new trend. Frank Peretti comes to mind. However, if you can write something original as an offshoot of a current trend, you’ll find yourself selling better initially.
It’s a hard one. As a reader, I do tend to follow trends I like, but I also look for something new and different to give me a bit of a break.
I’d say start off with an Amish/mermaid crossover – then people would be prepped for the epic merpeople Hero’s Journey and redemptive ending, with suitable edgy parts included. 😉
In all seriousness, the trend can and often does come from various corners of pop culture/consciousness, and the author strikes at the right time. Before Twilight there was Buffy. But Frank Peretti did seize upon something new with the “Darkness” books.
Just because something is in a “trend” doesn’t guarantee success as well. One of the best series in CBA lately was the Trophy Chase trilogy – it hit at the same time as Captain Jack Sparrow was so hot, but it didn’t catch on fire with the public (of course, we’re talking about the CBA and a speculative novel…).
I’ve had a hard time figuring how to position my WIP. I thought of veering into the spiritual warfare side of things, but have decided against that. Not sure where it fits for now, so I’m going to write what I’ve got and take it from there. Maybe the market will be there when I finish – maybe not.
Good thoughts Mike.
I don’t know that a lurking trend happens to grab the right book and take off, but I do think there is some ebb and flow to such trends.
It is of course near impossible to read, but you see these trends rise and fade. What many find when they write to a trend is that it has cooled down by the time their book goes out to publishers, or by the time it gets to the shelf, due to the lag time between writing it and getting shipped to readers.
But, after a trend has died off, lay dormant for a period of time, it can often get kick-started back up by a book in that trend. It doesn’t even have to be an exceptional book, like Eragon for instance. One would have thought a standard-formula dragon rider story would be toast after the Pern series and all the knock-offs of that. But enough time passed that new readers were excited about something fresh from that trend.
Star Wars did that in the late 70s with the standard hero tale.
So while certainly there are books that get trends going, I would tend to think there are certain basic trends that ebb and flow up and down, and when the time is right for new readers to “discover” that trend, a book placed at the right time can tap into that.
But trying to guess what that is, when it will happen, etc., can’t be too much of the writing process. I’m not saying ignore what the readers want, but on the other hand, if what I’m writing isn’t exciting and interesting to me, it will likely show the same face to a reader who picks it up. If a topic, subject, or plot doesn’t grab me (not saying I have to be gushing over it every time I sit and write), it’s probably not worth my time to attempt it. It wouldn’t be good for me or my readers in most cases.
Definitely better to start a trend than to try and follow one and the only way to start one is to write what you are led to write. If that means you write about mermaids so be it.