What to write?

Are you writing what you should be writing? There's so much advice out there. "Write what you know." "Study the market and write for that." "Write what you like to read."

Too many signposts. Which one is the right one?

Are you compelled to write stories that rise out of you, or do you approach it as a businesslike task as if to manufacture a marketable product?

Some writers start with a shoe that doesn't fit. It took Becky Motew, author of Coupon Girl, three runs at the hurdle before she cleared it. In her post on M.J. Rose's  Backstory, Becky says, "I had written two unpublished books earlier, one called COUPON MURDERS which wasn't unlike the eventual CG, only it had a murder in it. Yikes, those are hard. I wouldn't want to write another one. Okay, let's put a dead body in a dumpster. Yeah. That's good. And in addition we'll have the main character's purse be in there too, in the dumpster with the body. That will really implicate our girl and people will think she did it. Man, I am clever. So then this niggling question starts: how did a woman lift a dead body into a dumpster by herself? OH MY GOD I DON"T KNOW. This is a very queasy feeling to have when you're clicking along a hundred pages in. See? Don't try this at home.

"After that experience I wrote a 'serious' book. I labored over it. It had a complicated plot and flashbacks, multiple pov's and a prologue. Almost everyone who read it asked, "Is it a satire?" NO. IT'S A SERIOUS BOOK. WHY ARE YOU ASKING ME THAT?

"And so I realized I'm not meant to write books like those. I'm meant to write a book like this. Why, I asked myself, would I write anything else? The authors I've loved and admired since I was a kid -- write comedy. If you are a gazelle, then good. Embrace your gazelle-ness and may God go with you. But if you are an armadillo, don't try to imitate the gazelle.

"Do your armadillo thing.  Suck up those ants.  You'll be much better off and hopefully you won't end up as road kill."

Sounds like good advice to me. The problem with writing from my inner beast, though, is that I love and read all sorts of fiction, and now it seems to be melding into…what? For most of my youth, I read science fiction and fantasy. As an adult, I now indulge in thrillers a lot. So maybe it's predictable that my first novel, We the Enemy, takes place in the near future and has a suspense/thriller-type plot.

I call it "speculative suspense." The only trouble is that it's having an identity problem. If an acquiring editor has expectations of a thriller, the speculative part seems to interfere with its appeal. If they're expecting speculative fiction, it's not really sci fi enough. Expectations…if it's not a proper pigeon, it doesn't fit into the proper hole.

Then there was novel number two. I also read mysteries, and have devoured carloads of Westerns. Maybe that's what led to a mystery set in the old West. But that one's not easy to categorize either. It doesn't meet the expectations of a genre Western, and the setting isn't very mysteryish.

Okay, so then I tried "write what you know" and based a novel on teenage experiences working on a ranch in the 1950s. It wasn't meant to be a memoir, though, and I inserted a murder plot into what is essentially a coming-of-age story. See where we're going with this? This story, The Summer Boy, doesn't fit the young adult category, doesn't quite rise to the level of a literary novel, and isn't plot-driven enough to be a genre mystery, and then there's a problem with a novel that takes place in the '50s -- no one is much interested.

Yet it's not within me to set my sights on a genre and try to "manufacture" a story to fit. I'm not saying that's not a legitimate approach, it's just not something I can do.

Now there's the newest one, Finding Magic, which is out with my favorite readers for feedback. What is this one? I asked the managing editor of a small publishing house with whom I swap reads. She wasn't sure, and she sees a lot of genre stuff. Maybe paranormal? Hmm. A significant factor isn't normal -- but the conceit in the novel is that it really is a normal part of our daily universe, just unknown.

From a strictly technical point of view it might be called urban fantasy, but that label leads to expectations of vampires or werewolves or other fantasy critters, and there are none to be found in this story. So far the best I've come up with is "magical realism meets thriller," with more of a mainstream feel to it. At least I'm back to some of my roots. Sort of.

And then there's the WIP, a blook that I'm writing online. It's been informed by all the vampire stuff I've read -- it's about a vampire kitty-cat. That seems clear enough, doesn't it? An urban fantasy. Whew, it fits somewhere…however, this book has its tongue stuck deeply into its cheek as it satirizes the whole vampire myth. It seems that another part of my creative nature is comedic (I'm also a cartoonist.) Arrgh. On the other hand, it feels good to write it.

What kind of writer animal am I, I wonder? A griffin? No, that's only two different critters put together. But, you know, I'm content to write the stories that intrigue me and that let me explore themes that call to me. Maybe one of these days an editor will have an appetite for something he hasn't seen before and one of my non-pigeons will take wing. It just has to be good enough.

What about you? How do you come at this?

For what it's worth.

Ray

Free edit in exchange for posting permission. You send a sample that you have questions about and of which you'd like an edit. I won't post it without your permission.

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© 2006 Ray Rhamey

Comments

[Eric von Rothkirch]

Ray said:

"Yet it's not within me to set my sights on a genre and try to "manufacture" a story to fit. I'm not saying that's not a legitimate approach, it's just not something I can do."

I understand exactly where you're coming from, so it's obvious why you feel the way you do. I think this is the wrong attitude though...

It's the same problem people have in understanding marketing, or market-driven creativity. It's not about selling off a chunk of your soul, and working on something that you have no love for...

Nobody in their right mind wants to do that. Not even marketers. ;-)

There is a different approach though. A marriage of two methods--choosing a subject you love to write about, and choosing a hole in the market to fill.

Somewhere within your wide and varied interests, exists a topic or theme that nobody else has written much about. Or perhaps it's been written but the execution was flawed severely.

For example, like you, I have lots and lots of interests. For my sci-fi novel, I picked something "kinda like Mad Max" for a theme. It's not Mad Max. It's not Mad Max at all. It's very different. But I think Mad Max is a style or type of thing that people have a hankering for. There hasn't been a Mad Max film in 20 years. Nobody is really exploring the whole post-holocaust milieu. Video games are, but they don't count for much because most of them have terrible stories and characters, and are just fun romps of interactivity.

So within your interests, find something that is 'differential' - Find a hole in the market. Something unexplored, but has an audience.

In Seth Godin's All Marketers Are Liars, he calls this a worldview, and a frame. You want to frame your product (ie novel) around an existing worldview or concept. The worldview may already exist, but the frame is *yours* - your take on something, your spin, your twist.

So take a look at the current hot titles out there, and see what's missing. What's missing, but obviously has a market.

It's a hard job, but easier than throwing crap at the wall and hoping it sticks.

[FTQ_Reader]

I disagree on all counts... You can't write to the market - your writing will make its own market if it's original and fresh. Just remember "Chicklit" didn't exist before Bridget Jones' Diary. And that wasn't very long ago.

However, it sounds to me like you're having trouble focusing. A story may have many nuances and subplots, but it can primarily be about only one thing - a coming of age tale OR a murder mystery. An urban fantasy OR a police procedural. The reason I say this is because I once read in a how to get published book that you should think about what section of the bookstore your book would best fit in. It can only be in one category. And remember agents/editors et al are looking for things that will be easy to sell. If they can't pitch it in a single sentence, how can they sell it. Saying that something doesn't easily fit into a single category isn't going to help it see print.
FWIW

[Patty]

I have the same problem ... a SF thriller with a strong romantic plot layer ... oh, and then there's the SF pioneer story/mystery featuring two alternative lifestyle sort of people. C'est la vie.

Keep submitting until you find someone who wants to buy. It's a numbers game out there, just like marketing anything else.