How Many Compromises Can I Make Before My Work Becomes Unrecognisable?
When you sit down and begin to write your first novel, your first short story, any kind of fictional writing where you can let your imagination wander, what is the most important thing to you? Are you looking to copy someone else? Perhaps a recent book you’ve read, a film or TV drama you’ve watched? Or are you looking to create something different? Something that is uniquely yours. A story that could only be told through your life lens. Your view on the world, warts and all. A tell-all saga of the life you’ve led, the life your imagination has dreamed of in a world of abundance and joy or heartbreak and despair. Whatever your reasons for putting pen to paper or digits to keys, the one thing that will remain true throughout is just one unique part of this process, YOU!!
So, with that in mind, why do potential authors decide that they want to mould their stories on whatever the latest online trend is today? Most of the bestselling books of today will be written by celebrities who already have a huge fan base from their other work. That in turn means, however good or bad their book is, it is likely to become a bestseller and make them millions of pounds in royalties. By attempting to follow this trend, a new and upcoming author will spend several months perfecting their prose, editing and finalising their manuscript, feeling the rush of excitement as they publish it and then… nothing. No sales, no fanfare, even friends and family who encouraged them along the way have suddenly gone quiet and the author is left with a sense of emptiness. The big question here is why?
There are many reasons why a book is successful or unsuccessful in the highly competitive world of literacy but a good chunk of it can be found in the lack of unique storytelling from the author. Trends in books follow a similar line to trends in fashion. What is irresistible in April will often be undesirable by July. By copying the trends and styles of what is currently successful in the bestselling books chart now will lead to your story becoming dated and irrelevant later. What makes books successful now is down to the unique storytelling of the author.
From way back when humans lived in caves and shared stories around a campfire, the usual tropes of romance, crime, fantasy, mystery etc have been explored to the point that a lot of people believe that there are no new stories in the world. Where the gist of the story is concerned, the structure of the story is the same but what makes the difference for the reader is the unique way that the author has changed and adapted certain aspects of the story to make it different from what has gone before. This can be particularly useful when you are reading or writing a series.
Lee Child’s Jack Reacher series is a prime example of this. Lee has written over twenty-five novels featuring Jack Reacher and in each story, Jack travels to a new town, gets involved with helping the locals settle a dispute and then moves on. Now, if Lee had repeated the same identical story twenty-five times over, he would not have been as successful as he has been. By using his unique author voice to make each story slightly different, despite keeping the same framework throughout, he has built up a following that has made him a million selling author.
By not bowing to commercial pressure to make the stories follow commercial trends of what was popular at the time he came to write these stories, Jack Reacher continues to go from strength to strength. Lee’s unique style has made his main protagonist uniquely his. Nobody else has had the life experiences that Lee has had and because of that, it makes his characters more intriguing, more real.
You will face challenges, especially as a new author, where a publishing house or editor will challenge your work due to it not being currently what they are looking for. Inevitably, publishing is a business and whilst authors are encouraged to be original, unique and quirky, agents, publishers and editors will also have an eye on what is selling currently and what will give them the best return on their financial investment. The trick here is to ensure that what you had originally seen as the crux of your story, the part that made you sit down and write it in the first place, is not swallowed up in the commercialisation of your work to make it more palatable for a specific audience.
The reality is, whatever you plan to write, you are not going to be able to please everybody and sometimes, that can mean that you need to take the decision to move to a different publisher or even self-publish in order to get your book out into the world.
With my adult crime fiction series, The Blake Langford Adventures, I made the decision very early on that I would go down the self publishing route as I wanted Blake’s life story to be uniquely what I had planned it to be rather than having to compromise for commercial success. From my first book, Where No One Stands Alone, through to the current book that I am writing, Everything, Blake’s character arc has been unconventional and at times, a little crude. But that raw character trait. That shoot first, ask questions later, cheater, drinker, often unlikable character is the one who took the story forwards. If I was unable to make Blake uniquely how I saw him, I feel that the stories would not have been as powerful, emotional or as adventurous as they are.
How you approach your work is very author specific. For some, the dream of a traditional publishing house promoting, displaying and selling your work is something that some authors will never compromise on and that’s fine. For me, I like to have full control of my characters, the storylines they are involved in and the places they go. Most of all, I aim to write a story that is uniquely mine and by avoiding the commercialisation of my stories, I can make a difference as I look to build my story on the tried and tested framework of whatever genre I am writing in.
When you write your own story, write uniquely for you. If it feels real to you, it will feel real to your reader, no matter what amazingly fantastical world you have created. Give them that escapism without the prism of financial commercial constraints, they will thank you for it later.
Until next time, write on.
John Roberts