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owlectomyIt makes me kind of sad when an editor goes on Twitter to answer questions for people and gets inundated with people asking,
The editor in question is explicitly discouraging this kind of thinking, and to some extent it's just the same kind of "Please give me the magic feather!" you hear from lots of aspiring writers. But it's true that in YA the last few years have been huge for paranormal romances with black and purple covers, and it looks like the new trend is for dystopias --
--Forgive me, I'm exceedingly cynical about dystopias. There are some excellent ones. There are also people who think that making things bad and oppressive is easier than doing any actual worldbuilding work.
The thing is -- well, it's already too late for this, considering how fast new books get put on the shelves and pulled off again -- but I don't want the bookstore to be H&M. This season it's ruffles, next season it's cabled sweaters.
As a reader, I can say that books written to capitalize on a trend start looking very samey after a while. Even if a particular book might be very good, I look at it and I feel like I've read it already and don't need to read it again.
The moments that formed me as a reader -- I can put it almost down to the day, spring of 9th grade when I finished my geometry final early and took out the book of Nebula-winning/nominated stories my mom had bought me, reading Harlan Ellison and James Tiptree Jr. and Joanna Russ. I want the sparkly thing that is like nothing else I've ever seen before.
And as a writer, I don't want to write with an eye on what the market wants. It's very easy to let that pull your own personal compass out of alignment. It's very easy to let that act like a subtle distortion field. My strength as a writer, anyone's strength as a writer, is what's in their own heart and their own mind. There's a strange alchemy there that you can't get by following a recipe. Guardian of the Dead is not just a paranormal, it's a paranormal suffused with a sense of place, a commitment to diversity and feminism, and a rare fearlessness. I don't think you can get that kind of book by saying, "Oh, paranormals are hot right now, I'm going to write a paranormal."
I thought about locking this entry because I don't want to sound like I'm insulting anyone, so please know, I'm not talking about you. Really I'm not. My friends who are published, whether in paranormal or dystopia or some other genre, I sincerely believe that you weren't cynically writing with the intent of hitting some particular trend. Sometimes you just have a burning passion for a certain kind of book. Sometimes the timing of the trend is a coincidence. Sometimes a book gets published, or a trend hits, that raises about a million questions in you and you want to become part of the argument. That's all good stuff. My friends who are not published -- the same thing applies. But, just like dating or job searching, it's not going to work if you spend all your time trying to make yourself over into what you think other people want. At some point you have to be your own flavor of awesome.
(Oh, good, I have an icon for this! If you look at the post on Dreamwidth.)
The editor in question is explicitly discouraging this kind of thinking, and to some extent it's just the same kind of "Please give me the magic feather!" you hear from lots of aspiring writers. But it's true that in YA the last few years have been huge for paranormal romances with black and purple covers, and it looks like the new trend is for dystopias --
--Forgive me, I'm exceedingly cynical about dystopias. There are some excellent ones. There are also people who think that making things bad and oppressive is easier than doing any actual worldbuilding work.
The thing is -- well, it's already too late for this, considering how fast new books get put on the shelves and pulled off again -- but I don't want the bookstore to be H&M. This season it's ruffles, next season it's cabled sweaters.
As a reader, I can say that books written to capitalize on a trend start looking very samey after a while. Even if a particular book might be very good, I look at it and I feel like I've read it already and don't need to read it again.
The moments that formed me as a reader -- I can put it almost down to the day, spring of 9th grade when I finished my geometry final early and took out the book of Nebula-winning/nominated stories my mom had bought me, reading Harlan Ellison and James Tiptree Jr. and Joanna Russ. I want the sparkly thing that is like nothing else I've ever seen before.
And as a writer, I don't want to write with an eye on what the market wants. It's very easy to let that pull your own personal compass out of alignment. It's very easy to let that act like a subtle distortion field. My strength as a writer, anyone's strength as a writer, is what's in their own heart and their own mind. There's a strange alchemy there that you can't get by following a recipe. Guardian of the Dead is not just a paranormal, it's a paranormal suffused with a sense of place, a commitment to diversity and feminism, and a rare fearlessness. I don't think you can get that kind of book by saying, "Oh, paranormals are hot right now, I'm going to write a paranormal."
I thought about locking this entry because I don't want to sound like I'm insulting anyone, so please know, I'm not talking about you. Really I'm not. My friends who are published, whether in paranormal or dystopia or some other genre, I sincerely believe that you weren't cynically writing with the intent of hitting some particular trend. Sometimes you just have a burning passion for a certain kind of book. Sometimes the timing of the trend is a coincidence. Sometimes a book gets published, or a trend hits, that raises about a million questions in you and you want to become part of the argument. That's all good stuff. My friends who are not published -- the same thing applies. But, just like dating or job searching, it's not going to work if you spend all your time trying to make yourself over into what you think other people want. At some point you have to be your own flavor of awesome.
(Oh, good, I have an icon for this! If you look at the post on Dreamwidth.)
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