“What’s Special about It?”
It’s such a reasonable question. I can’t for the life of me tell why so many people have such a hard time answering.
Allow me to explain.
No Escaping It
I don’t mean to harp again on a subject I’ve touched on twice already, but I am haunted by the current state of the indie book market. Knowing that so many worthy books get multiple rejections from traditional publishing, I have to believe that the independent market is a secret haven for high-quality avant garde books. I want to believe that self-published works are going to disrupt and transform the industry, so I keep searching for diamonds in the rough. But I keep coming home disappointed.
And the biggest problem is that there isn’t just one problem. A plurality of indie authors are failing in multiple dimensions. Seems like every self-published book I sample has technical problems, linguistic problems, stylistic problems, and narrative problems. Apart from a near-universal disregard of craft, many independent authors can’t even manage to create an interesting story.
And one particular shortcoming gets repeated with disturbing regularity.
Reinventing the Wheel
It’s nice to know I am not the only one struggling with this problem. In a recent blog post, David Farland (a respected author, editor, writing teacher, and industry insider) lamented that a lot of book ideas he’s lately heard have been weak. Without naming specific examples, he talks about mundane and recycled ideas—stories that have already been told to death.
Now, there’s nothing necessarily wrong with rehashing an old story. Many authors do it even now with great success. But these authors don’t stop at rehashing. They experiment. They add zest and sizzle to an otherwise stale story. They might turn old tropes on their heads. Or they might add new dimensions to a formerly straightforward plot.
Yet, from the indie crowd, I see a lot of authors who can only describe their book in mundane terms.
“It’s about a girl who leads a band of freedom fighters to overthrow an evil empire!” one author enthusiastically shouts.
Meanwhile, I’m thinking, “How is that different from the millions of ‘evil empire’ stories we already have?”
In other words, I’m asking, “What’s special about it?”
And, sadly, when I investigate the book, looking for what’s special, I find nothing there.
And It’s Inexcusable
There honestly is no reason to write something lacking that extra spice. Even if you’re a young and unseasoned author, you have everything you need to pull off a story that breaks new ground and sets itself apart.
Don’t believe me? Let’s revisit the book about the freedom fighter girl. In a hot half-minute I can transform the story into something that stands out from other, similar stories. Feel free to add your own ideas in the comments.
How about…
The evil empire our heroine is fighting is actually a fast food empire, and the only way she can overthrow Darth McDonald is by creating her own billion-dollar drive-thru franchise and save the world from poor health.
Or maybe…
The freedom fighters are dogs, who have chosen the girl to rise up against humanity as their war-messiah and usher in 1000 years of canine dominance.
Or perhaps…
The girl is actually in a medically induced coma. The fantasy world is all in her head and the evil empire is actually a brain tumor that her immune system is fighting. If she wants to ever wake up, she has to lead a rag-tag group of positive thoughts and good vibes against the more self-destructive parts of her personality.
None of the above ideas took more than ten seconds to devise. Even a green author with no inkstains on his fingers could come up with these scenarios (or even better ones). Imagine what happens when you invest ten minutes into spicing up a story, rather than ten seconds.
And you end up with a product that no only benefits from a battle-tested plot, but also has that little something special to take it to the next level. You get the best of both novelty and tradition.
Time to Start Asking the Question
Previously, I tried using my social media platform as a way of discovering deserving indie books that weren’t getting attention and diverting readers to them.
But a more effective use of my time is to approach self-published authors and pose them the pivotal question: “What’s special about it?” This gives them a chance to answer, to market their own stuff to my followers, and succeed or fail on their own merits.
This practice might catch some indie authors off guard, but it should also hone their marketing skills to the point where they can whip out their prize-winning pitch at a moment’s notice. Honestly, it’s the most effective charity I can offer them, until I somehow unlock the universal quick-and-easy secret of all great writing that allows everyone to write at Shakespeare’s level.
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Your story tweaks are all satires, first of all. Most people who set out to write an evil-empire epic aren’t trying to write satire… and that might be a mistake on their part.
But the bigger problem, as I see it, is that these indie authors are actually writing fan fiction, without even realizing it.
They can’t get enough of their favorite genres, or tropes, and so they feel compelled to write their own.
But they don’t even understand their own pet genres, except in abstract, so their attempts at imitation end up as one-dimensional caricatures.
Not to mention that most of them attempt writing without any sort of background in the craft.
There is a cure for this, and it’s called education. Scholarship is the key to success, and the more a would-be author studies the the trade the better they’ll ultimately be. As long as they don’t end up following blind guides.
They also need to discover who they are as a writer. As long as they’re trying to be someone else, their ability to contribute to the literature will remain limited.
I don’t see how the coma/tumor tweak was satire. It’s still an epic war between good thoughts and evil thoughts, and you can make such a story as serious and dark as you like.
And, to be honest, I suspect that education hurts as much as it helps writers. A number of prestigious writers have warned against it, at least in the form of formal education.
Never confuse schooling with education.
You specifically mentioned scholarship, which implies formal schooling.
Scholarship and schooling are both derived from the same root word, but imply each other about as strongly as the words manipulate and manicure.
I cannot think of any reason why somebody would write a bad novel on purpose. Therefore, any indie writer that self-publishes lackluster work, fully expecting to win over readers, does so only out of ignorance.
All I’m trying to say is that the solution to this problem is the same as any problem created by ignorance. You need to acquire and apply knowledge. You need to read and write. Reading and writing are what constitute scholarship. And while scholarship is first learned in school, it is seldom mastered there.
Agreed – “NEVER CONFUSE SCHOOLING WITH EDUCATION!” THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, AND THANK YOU!! If you have picked up on just how so very tired I am of hearing the never-ending insistence in promoting “further education” for every possible career in every single field; then I have successfully made my point!
My perspective of schooling- it’s simply learning from one’s own individual life experiences; no amount of education in a classroom or online can “teach” creativity – you either have it; or you don’t! Please understand, In no way am I setting out to disrespect higher education; there are many, many careers where it is REQUIRED for in class education, and hands on training! CREATIVITY, IN MY OPINION, IS NOT A CAREER IN WHICH CAN BE TAUGHT WITH FURTHER EDUCATION – CREATIVITY TAKES PRACTICE FROM WITHIN!
This being said as an indie author- actually, an author in general; even the highest education does not guarentee the whole world will like every book ever written by every type of author – whether they’re a best selling author, or an indie author! I have discovered the kind of writer I am, and it was nearly immediate. I’m a fiction writer who loves to dabble in many different subgenres of fiction; I refer to it as being a fiction writer of “mixed nuts, and even better, I really thrive on my stories being controversal; without having the fear of pushing the “limits.”
I don’t believe that a person either has creativity, or doesn’t. Creativity is something that every human being is capable of. It is born into us all.
I like to think of creativity as a workbench. But some people have an empty work bench with no tools or materials to build with, while others have everything they need right at their fingertips.
It takes a lot of creativity to be a three-Michelin-star chef, for example, but effectively all three-star chefs have gone to culinary school to get the right tools and skills. They’ve usually had a mentor who teaches them even more. And by the time they earn their third star, they have a lot of experiences and sources of inspiration to draw on.
I think that being a writer is no different. But the thing I LOVE about writing is that it isn’t limited to flavors, or colors, or musical notes. Writing draws upon all knowledge as its basic building blocks. And that is where the education comes in.
If you want to write hard science fiction, you have to understand science.
If you want to write historical fiction, you have to know your history.
Even fantasy genres require an author to do more than just make a bunch of stuff up. Did Tolkien write Lord of The Rings from scratch?
But some writers draw from a very shallow well of knowledge, or some only skim the surface, even when the well is deep with cold fresh water. These are the people that I think my brother is talking about it his post… people that either don’t know how deep the well is because they were never curious about it in the first place, or are too lazy to probe the depths, or who are just frightened of what might lie at the very bottom.
One side note: If you are a three-Michelin-star chef, most people probably won’t be able to appreciate the fruits of your gastronomic genius, and would actually just prefer to eat fettuccine alfredo from Olive Garden, because that is what is familiar and comforting to them.
So if you ever become a genius author, be prepared to live in an ivory tower. And that is exactly where Alan should be looking if he wants to find worthy undiscovered novels. Look in all the ivory towers.