Where to Find Me

Real blog at Shakespeare I Ain't.

Who I Don't Want to Be

Still trying to get the old blog fixed and working again, but needed to work something out in my head, and the only way I can do that is writing it.

I read (and commented on, because I'm blunt like that) Nathan Bransford's post on what makes writing good. In the usual back-and-forth in the comments, some people referred to bestsellers as "trash" and Mr. Bransford got defensive.

I don't think they are necessarily trash, but I definitely don't want to ever be Dan Brown or Janet Evanovich.

I've read every one of Evanovich's Stephanie Plum novels. Well, with the exception of the "between the numbers" books because I can't go that far. I just read the sixteenth, and I hated it. Hated.

It's not because the book was terrible; it really wasn't. Someone new to the series may be able to pick it up and love it. There are probably even people out there who've read all the others and will still love this one. She's a best-selling author for a reason.

However, you couldn't pay me enough money to be her. Why? Because she's stuck.

By being a bestselling author, Evanovich has to keep churning out the same thing, book after book. Every summer, we expect a new one, and the majority of the book-buying public doesn't want surprises, it seems. They want the familiar, like a cuddly blanket they had when they were children. They want an indecisive, barely competent Stephanie. They want cars to blow up, funeral parlor visits to take place, kidnappings to happen...

You have to wonder if Ms. Evanovich ever wants to write something different. If she ever lays in bed at night with plot bunnies racing around in her brain, only to wake up the next morning knowing that Lula has to shoot something and Stephanie needs to eat more doughnuts.

I wouldn't be able to do that. That's like freelancing, or any other write-for-hire. I don't think anyone ever dreams of cranking out formulaic writing, whether it's how-to articles for a Web site owner or novels that have the same plot time after time.

Stephenie Meyer may never get to write anything other than vampires from now on. Dan Brown has the Catholic Church. J.K. Rowling... well, she has enough money now that she can do anything she darn well pleases, can't she?

Still, it's less about calling something trash and more about calling something undesirable. No one wants to have to follow a formula, even if the formula turns lead into gold.