I’m not going to tell you the most important thing ever is writing the book of your heart.
It might be. In my 26th year as a professional novelist I have reason to suspect it. But horses for courses, you know? There are times in your life when you simply can’t write the book of your heart. Worse, there are books of the heart that you probably shouldn’t write.
Okay, wrong there, but if you write it, do so and then lock it in a box and bury the box six feet deep.
I’m talking here of stuff like “A regency romance but all the protagonists are parrots and sex and egg laying are described in loving detail.” I don’t care how much you love that idea, your chance of selling the d*mn book, no matter how well written, and no matter how much you sink into publicity is none.
Also, if your heart book involves detailed snuff fantasies… well, maybe you’ll find readers, but do you want to? How many people on death row for serial murder do you want thanking you for a beautiful book?
Barring that kind of thing, though…. I’d say heart books are better. Not only do they tend to be better written, because you’re all in, but if they find the audience (this is still a crap shoot, trad or indie) they will sell and propagate if not immediately then over time.
I speak with some experience here. In fact, the book that’s done best for me (No Man’s Land) is for various reasons far less “commercial” than any of my other books ever. So I have to assume that it was something extra I put in that makes it sell.
In the same way, though everyone else says that fantasy outsells science fiction 10 to 1, for me it’s the exact opposite. I still write some fantasy, because I have series started and they have fans, but honestly, fantasy novels make me the same as a short story. Science fiction novels, though, even silly stuff like Rhodes, always surprise me.
I have to assume it’s because I really like Space Opera MUCH better than fantasy. It’s not that I dislike fantasy, precisely, I read Pratchett and Jim Butcher, not to mention Correia. It’s that if you give me a scenario I tend to cast it space opera or time travel rather than fantasy. And also if you wrote a traditional epic fantasy, it needs to be something completely extraordinary to keep me from gnawing off my hands to get away. It really, really, really ain’t my cup of tea.
Frankly I wrote fantasy, ever, because it was the one thing trad pub was willing to buy from me. (Their being convinced space opera was dead.) Otherwise, I’d probably never have done it.
And my numbers, now being visible, since I’m indie, tell me my money lies where my heart does, too. Which is encouraging, sure, but also interesting, as I’m not absolutely sure what does it.
If I had to venture a mechanism, it would be that writing what you have to because it’s what the publishers will buy and/or because you think it’s what will sell means that you’re writing out of obligation and that shows, subtly, in your word choice, your rhythm of language, and other things that subconsciously communicate to the reader “I’m doing this out of obligation” which in turn turns reading into more of a chore, even if there’s nothing obviously wrong with the book. If you’re good and competent you’ll still have fans — my fantasy does — but it’s never going to make most people’s heart sing, so it limits itself.
I think it’s the same mechanism when you think the purpose of writing is to divulge a message or write a just-so scenario (or when this is imposed on you by publishers) because then what happens is that your short circuiting your own mind, and you don’t even know if this is what you WANT to write, much less how various scenes will hit the reader.
It works much better if this imaginary place is where you like to hang out and you’re letting people in to share your precious.
Anyway, something to consider. Don’t blindfold your muse with either ideology or rumors of “Saleability”.
Write what you love. Yes it’s far scarier, because what if people hate it?
But then again, consider: What if people love it?
Writing is not for sissies. Don’t be one.
Mad Genius Club 
22 responses to “Blinding the Muse”
“It works much better if this imaginary place is where you like to hang out . . .”
Yes. And I’ll add that my “buddy” books tend to outsell the “lone hero” books. Romance? Eh, it’s in there, but it’s not the whole point of the story.
I dunno, Regency Parrot Sex doesn’t sound that crazy, compared to some of the stuff currently on the shelves.
It could parody the Lives of Liberals … but if you write it, don’t blame me!
I saw Regency Parrot Sex on the side stage at Lollapalooza in 1996.
Pride and Prejudice and Parrots. It’s right there for the taking.
Sarah lowers her glasses and looks over them at Almuric. Then resumes typing.
“Writing is not for sissies. Don’t be one.”
Thank you. I needed that today. :thumbsup:
There’s the old meme:
Author: I’d really like to write about sheepdogs in space, but sexy vampire books are big, so I guess I’ll do that instead.
Sexy Vampire Fans: Oh, cool, another book about sexy vampires. Maybe I’ll check it out after I get through the sixty sexy vampire books already on my TBR pile.
Space Sheepdog Fans: Another book about sexy vampires? When will someone write something geared toward us?
The big genres have lots of fans, but they also have lots of writers trying to break into them. It may be a better strategy to find your niche and serve it well*.
*=Advice like this from Zsuzsa should be taken with a Dead Sea’s worth of salt. I have not found my niche.
I feel that.
I stream video games in an absolutly saturated environment, and I don’t have an interesting enough schtick or high enough skills to separate myself from the pack.
The my-niche streams (architectural drafting) get more views faster, but I’ve managed… three, before the next necessary step became too difficult to do without significant prep work (I have to take interior measurements, by myself, on my not-quite-a-hoarder-house/project-material-stuffed dwelling). I’ll have to see if there’s any momentum to them once I’m able to get back to doing them.
John Ringo wrote a book he was sure could never be published. Then it was, along with 5 sequels.
“Oh, John Ringo, NO!!” 😁
The big problem here is knowing what your heart likes. I have a moving box full of old manuscripts going back almost sixty years (I’ll be 74 in two weeks), many of them incomplete and abandoned. The annoying thing is that I don’t necessarily know why a story fizzled out part way through. My heart was in them at first, but then the sizzle became fizzle, and they went into the box. Yes, I’ve pulled a couple of them out, finished them, and published them. But for most of them I wonder what the hell I thought I was doing…back in 1972. Some hearts grow up faster than others. Mine took its sweet time, and now in retirement I can be picky about what concepts to pursue.
I have those too, and part of my problem is I can’t read my own handwriting. The little pickle has offered to transcribe them.
I was lucky. My grandmother read my handwritten grade school stories and liked them so much she gave me her ancient (I think 1920 or so) Underwood Standard #5 typewriter when I was in fourth grade. More than anything else, that turned me from A Kid Who Told Stories to A Writer.
Dad gave me a typewriter at 14. The problem is most of these are written as an adult, either because Dan wouldn’t let me take the laptop on vacation or because at that time, for some reason, the writing shut down when I sat at the keyboard. Sigh.
I don’t actually have juvenalia, because it would be in Portuguese and because i left it behind, it ended up in the shed, and rats ate it. (And peed on it.)
The sad ones are authors like L. Frank Baum and Arthur Conan Doyle, whose potboilers were their great works, and the work of their heart is known only because of the potboilers.
Or AgathaChristie. No, stop, woman, the world actually needed more Hercule Poirot, it did not need more lit-fic crying about moderately bad husbands.
Miss Marple, not Poirot, but yes.
I cited Poirot specifically because she went through phases of actively disliking him (like Doyle with Holmes) whereas Miss Marple was relatively the author’s pet of the two, but fair enough.
That might have come out grumpy, I apologize.
I know. I also go through phases of actively disliking Poirot, though.
I am that way about La Marple, myself, so I hear you.
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