Reinventing Yourself

QUESTION: In a recent interview, a famous author said that she has reinvented herself (changed what she wrote) three times. Why did she do this?

Almost everyone who writes long enough for the NY conglomerate publishers has to reinvent themselves or leave publishing.

Markets die. For example, when the historical romance market faded drastically some years back, many of its writers started writing contemporary romance, paranormal romance, and romantic suspense.

Publishers die or drop lines, and some authors are trapped in contracts that won't allow them to move their successful series to another publisher or write anything in direct competition to their series so they have to make a major change in direction with a new and very different series.

Selling numbers can fall to a point that no publisher wants her books so the author has to start over with a new name.

Authors change. One successful paranormal romance author lost her young child, and she left paranormal romance and started writing inspirationals.

Some authors get bored.

Other authors are trend whores (their term) who change with the shifting popularity of types of books.

The danger with the constant shift in types of books is that you lose fans every time you make a shift, and you have to work extra hard at marketing yourself to a new group of people.

The most successful way to reinvent yourself is to build a brand with a certain type of books, write at least six, then start a second series or type of book that shares many of the same readers. Then you publish at least one book of each type every year. A good example of this is Jim Butcher with his urban fantasy DRESDEN FILES and his traditional fantasy series.

Sameness and the Second Book

 QUESTION:   I have just finished writing the first draft of my novel, now given to beta readers to test it out.

In the meantime, I am starting a new one, but all my inspiration seems similar to my previous work. Perhaps I am too absorbed in that type of story.

The things that are the same are the team composition of the antagonists, though in my new work they have different behavior and abilities.   Also, my new work takes place in a similar fantasy world and has a similar magical system.

First, congratulations on finishing your novel.  Of the many who start a first work, very few finish it.  Well done!

Whether there is too much sameness will only be obvious in the final product so it's hard to say.

Some very successful writers write the same story and characters with variations over and over again, and some readers don't seem to mind it.  Others do.  

Each character should have a specific role in your story, and he/she should be written to fit that role.  If you want to shake things up with the casting of those roles, you could try what Hollywood calls casting against type.  For example, make the second in command a charming goofball who has a hidden sadistic streak.  Or switch genders.

You may want to do a few major changes to your world and magic system, but a massive overhaul isn't necessary if the world and the magic fit your story.  Or you can set your story in the same world during a different time period or a different part of the world and not worry about the sameness.  

These days, a reader will find one of a writer's books, and, if he enjoys it, he will buy the next book by the author immediately and read it.  So you want to offer both consistency and surprises.  

As a career move, writing similar books is a good thing.  Many readers are like kids with a bedtime story.  They like what they like, and they want the same thing, but different, each time from the writer.  

Successful authors who want to write a second series move laterally by writing subgenres that their main readership would enjoy.  For example, Jim Butcher’s extremely popular Harry Dresden series is urban fantasy, but he's written a traditional fantasy series which many of the same readers read.  

Then there's writers like me who write all kinds of genres from science fiction adventure to paranormal romance.  Many of my readers never followed me so I had to fight for every reader I got when I switched genres.  It wasn’t a good career move, but it kept me amused. 

Goal, Motivation, and Cost

Have you ever started a novel where the main character decides to face an impossible task and an implacable enemy with the odds so far in favor of the bad guys that success, let alone survival, is minimal at best?

Sounds like a great novel, doesn't it?

I've just finished two novels where the main character is in that impossible situation.  In one novel, the hero must face these impossible odds to save his young daughter from a very ugly death.  In the second, the heroine must find out the truth about the death of a young woman she's never met, and the outcome appears to have no real value to her.  She's not even working for money.

I zipped through the first novel like a speed-reading lunatic to find out how the hero managed to save his little girl.  I cared about the results from page one to “The End.” 

The second novel I very nearly tossed away after the first few chapters because I hate stupid and suicidal main characters who have no real reason to go forward in an impossible situation, but I persevered out of curiosity and a fondness for dissecting author mistakes.  

After over half the novel, the author of the second novel finally lets the reader know why the heroine has continued forward in the investigation, but by then, the damage has been done to the novel and the reader's reactions to the heroine.  The reader also realizes that the author has cheated by withholding vital information which a fair author would not.  At this point, the odds of the reader picking up the next book by this author are slimmer than the original chance of the hero's survival.

As an author, you must balance the main character’s goal, its cost to him, and his motivation.  If the goal and the probable cost for the main character is great, the character must have motivation that equals both.  

Putting Romance in a Non-romance

 Romances are allowed the leisure of the characters learning about each other, the back and forth of the relationship, and the build up of plot and emotion to the happily ever after.  That essentially is the plot.  

Non-romances often have a romance subplot, but how does a thriller or suspense writer balance their action and forward plot movement with the slow burn of a romance?

Skilled suspense and thriller writers’ romance plot tends to be what I call insta-love.  The hero and heroine meet because of what's happening, they have an instant emotional and sexual connection with each other that's off the charts, but they focus on what they need to do.  They also gain respect for each other, and the way they interact and their pasts/presents show the possibility of their successful future as a couple.  Sex happens early and as often as the plot allows.  Even thriller characters need to sleep, bandage their boo boos, do some research, and reload their weapons.

Their emotional/romantic problem tends to be very simple.  They have conflicting careers, and one needs to stay while the other needs to go.  Or it can be a bit more complex.  The woman is old money and power, and the other is from a lower middle class background who thinks he is unworthy of her.  His insecurity makes him pull away when he should be moving towards her.  The problem is resolved through talk, a like-duh moment of epiphany, or another character offering a practical solution.  None of it ruins the pace of the thriller or suspense novel.

If you’d like to see how this is done, I recommend two masters of this technique— Heather Graham and Jayne Ann Krentz/Amanda Quick.