A friend of mine once posed the question: \u201cDo you think writers start out intending to write a great book?\u201d\u00a0 Now, obviously, he meant \u201cgreat\u201d as in critically acclaimed, and having the potential to still be read long after the author has gone to that great remainder pile in the sky.\u00a0 I thought about it and I think the answer is no.\u00a0 I base this on my own experience (not to hubristically imply that my book is by any means \u201cgreat\u201d).\u00a0 When you start on a book it\u2019s because you have a story you want to tell, and you want to write it.<\/p>\n
Now I\u2019m sure there are some who write because they think they can make a lot of money (and, of course, some do).\u00a0 Years ago I remember reading (although I don\u2019t remember where) that a writer has to really want to write for the sake of writing.\u00a0 While that may be true, those who are just in it for the money can do a real yeoman\u2019s job of it if they possess a bit of talent.\u00a0 This is evidenced first by all the potboilers published every year \u2013 often they\u2019re quick, fun reads, but like fast-food they\u2019re generally quickly forgotten.\u00a0 There are also many best sellers which are formulaic (still fun reads), but quickly forgotten too.\u00a0 I have a friend who tells a great story.\u00a0 When he was an undergraduate a best-selling author visited his college and gave a talk.\u00a0 When the time came for questions from the audience there was silence, and the writer \u2013 apparently a rather brash fellow \u2013 looked around, pointed directly at my friend and demanded, \u201cAsk me a question!\u201d\u00a0 Having been put on the spot, my friend was taken aback, and all he could think of was the rather standard, \u201cWhat inspires you to write?\u201d\u00a0 The writer fished out his wallet, waved his platinum credit card at the audience, and said, \u201cThis does.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 What more can be said?<\/p>\n
You\u2019re probably asking \u2013 \u201cDon\u2019t all writers want to make money?\u201d Sure \u2013 you\u2019ve got to eat, right?\u00a0 So unless you\u2019re independently wealthy it helps to have an income from your writing, and, of course, making money from your writing just means people are buying \u2013 and reading \u2013 your books, which is the whole point.\u00a0 But there is a difference between writing the potboiler, the formulaic, and something else \u2013 it\u2019s the need to tell a unique story.<\/p>\n
Unique doesn\u2019t necessarily mean a story you\u2019ve never read before \u2013 there were plenty of plays about monarchs and their dysfunctional families before, and since, Shakespeare wrote Hamlet and Macbeth, but the difference is that the characters are real in the sense they have human faults and foibles, they suffer and agonize.\u00a0 They tell us something about the human condition.\u00a0 Dickens and Hugo wrote about the lives of the poor, but they also told us a lot about their times.\u00a0 Even Tolkien tells us about sacrifice (remember, after all he goes through, poor old Frodo ends up with the short end of the stick).\u00a0 J. G. Ballard\u2019s stories seem to deal with people detached from society, while Philip K. Dick always appeared to be searching for an answer to the question: \u201cWhat is reality?\u201d<\/p>\n
So I think the books that last give you a viewpoint into something you are unfamiliar with.\u00a0 They take you somewhere you\u2019ve never been before. They make you look at things in a different way, often a way very alien to yourself.\u00a0 They give you insight into the human condition.<\/p>\n
What does this have to do with my writing, or yours?\u00a0 It just points to a difference in approach.\u00a0 It might be fun to write a \u201cStar Trek\u201d novel \u2013 everybody has their own great story involving their favorite characters fighting Klingons or whoever, but how\u2019s that different from lots of sci-fi books and movies that went before?\u00a0 What made the show different, and lasting? \u00a0Well, as compared to all those other books and movies which just concentrated on aliens, space ships, shoot-em-ups, and other clich\u00e9s from the \u201cBoy\u2019s Big Book of Adventure\u201d, it presented a very unique vision of the future. There were lots of questions asked, lots of themes explored.\u00a0 It presented a very optimistic view of the future. And yes, despite the beehive hairdos along with the mini-skirt and go-go boot uniforms (it was, after all, the 60s), it even had a big place for intelligent, dynamic women.\u00a0 Think about it.<\/p>\n
So in the end it\u2019s not what you write about, but how you write about it that makes the difference between a great and an average book.\u00a0 Do writers start out thinking to do that?\u00a0 No, it\u2019s just the story they need to tell.<\/p>\n
More along these lines in the next installment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A friend of mine once posed the question: \u201cDo you think writers start out intending to write a great book?\u201d\u00a0 Now, obviously, he meant \u201cgreat\u201d as in critically acclaimed, and having the potential to still be read long after the author has gone to that great remainder pile in the sky.\u00a0 I thought about it…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":259,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,4],"tags":[7,8,6,26,12],"class_list":{"0":"entry","1":"post","2":"publish","3":"author-photophoosk100","4":"post-253","6":"format-standard","7":"category-jotting-and-stray-thoughts","8":"category-musings","9":"post_tag-getting-published","10":"post_tag-novel","11":"post_tag-writing","12":"post_tag-writing-a-novel","13":"post_tag-writing-inspiration"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomwolosz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomwolosz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomwolosz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomwolosz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/259"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomwolosz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=253"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/tomwolosz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":256,"href":"https:\/\/tomwolosz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253\/revisions\/256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomwolosz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomwolosz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomwolosz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}