Newness

During the summer of '07, I needed a good beach/commute book, so I picked up my roommate's copy of Company, a "late capitalist novel" by Max Barry. It sounded like a ripoff of Palahniuk, but it ended up being really fun and fairly interesting. The twist at the end was good -- I'm always delighted when authors plot suspense well.

Somewhat less surprisingly, Max Barry (also author of Syrup and Jennifer Government) is also a decent blogger. And one of his nuggets of writing advice, from an older entry, is posted above my desk:

I reacted to my Syrup rejections by writing a standard, genre thriller. It was terrible. And I learned that you never improve anything by making it less original. It’s the opposite: the worst thing writing can be is not new [bold mine -RP].

I’m convinced this isn’t just me. I think everybody wants newness. Editors, agents, readers: we all want new plots, new ideas, new ways of looking at the world. Nobody wants to get twenty pages into a book and know where it’s going, or even feel too much like they’ve seen all this before. Even within a genre’s iron-clad conventions, we want twists, surprises, and reinventions.

Young writers in particular can sometimes try to crawl inside a pre-conceived box labeled “novel” or “screenplay,” and end up with something far less interesting than if they’d forged their own path. I’m not saying you want to hit the other extreme, and pursue a lone, bizarre vision with no regard for how it reads. But you must nurture the things that make your story and your writing unique—that make you unique, since writing is letting people crawl around inside your head. Billions of people can write a sentence. Why should I bother reading yours, unless they’re different?

I read this whenever I'm tempted to give up on writing smart fantasy because I'm afraid it won't sell. First of all, I need to shut up and start writing. But more importantly, Barry makes the point that editors and readers want something new, even if the bookshelves don't suggest that. The more cynical (and publishing-savvy) among us may respond that, yes, they're looking for something new, but what they really want is the new Next Big Thing that will sell millions of copies and have midnight releases.

That said, it really is good advice. I don't want to read the same short story (or fantasy novel!) over and over again. I don't want to write the same story, either.

Any thoughts?

(Cross-posted at I'm Writing)