Brandt Dodson on Writing Well
Building a Better Mouse TrapOur guest post today is from crime and suspense author Dr. Brandt Dodson. This is number one of a four-part series.
Clichés, like the title above, are to be avoided like the plague (See? There’s another one). I could’ve written"… are to be avoided like a bar fight following dental surgery." But I didn’t. Clichés are easier and require less thinking. Hence, they abound.
For example, how often have you read about the wounded ex-Green Beret, Navy Seal, Delta Force (take your pick) who is recruited by the CIA, NSA, or other shadowy agency to unload vengeance, havoc, or destruction on our enemies? P-u-u-l-l-e-a-s-e!
And the cliché isn’t confined to thrillers. We see them in every genre. Take medical suspense, as another example. The young physician (always young) or the young resident-physician/surgeon or the researcher who is in the throes of battle with an evil HMO, corrupt hospital administration, a mutated virus or a cabal of sinister physicians bent on cornering a diminishing market. Really?
These can be good books. After all, they sell, some, so they must be. But are they great books? Breakout books?
In a market where tens of thousands of books are published every year, good isn’t good enough. No one wants another vanilla novel. Readers are looking for color. Plots that move too fast—or too slow—hackneyed characters, trite stories, or incoherent themes delivered with poor technique will not give them that color. The familiar tends to close the mind. But give the reader something new, something different, and they’ll take notice. More than that, they’ll tell their friends.
Why did Mario Puzo’s The Godfather take off? There had been mafia books before his. What made his different?
Why did Scott Turrow’s Presumed Innocent hit the bestseller lists? Wasn’t it a simple murder mystery?
Build a better mouse trap, the old saying goes, and the world will beat a path to your door. The flip side to that statement is: You can’t sell ice to Eskimos (unless you do it in a commercial for LaQuinta, but that’s material for another essay).
Like a lot of writers, I’ve been selling (marketing) ice to Eskimos. Now, I’m committed to building a better mouse trap.
I had an opportunity to speak with Ken Follett a couple of years ago and to read an interview he gave on this very subject. He said that he had written ten thrillers that were received with “breath-taking indifference.” As a result, he was determined to write a better, more ambitious novel. He began by going to the bookstore in an attempt to figure out why there was only one copy of his book – sitting on the back shelf – but there were dozens by other authors prominently displayed in the front. He read those books to learn what their authors were doing that he wasn’t. In short, he said: “I was learning to raise my game.” And he did. His next novel, Eye of the Needle, launched (or rather, re-launched) his career. The book is still in print over three decades since its initial release.
Do not assume I am saying clichés are our only enemy. They are not. Lazy writing—lazy craftsmanship—is.
Over the course of my writing, I’ve learned the ins-and-outs of marketing and I rarely hear anything that I didn’t already know or haven’t tried. Like most writers, I spend an inordinate amount of time with social media, among other things, in an effort to reach readers, and I do so with a sustained effort. All of this has been to little or no avail. But I’ve learned a lesson from Mr. Follett.
I’ve been studying the writers who are successful in reaching wider audiences. I’ve also begun talking to some of them to learn their philosophy on the writing business (and it is a business) to learn whatever I can that may be adaptable to my own career. I am approaching this on the assumption that if I follow my true calling, my marketing efforts will be more effective. That’s not to say that marketing isn’t needed. It is. Neither am I saying that writers can pass most of it on to the publisher. They can’t. But I am saying that if we write a product that the reader is waiting for—one that requires deeper thinking, superior craft, and that turns convention on its head—our marketing efforts will produce better and longer-lasting fruit.
In my next post, I will outline the lessons I’ve learned.