More of the Same
Or Tap a New Vein?
Today over dinner—and by today I mean yesterday today, as in when I was writing this, not today today as in when you are reading this—my partner told me about a YouTube channel he watches called Technology Connections, who does a No-Effort November each year. That is, he still puts out video content during the month of November but he puts no effort into that video content. No research, no editing, just low-effort videos all month long. I regret that Joy did not tell me about No-Effort November nine Shelf Lifes ago because I could have really put this idea to good use. Then again, I rarely do research or editing for Shelf Life so maybe No-Effort November in Shelf Life would have just been more of the same as usual. Which brings us to today’s topic.
Today’s topic also arose from over-dinner conversation with my partner but that of several days ago. At the time he suggested I write a Shelf Life about it but then I wrote the cookbook editing Shelf Life instead because that was easy and I was tired, but now I’m even more tired and I have no easy topics on the docket so. Poor planning on my part. That, too, is more of the same.
He asked me to consider whether it’s better to create content that is very similar to past content you’ve created, if the past content was well-received, versus branching out and trying new things. The example he cited was video game publisher Ubisoft and specifically their Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry franchises. Not having played those I’m relying on his explanation, which was this: If you’ve played one Assassin’s Creed (or Far Cry) game, and liked it, chances are you’re going to like any of the other games in that franchise, too, because it’s pretty much the same game over and over again. The characters and the setting might be a bit different but the gameplay is the same and the plot follows pretty much the same path.
His thought was, this is a good thing: You have a winning formula. You know people like this and want more of this. Why break the mold trying something new when you have a sure thing on your hands?
And yet, he tells me, reviewers of new franchise installments often complain that there’s nothing new or original in the latest iteration and it’s just more of the same, and that’s a reason to knock points off the score or a drawback. So clearly there’s some appetite for innovation in this market, too.
I’ll risk spoiling the plot of a game that’s old enough to drink alcohol to say that Hideo Kojima made a game about this phenomenon in 2001 when he put out Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, which twists the fan sentiment of “I want exactly this same thing [Metal Gear Solid] again!” The events of the plot are suspiciously similar to those of Metal Gear Solid, but in a different setting and with a different cast of characters including a new main character (Raiden) replacing franchise hero Solid Snake. In the final twist it is revealed that Raiden has been put through a series of calculated paces (the plot) in an attempt to recreate the circumstances that forged Solid Snake into the incredible solider he has become—that is, the events of previous franchise games.
Anyway, I see this question come up in the writing community all the time so it’s relevant: Can I pivot from adult to YA (or vice versa) without confusing my readers and hurting my brand? If I want to write in two genres, should I use separate pen names? Should I take a creative risk with my next story or give my readers more of what they already told me they like?
Obviously I can’t advise any specific writer whether it’s a good move for sales to strike out on a new path or retread familiar ground. It’s really very much down to who your buyers are, how they feel about you, and what they’re looking for. You can’t count on 100 percent of your existing pool of buyers to follow you to a new demographic or genre because some of them are likely readers of that specific demographic or genre.
For instance, I have friends who wouldn’t touch YA with a ten-foot pole; it’s just not their cup of tea. It appeals to them not at all. If an author whose adult fiction they like put out a new title in the YA space, would they follow that author? It depends, but probably not. Another example I can give is a friend who despises anything with speculative elements: If the story has elements that couldn’t exist in the real world, she has no interest in it. If her favorite romance author put out a science fiction book—even if it had the romance elements she likes!—there’s no way she would read it. She’d rather read a non-speculative romance novel by pretty much anyone else.
That doesn’t mean you alienate those readers, though. If they like your adult fiction and hate YA on principle, that doesn’t mean you burn a bridge. It may mean they skip your YA title and keep an eye out for your next adult title. It can also mean that they read something else while they’re waiting for your next adult title and forget about you. Readers can be fickle. You might have some readers peel off that way.
There are plenty of cases of authors using different pen names to differentiate the different types of fiction they write. For instance, there’s urban-fantasy author Gail Carriger who also writes queer sci fi romance as GL Carriger; mainstream fiction author Iain Banks who also writes sci fi as Iain M Banks; and noted bigot and mediocre middle-grade fantasy author JK Rowling who also writes detective stories under the pen name Robert Galbraith (perhaps taken from famed psychiatrist Robert Galbraith Heath, who pioneered gay conversion therapy?).
Rowling elected to write adult works under a pseudonym purportedly to see if those works could stand on their own, without her famous name encouraging sales. Likewise, Stephen King wrote under the pen name Richard Bachman in the 1970s and 1980s to see if his books would sell on their own merits and to avoid oversaturating the market with “Stephen King novels” (which, we have since learned, is not possible).
Stephen King is a great example of walking both paths: The familiar and the novel. The early Stephen King bibliography contains a lot of books that follow the same winning formula: Take X ordinary thing but make it evil, often in a supernatural way. You know? An unpopular high school student. A Saint Bernard. A laundry mangle. A Plymouth Fury. A—clown? Clown holding a balloon? Possibly the balloon itself? I don’t know, the thing from It. Anyway, this was the Stephen King formula and everybody liked it. In the 1990s he really branched out into other kinds of stories with titles like The Stand, Dolores Claiborne, and The Green Mile. However, by that time in his career, King could likely afford to spend time on a manuscript that might not succeed. I would venture so far as to say that King’s career was made on the more-of-this-same-winning-formula model.
I also want to illustrate a triumph in the other arena: When a success is followed by another success in a completely different vein. I’m actually thinking of Alien (1979) and Aliens (1986)—because I am always thinking of Aliens, actually. Alien was a huge success and broke ground in the body horror genre and the used-future aesthetic; a masterpiece of a horror film. But instead of issuing a sequel in the horror genre, James Cameron took the same protagonist and antagonist, the same theme, and the same aesthetic and came up with an iconic 1980s popcorn action movie.
I am now conscientiously ending the section on the Alien franchise so I don’t go on about it for 1,000 words.
In the literary arena, I think of Sarah Gailey as an exemplar in this strategy. Although Gailey writes generally speculative fiction, each of their novels (and novellas) stands alone and each title is different: Academic sci fi thriller, alternate history, LGBTQ+ wild west, magical school detective story, and so on. Each of these titles has been successful enough to secure publication of the next, so Gailey clearly is crushing it.
Margaret Atwood is another versatile author; I would put most (or all) of her writing under the broad heading of feminism but most of her stories stand alone (excepting the duology of The Handmaid’s Tale/The Testaments and the trilogy that kicked off with Oryx and Crake). There’s dystopian speculative fiction, apocalyptic science fiction, literary generational saga, historical fiction—all over the place, and several of them modern classics.
None of this answers the question of whether it’s better to stick with what you know you’re good at instead of veering off into new territory—or whether you should use a different pen name to do so—but I hope I’ve given solid examples of authors who have succeeded both ways.
When I think of Margaret Atwood and Sarah Gailey, I find I feel very confident that I am likely to enjoy anything they write. The genre they write in and demographic they write for are immaterial to whether I will like the book or not. I trust these authors to tell me a good story and I’m not fussed about any of the other details. Although I think both are brilliant authors, it’s not because I think either of them is so unique or groundbreaking that I would follow them to any story just to see what they’ll do. It’s more that they’ve demonstrated for me that their mastery of storytelling isn’t limited to one demographic or genre (or a couple).
On the other hand, I don’t necessarily feel that way about, say, Stephen King. I trust him as an author to tell me a great horror story or dark fantasy story, and I’ve enjoyed some of his darker realistic fiction that is light on horror elements, but if he announced he was writing a romance novel I would not pick it up, because that’s not what I reach for a Stephen King novel to read. I was about to say this is why I have never read 11/22/63 but then I just read the synopsis and decided it sounds interesting so I might give it a go. Time travel stories are a favorite (story type) of mine. Anyway, that’s why I have never read Under the Dome.
I know we’re all out here just trying to write the best we can, but my advice to someone who wants to write stories across genres and demographics is to go for it—just do it, like Nike says—but try to tell stories that build reader confidence in you to tell an amazing story no matter what kind of story it is. There’s always an opportunity to write a sci fi thriller even if your last 99 books were historical romances. Don’t let anybody say you can’t or shouldn’t.
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