Leaving Your Mark

[Philip Overby]

Sometimes I think as a writer, "What am I doing differently than anyone else?"

This isn't the age old, "Am I original?" question, but more like what as a writer am I offering the genre. It doesn't necessarily have to be reinventing the wheel, but figuring out what separates me from other writers.

For me, I hope to see more cracking open of the genre so to speak. In a recent discussion, it was mentioned that fantasy sometimes focuses on a very narrow method of story-telling. If people are good at this style, that's great. However, with fantasy being a genre where literally anything can happen if you make it believable, why not be more daring as writers? Again, I don't mean turning the entire genre on its head, but it would just be awesome for me as a reader and a writer to see fresh ideas (notice I didn't say new) explored in the genre.

So my questions are, "What attributes as a writer will distinguish you from others? Do you want to be distinguished from others even?"

 

[skip.knox]

No desires along those lines, and here's why.

When I read a book, I am never thinking "this is like that". Nor do I think "this book contributed X to this genre." I just don't think that way, though I'm aware others do. All I care about is, did I enjoy the book. Did it draw me in, keep me there, and send me on my way satisfactorily. I think that's enough to ask.

It's about what I ask of a song or a painting. Just do the deed, artist, and I'll let you know if I enjoyed it, as that single act of art. Sure, I'm going to like some pieces more than others. Some will speak to me and not necessarily because it's superlative or original; sometimes it's just because that particular work came along at a particular point in my life and there was a connection. There's a sunset every night, but only some sunsets are special to me, and it's not the sunset's fault.

So, no, I don't think much about it. I have some stories to tell and they're the only stories I have, and I won't have time enough to tell them all. If I get half of them out before I die, I'll be tickled pink. Well, bluish-gray, but whatever. I'll let someone else worry which shelf they go on.

 

[Feo Takahari]

I feel like I can't do the best possible job at the stories I want to tell, so I try to do the best available job by telling stories no one else is telling. To give an example of what I mean by that, I have one story that takes place on an island in the Pacific. I believe that a person who lived on an island in the Pacific could have written the story better than I could--they could have tied it into local life and culture, adding tidbits about everything from the flow of the tides to the accents of the tourists. But I've never read a fantasy story set on a Pacific island, and I did my research and tried my best, so I think I at least accomplished something.

(There is one thing in my life I believe I could tell well. I think I could explain how it feels to know that someone you respect hates you, and not understand what you've done to make them angry. But it's bad enough I lived that--I don't like thinking about it, and I don't want to write about it.)

 

[Quillstine]

I think we all have a voice that is unique and interesting. So long as we use it and write what we are passionate about, then surely we are leaving our mark.
For me personally the real drive for writing as opposed to anything else is escapism. I love being in new worlds and meeting new people. More than leaving a mark....I need a place to go, to experience things.

Here is a line from my Mission Statement that I read every day....that probably sums it up best.

My books capture those fleeting firefly moments of magic into a jar, so there tiny twinkling lights can be passed down generation upon generation and serve to teach, inspire and instill a sense of enchantment to anyone, of any age, who cares to peer inside.

 

[Penpilot]

Early in my writing life, I fell into the originality trap, so I try not to think too much about if I'm distinguishing myself or not. I mean this doesn't mean I don't strive for freshness, but I think that's just a by-product of me being me. Each of us have unique life experiences and view points and that's what I think distinguishes all of us. But IMHO not everyone has learned to tap into those experiences effectively and used them in stories, to color the characters, the word, and the plot. Sometimes it can be uncomfortable to dig into your dark parts. I've made people laugh and cry, and I find that when they do, It's because I've drawn from myself honestly and let the shape of my characters mould that. So the raw spark is me, but it gets refined through the machinery of the character into something new. The raw stuff, and ones ability to draw from it effectively, that's what distinguishes.

 

[FatCat]

I have to admit, if you're not out to leave your mark then you're not trying hard enough. If you write a story that you aim for baseline average, then that lacks passion. If you write a technically sound novel with no personnal innovation (unique style, verbosity, structure) then you've aimed for just what you've acheived, the average. Why bother with being average? I'd rather go unknown than make a goal of the comfort zone. That's my personal opinion, obviously, but there has to be a small part of every writer that aims for the goal of lauded ability in literature, to some extent. I mean, we all believe our thoughts are interesting enough to be read en-mass, why shy away from the ego?

As for what I believe in making myself original, nothing as of yet. I'm still learning on how to build a chair, not form a new way of sitting, so to speak. But the allure is there, the passion is alive, and I have a long time to figure out how to do what I want to do.

 

[buyjupiter]

I feel like I can't do the best possible job at the stories I want to tell, so I try to do the best available job by telling stories no one else is telling.

That perfectly encapsulates a lot of my writing nerves right there! I, too, feel like I'm not the best person to tell certain stories. But there's always this weird wacky idea that enchants me that nobody else wants to tell, because it'd be too silly, or it couldn't be done without humor, or it's plain weird. Those are the stories that I want to tell.

To get back on topic, I think that a lot of the stuff that would set me apart would be along the lines of humor, poetical philosophical mumblings, and a lack of fear in handling a diverse cast. I think I've done enough people watching, and experienced enough life that I can at least get a realistic sketch of someone who lives in a world far outside of my own.

I don't know that I want to be distinguished at all. I'd like to get paid, and I'd like to have a higher ratio of paychecks to rejection letters. I'd like to know that people like my work, but not to the point of crazy fan letters. By which I mean anything...odd...sent via mail. (Maybe this is part of the reason that I don't really want to be a novelist? Ok, no, that's really because I'm lazy. Novels are hard work!)

 

[The Dark One]

As FatCat said, if you're not original why bother?

Mind you, there is a drawback to originality...publishers and agents find it scary. It took me 15 years to get a novel accepted and looking back I can interpret the entire process as a gradual negotiation between me and the Strange Gods of Publishing to compromise on something I could be proud of and they could be confident the market would recognise.

Win win.

 

[Philip Overby]

I have to admit, if you're not out to leave your mark then you're not trying hard enough. If you write a story that you aim for baseline average, then that lacks passion. If you write a technically sound novel with no personnal innovation (unique style, verbosity, structure) then you've aimed for just what you've acheived, the average. Why bother with being average? I'd rather go unknown than make a goal of the comfort zone. That's my personal opinion, obviously, but there has to be a small part of every writer that aims for the goal of lauded ability in literature, to some extent. I mean, we all believe our thoughts are interesting enough to be read en-mass, why shy away from the ego?

As for what I believe in making myself original, nothing as of yet. I'm still learning on how to build a chair, not form a new way of sitting, so to speak. But the allure is there, the passion is alive, and I have a long time to figure out how to do what I want to do.

I agree with this stance for myself, but I don't begrudge others if they are comfortable just telling stories and not worrying about getting any deeper than that. If writers can reach their goals and tell the stories they want, then that's all that matters.

By leaving my mark, I don't mean being super famous or anything. I would just like for my style to stand out in one way or another. I don't expect it to be completely original, but just to offer a certain kind of reading experience that may not be as typical.

 

[BWFoster78]

As for what I believe in making myself original, nothing as of yet. I'm still learning on how to build a chair, not form a new way of sitting, so to speak.

This.

Until I am fully confident in my ability to tell a story that will entertain people, I couldn't care less about originality. Once I get to the point where I can walk across a room without stumbling, I'll worry about dancing or sprinting or hopping or whatever my writing becomes that makes me unique.

 

[glutton]

At the risk of sounding like a parrot at this point, the main thing that distinguishes my stuff is my tendency to go all out with my physically powerful, ultra tough and strong (without magical, etc. justification) warrior heroines, without much consideration for 'believability' or 'realism'. It's fantasy, my epic heroines should get to perform larger than life feats of strength and durability just like the guys XD.

Also my insistence on using modern language in medieval-esque fantasy worlds and my lower than average amount of description of surroundings I guess.

 

[Malik]

You guys know that I'm a research and realism nazi.

I have a very specific goal: I want my series to do for swords and mail what Tom Clancy did for the nuclear submarine and what Stephen Hunter did for the rifle.

Also, I want to bust a recurring trope. I have a main character who is outstanding at what he does but who is a social outcast because of his love for the thing that he does well. Throughout the series, his ability to kick ass keeps getting him into deeper and deeper trouble with increasingly powerful people. It's a radical departure from what I see again and again in portal fantasy, where the MC goes from being a useless, stoop-shouldered teenage outcast with no redeeming skill set to suddenly becoming all-powerful for no adequately explored reason other than "His sword is, like, magic and makes him awesome and stuff." You don't worry about whether or not my MC is going to fight his way out of the jam he's in; you worry what the blowback is going to be this time. If I did this right, you're grinding your teeth because his awesomeness is going to dig his hole even deeper, and you can see that and he can't.

I delve into metallurgy, and tactics, and combat, and economics, and politics, and language structures, and horsemanship, and the vagaries of stunt work, and wilderness survival and hunting and fencing and judo and knife fighting and why Viking swords didn't have handguards when European swords from the same time period did. I break it down as the MC's go through this fantasy world and explain not how everything works, but how the things that matter work -- at least, as they understand it. The realism and mechanics are explained through the MC's expertise and knowledge and viewed through their eyes.

Poul Anderson did a lot of this in Three Hearts and Three Lions with an engineer who wakes up in a medieval society after a battlefield wound, and it was done very well in Richard Sapir's The Far Arena, a reverse-portal-fantasy in which a Roman gladiator wakes up in the 20th Century. It hasn't been done in epic / high fantasy, that I've seen, at least not to wide critical acclaim and commercial serial success. That's where I want to go. That's what I want to do. And I want to keep it gritty and dark and tough and dread-inspiring in places.

A beta reader called Dragon's Trail "A Connecticut Yankee in Westeros." That's a mark I'd certainly want to leave.

 

[GeekDavid]

I'm thinking my defining characteristic is going to be my willingness to make characters protagonists that are out of the ordinary.

Librarian, which I still want to get back to someday, has a disabled wizard as the main character. About the only other disabled MC I've seen were in Steven Donaldson's work.

My current untitled WIP is going to feature a priest as the MC. Wizards as MC in fantasy are dime a dozen; priests, not so much. They exist, but in far fewer numbers.

I've also got a superhero story in planning where the MC superhero has pretty much no powers that would be useful in combat. But, he does have superhuman powers, and he tries to stop the bad guys, so by definition he's a superhero. Most of the superhero stuff I've read recently (though I've skipped a lot that looked like dreck) focuses on the superstrong heroes.

See a pattern there?

 

[Quillstine]

Early in my writing life, I fell into the originality trap, so I try not to think too much about if I'm distinguishing myself or not. I mean this doesn't mean I don't strive for freshness, but I think that's just a by-product of me being me. Each of us have unique life experiences and view points and that's what I think distinguishes all of us. But IMHO not everyone has learned to tap into those experiences effectively and used them in stories, to color the characters, the word, and the plot. Sometimes it can be uncomfortable to dig into your dark parts. I've made people laugh and cry, and I find that when they do, It's because I've drawn from myself honestly and let the shape of my characters mould that. So the raw spark is me, but it gets refined through the machinery of the character into something new. The raw stuff, and ones ability to draw from it effectively, that's what distinguishes.

Could not agree more...

I agree with this stance for myself, but I don't begrudge others if they are comfortable just telling stories and not worrying about getting any deeper than that.

I have to admit, if you're not out to leave your mark then you're not trying hard enough. If you write a story that you aim for baseline average, then that lacks passion.

I think this is probably the wrong wording. I don't feel we others are saying we have no intention of leaving our mark...of writing baseline average, mediocre, dime a dozen work, with no intention of taking it any deeper. Nor do I think we lack passion. (I know it’s not what you were meaning, but still I thought I would comment all the same as I feel a need to defend us!)

It takes a lot of effort to write a novel, if you are doing it, then by pure definition you are showing tremendous passion. Also if you have written some 50 – 105K words about a topic…it is most likely “deep” for you. Otherwise you get bored and drift onto new stories!

I feel what some of us are saying, well at least I am, is that my main concern is not focused on leaving a mark or not. I am not so concerned with the idea of ensuring what I am writing is original, fresh or a breath of change for the genre. I am consumed with my world and my characters and writing my novel true to THEM, true to me.

I write because I love it, for me it’s about getting stories down, words on a page. Telling what I want to tell. My mark will come from the fact that I am doing what I love to do, that I have taken the time to get to know my characters, to love my world and to tell it as if it whereas flesh and blood as the reality I live in. Not from me ensuring I have taken the time to make sure my work is different.

For me, if I am to leave a mark, then it needs to be a natural part of people appreciating what I have created, A flow on from the process of my writing and the tale I am telling, not the reason for it. So I don’t think about it…I write and concern myself with every word being better than the last. Every story being an improvement to my art. Every character being better-rounded and every plot being more intricate and interesting. Over that, I let the pieces fall where they may.

 

[Philip Overby]

I made this point in the OP.

Sometimes I think as a writer, "What am I doing differently than anyone else?"

This isn't the age old, "Am I original?" question, but more like what as a writer am I offering the genre. It doesn't necessarily have to be reinventing the wheel, but figuring out what separates me from other writers.

So for me, this isn't a question of doing something completely original or bringing something new to the genre. I personally would like to do that, but if leaving your mark is telling the best story you can with the tools you have, then that's great. My question was more about what are you doing that sets you apart in some way? If it's your focus on making believable characters, a rich setting, whatever.

Maybe the better question would be "What do you want your writing to be known for?"

So I don't think just because a writer doesn't worry with being completely original that means they lack passion. I just wonder if you're writing an epic fantasy and there are five books to choose from on a shelf, what might the reader consider?

This is just a slight experiment. Blurbs are one of the most important things to get someone to read your book. This is your chance to make your story stand above the pack, right? What I'm saying is, what is going to make a reader want to buy your book? It's hard to say let the writing speak for itself if no one actually cracks the book open.

Say we have these five books on the shelf. Here are the blurbs (I'm not putting a lot of thought into these, so excuse me ):

1. A young man must take on the Faceless Swarm while seeking out his destiny as the Grazul Morth, the Goblin Slayer of prophecy.

2. A young man must take on the War Mechs of the Dwarven Fleet and secure his birthright as king of the were-tigers.

3. In 23rd century Tokyo, a cybernetic wizard faces the greatest witch hunt in history, in the midst of an underground civil war pitting yokai versus human.

4. A young girl must secure her role as the fairy princess by going on a quest to save the last pegasus.

5. A farm boy discovers he is truly meant to be a farm boy, and wards off his land from cultists who beg him to be the Chosen One to deliver them from the grip of a dread warlock.

So if I had these five books on the shelf, and I'm looking at them, which one would appeal to me the most? Even though some of them sound cooler than others to me, I'd probably pick the farm boy remaining a farm boy. Simply because for me I would think, "Hmm...haven't read anything like that before. The farm boy decides to stay a farm boy and actually refuses to help against the Dark Lord?"

While this story may not be entirely original, it "pings" something in my head. All the other stories are different versions of epic fantasy. While they all may be good, to me I would be more attracted to an author that is giving a slightly different POV on the genre.

Again, that's just me. I agree in letting the writing speak for itself. But the key is to getting people to buy the books so they can SEE the writing. As I mentioned, if I had those five books in front of me, I'd probably pick up the one that just sounds slightly different.

 

[buyjupiter]

Ah, well in that case...

I'd be known for writing about domestic situations. A witch with a child who isn't all that in love with being a mother. A family of dwarves who are poor. A story about a guy who goes to a cave to choose his future (all possible futures can be seen) and is killed on the way back from his journey because...well, because he slept with the wrong person's daughter.

I guess I'd want my mark to be characters that you fall in love with. Maybe they remind you of your crazy aunt Cathy, maybe they show you a different way to view the world. Maybe they're just like you, but the parts of you that you try to hide and disguise.

"A young man must take on the War Mechs of the Dwarven Fleet and secure his birthright as king of the were-tigers."

I must say that sounds pretty darn interesting right there. Have you written it?

 

[Philip Overby]

Ah, well in that case...

I'd be known for writing about domestic situations. A witch with a child who isn't all that in love with being a mother. A family of dwarves who are poor. A story about a guy who goes to a cave to choose his future (all possible futures can be seen) and is killed on the way back from his journey because...well, because he slept with the wrong person's daughter.

I guess I'd want my mark to be characters that you fall in love with. Maybe they remind you of your crazy aunt Cathy, maybe they show you a different way to view the world. Maybe they're just like you, but the parts of you that you try to hide and disguise.

"A young man must take on the War Mechs of the Dwarven Fleet and secure his birthright as king of the were-tigers."

I must say that sounds pretty darn interesting right there. Have you written it?

No, I just made it up ten minutes ago. The interesting thing about that is if you took that idea and had five different people write it, you may end up with something that is awesome, OK, or really horrible. It really depends on the execution of course. But my point was that you have to give readers something to sink their teeth into. If there isn't something that stands out in some way, readers may gloss over it.

 

[Svrtnsse]

I thought a bit about this last night and I realized it's not so much the stories as the escapism in general that drives me. The written story is just the easiest way for me to achieve that. I don't necessarily have a certain story that I want to tell or share with the world. There's no specific character that begs to have their fate known.
What I want to do is to give people that feeling of immersion and sense of wonder that comes from reading a really good fantasy novel - as if you were there in the world yourself and experienced what went on in it. The exact story I'm telling them to achieve this is less important I realized; it's the world that matters.

I've been so immersed in learning to write properly that I'd forgotten about this, but it's really how it started. My world was initially meant as a setting for Pen & Paper RPGs so that people could make up their own adventures and their own experiences. It's why I put it up as open source on a wiki instead of hoarding all of the information for myself and putting it out in a big source-book somewhere down the line (I may still do that at some point).
The stories just came in as an after thought partway through the project. Don't get me wrong, writing stories is great fun, I'm not knocking that in any way, it's just that to me it's more about the setting and the escapism than the story itself.

 

[Quillstine]

I thought a bit about this last night and I realized it's not so much the stories as the escapism in general that drives me. The written story is just the easiest way for me to achieve that. I don't necessarily have a certain story that I want to tell or share with the world. There's no specific character that begs to have their fate known.
What I want to do is to give people that feeling of immersion and sense of wonder that comes from reading a really good fantasy novel - as if you were there in the world yourself and experienced what went on in it. The exact story I'm telling them to achieve this is less important I realized; it's the world that matters.

I've been so immersed in learning to write properly that I'd forgotten about this, but it's really how it started. My world was initially meant as a setting for Pen & Paper RPGs so that people could make up their own adventures and their own experiences. It's why I put it up as open source on a wiki instead of hoarding all of the information for myself and putting it out in a big source-book somewhere down the line (I may still do that at some point).
The stories just came in as an after thought partway through the project. Don't get me wrong, writing stories is great fun, I'm not knocking that in any way, it's just that to me it's more about the setting and the escapism than the story itself.

I love your wiki and think it's an awesome idea....I may even copy it!

 

[Svrtnsse]

Thanks. That's very encouraging to hear.