What makes you different? And what makes you good?

[The Dark One]

I may be projecting my own values here (my wife accuses me of that all the time) but do you wish to stand out from other writers, or do you wish to be regarded as a sound contributor to a clearly defined genre? Both are perfectly valid approaches to writing, and by far the majority of (traditionally) published writers fall into the second category.

I do not.

I don't deliberately set out to be different, but I know that my books are unique in all sorts of ways. I guess this stems from my own take on the world which is probably quite functionalist. I am both a lawyer and historian by training and profession (mostly lawyer) and I see the world in a certain functionally deterministic way. But the way people create meta-realities over the functionality is an endless source of amusement to me and generates many ideas for my novels, which always tend to have an element of social satire (sometimes a very large element).

From a craft perspective, I've never been scared of playing about with form and voice, and there are always massive revelations at the end of my stories.

I suspect my strongest point, besides setting an interesting premise, is dialogue. The secret to this is really knowing the characters and being so deep in their heads that the words flow naturally when they're talking. I've also written a couple of screenplays, which is a tactic I hugely recommend in learning to tell a story with dialogue.

Last of all, I'm funny. I'm very lucky in this regard because it's natural. I don't have to try. I can always make people laugh in social/work situations and that also flows naturally onto the pages of my work. Mind you, I've learned a few techniques, just through analysing what works in my own stuff. One really easy way to laughs is to create a character with huge ego and expectation, set him up, and then bring him crashing down (eg, Zapp Branigan). There are a million such techniques but there is also just the unique and original turn of phrase (eg, Sir Humphrey) which will put readers in the palm of your hand.

So what makes you different and what makes you good?

Let's make this a self-conscious free zone. Feel free to boast. Don't advertise your work, but don't be bashful about telling us why you're worth reading.

 

[wordwalker]

I've been thinking a lot about this myself.

I've been trying to combine different things for a while now-- contemporary fantasy with a lot of mystery who the enemy is or if there is one at all. Shadowed is "He can hear a whisper a block away, and can't remember why," and The High Road starts a new series that's partly about looking back at your life and seeing how many ways the magic had been changing it all. Lots of questions. Also, it's "dark fantasy, no creatures needed," because I like doing everything with human magic and twists instead of making someone a vampire or demon.

But what I'm becoming most aware of is my action scenes. I've done chases, break-ins, battles of wits, and other high-tension sequences where I look back and have trouble thinking of other authors who've cranked the excitement up as high as I have. I've had readers tell me they raced through an 85,000-word book in one evening, . I'm still thinking: what ways are there to use that to attract readers?

 

[Jabrosky]

I would rather not brag about what makes my writing good (I'll leave that to my reviewers), but I do take pride in that I write about subject matter that most other fantasy writers don't. I'm also proud of my relatively strong and independent female characters, who are more likely than not to be warriors or queen regnants than stereotypical prissy princesses.

 

[Katrina Sisowath]

Good question, I hardly know what genre my book falls into. It's a pseudo-historical/mythological fantasy that agents felt should be placed in the religious history genre, even though it centers on the Serpent Priestess cult. I doubt it will be traditionally published.

So far I have posted chapters on other author sites and given it to a reading group for feedback. I thought it would appeal to women around my age (30-40) but got more positive responses from males in their early 20's though one female reader told me she loved it so much she read it 3 times.

Do I sound confused? I am and if I can't label it, then who can?

I believe the plot itself is my strongest point with character development a close second, but that all depends on my mood.

 

[Chessie]

Nice thread, Dark One! Not sure if this makes me different, but I really like the idea of strong characters. The more fire, the better. There's nothing they can't get through, even if I don't know how they'll get through it (and neither do they). I mostly write for the characters. Made up people fascinate me. I would say that's my strongest point. And my favorite is mixing sultry with a raging fire, because conflict rocks my world.

 

[A. E. Lowan]

What makes us different? I'm not sure how different this makes us, because a lot of authors are doing it, but we like to ask the hard questions and talk about subjects that are often regarded as taboo, not just in passing but as major thematic elements in our series. We say we have protagonists and antagonists, but we will very rarely describe a character as a villain or evil because a major theme of our work is questioning the nature of good and evil. We also explore families and child raising within a dark urban fantasy setting as well as sex and power dynamics. We ask a lot of question, but we don't answer any of them - we just present our characters living their lives under extraordinary circumstances as they marry and have children and watch events around them careen out of control.

What makes us good? We've both been writing since we were children and have been trained to it throughout school. We have often been complimented on our writing in the past. When I sit down to review a previous chapter to get back into the work flow before making pages, or to correct something that has been bothering me, I often find myself getting caught up in the story, enjoying the writing as a reader and forgetting what I sat down to do in the first place, even though I've read these pieces ad nauseum! We hope that if we, as the writers, get caught up in our own stories, then readers will, too. I like to say that writers must have equal parts humility and hubris - enough humility to expect rejection, and enough hubris to have the audacity to expect praise.

 

[Feo Takahari]

I posted in a similar thread a while ago. What I said there was that people seem to find my characters likeable and want them to succeed. This feels like a more aspiration-friendly thread, though, so I'll boast a little:

I try to humanize characters I think most authors wouldn't bother with.

A religious fanatic who murders prostitutes. A terrorist who thinks the strong should rule the weak. The timid assistant to a Mengele-like scientist. Any of these characters could be dismissed as "evil," but I put the necessary effort into showing how they think and what they believe in. Sometimes, I actually try to make them sympathetic, giving them a chance to show what they could be outside the confines they've trapped themselves in. Other times, I build up exactly how and why they deserve to be hated. (Of course, since I use the exact same strategy for both, my readers can't always tell which I'm doing--and I'm quite happy with that.)

 

[The Dark One]

Have to say there's some pretty good stuff here. I'm suddenly interested in reading your work which now seems more 'individual' to me. Maybe so much of what we say sort of blurs a little when we speak in the guise of students and quasi-experts, but talking about ourselves as writers (and what makes us feel good about ourselves as writers) brings out the confidence and the uniqueness of the individual.

Reminds me of my pre-published days when I would rarely refer to myself as a writer (and never introduce myself as such) because I hated the inevitable question: Are you published? And then the inevitable cynical smile that meant: OK...time to humour the 'writer'.

Trouble was, I loved (and still do) talking about my writing but I rarely got to do that with people willing to take me seriously. That's what is so good about this forum, but we spend so much time pontificating about the finer points of craft that we sometimes forget to talk about ourselves and what we like about writing and ourselves as writers.

Isn't that the main thing? (Or one of them, at least.)

So feel free to unleash.

 

[Chessie]

I often find myself getting caught up in the story, enjoying the writing as a reader and forgetting what I sat down to do in the first place, even though I've read these pieces ad nauseum!

I love when this happens. Its kind of a surreal 'reader perspective' experience.

I don't talk to many people about my writing because it seems like 'meh' to everyone, or I just get giggles. Aside from my family, others don't think I'm serious, but one day when they're reading my stories I'll revel in the 'told ya so'. I practice having faith in my stories, and in my ability to learn and hone this craft. Though I have my moments of UGH why do I do this to myself? deep down I know there's no turning back, and that I'll do this forever because I love it.

 

[The Dark One]

I love that also. Because I'm typically working on several projects at once, I will often put something down for 6 - 12 months and the rediscovery can be a total joy. But even the work that you're most focussed on - I've just reached the end phase of my new book (which went to press last week) and I read it and read it and read it batting the edits back and forth with the editor, and constantly, even then, I found myself immersed in the story. It's just become so real to me and I'd be deeply depressed now that I don't get to live in that world anymore...except that I've started the sequel.

 

[Ennokos]

To answer the OP, I would have to say I'm irrevocably the first, I want to be different, I want to do things that people have never written before. Usually my self-esteem gets in the way of that, but I can't write any other way.

What makes my writing different? Well I like to create worlds that although are mostly human, can't be compared to the real world, instead going off some ideologies of myself or others. For example, my WIP now has gods, an astral plane of where they live, magic that is deep rooted into the world itself, but absolutely no religion. No culture has it, no matter if they're mages or merchants. So yeah, just expanding ideologies into the world's structure.

What makes my writing good? I don't know. I haven't been published, and all I have right now is a low traffic website, so who knows? I may not be good at all. I do love intertwining storylines from different POV's into bigger plot lines, but again, that doesn't make me good.

 

[Steerpike]

I feel like the way you stand out is through your own narrative style and voice. When you're talking about a particular plot, or type of MC, or type of villain, you're going to cover ground that someone else has covered (which is perfectly fine of course). What makes you different will be how you cover that ground.

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

I don't think I'd say its anything different or ground breaking... But hooks.

I work hard to have some level of hook at the end of every POV sequence. As a reader, I've found this style draws me into the characters and urges me to read on in the story. It develops an increasing interest.

I won't call a chapter finished, even in draft, if it doesn't have a good hook or promise. Sometimes that can frustrate. If I write myself into a corner (half discovery, half outline writer) then I have to work especially hard to create a good hook and finish the POV sequence. Usually though, those are the ones that have the greatest impact...or so I've been told.

 

[Alex Beecroft]

I've always believed that I was different, and had a different perspective on most things than everyone else. After all, I'm asexual and genderqueer, which ought to put me outside the norm in a couple of ways at least. But the older I get the more I'm convinced that everyone thinks they're different, while the people who actually are in any substantive way are extraordinarily rare. I feel like the guy in the Monty Python sketch:
"Yes, we are all unique, we are all individuals!"
"I'm not."

 

[Gurkhal]

I would rather be seen as a contribuator to a pre-existing genre rather than come up with something entirely new.

 

[A. E. Lowan]

I don't think we're so much talking about anything dramatic here. More the little flares of originality that mark our stars in the fantasy universe.

 

[Jabrosky]

I don't think we're so much talking about anything dramatic here. More the little flares of originality that mark our stars in the fantasy universe.

Same here.

The plot I have settled on for my current WIP, Sekhotep and the Key to Heaven, is pretty much your classic "epic quest to save the kingdom" type of plot, but I like to think that at the very least the setting (based on Africa) stands out from the majority of fantasy novels with the same kind of plot.

 

[Matthew Bishop]

Humanizing villains is always good, as mentioned above. When you can put two humanized, sympathetic characters in obvious, unavoidable and confrontational collision, you really create the opportunity to develop the reader as a person and a thinker, and to develop your story as something reflective of a larger world (ours). I think that is one of the greatest achievements of the fantasy genre, at least as far as metaphor goes.
==

MatthewRBishop.com
The history of our world is yet to be written

 

[Guru Coyote]

Oh! Wow! Have I been such a good puppy and actually read what everybody else had to say And very good stuff did they have to say, too.

Yes, we are all unique, it's just you who isn't.

What makes me different and good? I'm not sure, its a ton of small details. Not having had a ton of reader feedback yet, it's not easy to say, really.
Maybe we could create a kind of anti-critique forum? As much as I love the learning experience of challenges and peer-critique... those are always focused on finding what is wrong and needs to improve. Maybe trying it the other way around would be a nice exercise, just this thread here seems to do.

So, me?
I see the world from at least two perspectives at once, usually even far more. I can give you the ins and outs of any situation, just don't ask me to form a final opinion on anything. I don't do opinion in singular.
The other strong thing I have is that I love to combine things in unexpected ways. Wordplay, sticking two things together that don't usually go together, that kind of stuff. Naming an airship "Throne of Stone" because it has a captain called Stone. I do this 'naturally,' and the quotes around that are intentional. I'm not sure if you can call something you have been doing day-in day-out for most of your life... natural. I'd rather call it habitual, as I think it is a skill that has been worked on for years. That this 'work' wasn't hard work is another story

Oh, and I tend to be an optimist. Even if my stories can be very dark... my outlook is usually optimistic. To the degree that one might call my WiP a work of Fantasy Utopia, in the sense that it is the opposite of Distopian.

And to round my self-praise off: I am good at thinking things through. If I put a detail of society or technology in my story, I will usually have though about its implications for quite some extent. Some might say I can be obsessive about those details - I just spent a full week writing code to create a calendar - but I think I just care about it. And, I am also rather pragmatic at times, so I can let things be if I have to.

Those are the things I can observe about myself that I think make me good and maybe different.
I'd love to hear from others what they think is good about my finished work, though. It seems that the better my stories are received... the harder it get's for people to pin-point what makes them good.

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

I don't particularly want to stand out as being a different kind of writer. I write what I know and what I know is fairly much what I read. And I figure that if I enjoy what I read then that's fairly much what I want to write. If there's something I think that hopefully makes my work stand out then I hope it's the stories themselves. The convolutions of plot. The ability for my readers to identify with the characters. And sometimes the philosophical questions asked.

For example - and I won't mention names here - I recently wrote and created an entire novel about what's known as the duplicates paradox. (In essence the Star Trek transporter question, is the guy who arrives at the other end the same guy that left? Or in other words did one guy die and another guy with his memories etc get born?) Before that I wrote a short story about time travel and the possibility that it was the cause of the big bang. And last year I wrote an entire fantasy novel based on the theme of guilt and redemption.

Cheers, Greg.