There’s a lot of talk at present as to whether an author who has had great publishing success in one genre should expand into another. I’ve heard more than one person reference Michael Jordan’s bad baseball career and Donald Trump’s awkward political forays. Very few people mention Jack White’s country music or Ben Affleck’s directing, though. People can change careers or aspects of their career, and do so successfully.
So what is the difference? Why does one personal reinvention flake into ridiculousness while another seems, in hindsight, to be a natural evolution of the soul?
Over at GoodReads author D.M. Dutcher brought up Judy Blume’s Wifey, which is a book I had (mercifully) not thought about for a decade and a half. If you haven’t read it–or indeed, if you have–it is best described as Judy Blume trying to be Erica Jong.
One of the great things that has come out of the whole Casual Vacancy morass is that I’ve really been forced to examine the internal narrative of the author and how it is expressed in work. In my own heart and work I think the truth of things is that there is “what I’m good at” and there’s “what I think I’m good at”, and sometimes even a third “what I want to be good at” which is yet again different from the first two. I know from reviews, interviews and her own website that J.K. Rowling greatly admires Jane Austen and indeed envisioned herself as a writer in the Austen mold. She even said (erroneously, I fervently hope) that “Jane Austen is the pinnacle to which all other authors aspire.”
The Casual Vacancy was J.K. Rowling aspiring to be Austen, just as much as Wifey was Judy Blume aspiring to match her contemporary rival (and frenemy?), Erica Jong. Both Rowling and Blume were authors with nearly unparalleled success in an industry infamously hostile to the very idea of succeeding. When writers succeed outside the narrow constraints of Literary Fiction they often feel like a fraud, or like they’ve left something undone.
Even worse, though, for a true writer, is that one story you’ve carried around with you forever. The first story any writer conjures is Who She Is Going To Be. Rowling was going to be Austen. Her first attempt at that hasn’t been so well-received.*
Me? I’ve got so many books and parts of books lying around my house and my head. The problem seems to be, in part, that I haven’t yet gotten on the boat to Ninevah. In fact, I’m not quite sure which port is actually my Ninevah. For awhile I thought I was a romance writer, but I’m clearly not. And I don’t know if I’m all that great at Aga Sagas either. My deepest fear is that what I’m actually best at is speculative fiction, which is something that has only ever appeared in a prologue to one of my other books but is still among the best work I’ve ever done. I hope I don’t take too much longer to figure it out.
So to answer the title question, I don’t know whether or not authors should branch out of their genre as a rule. But I do know that authors are best when they try to tell their story, and not when they try to tell a story that looks like someone else’s.
*She appears to have done Middlemarch this time. Maybe if her next attempt is more Emma or Pride and Prejudice or even Sense and Sensibility it’ll work more to her favour. Because I don’t like Austen at all, but I can tolerate any of those three books I mentioned, as can most readers. But Middlemarch? That’s some diehard Austen shibboleth.
Dare I mention the shibboleth? I think it’s actually Mansfield Park (Middle March is George Eliot). So I take it you prefer Austen’s comedies over her serious books. I don’t blame you. I have one reason for loving Austen, and it isn’t because her books are my fave ever: they prompted my study of the enlightenment era (from 1666-1830). And, so, because of Jane, I fell in love with James Boswell and Alexander Pope and Samuel Johnson.
I have written a little bit of everything, from comedy to literary to mystery to, finally, my version of spec fic. I will probably self-pub my spec fic, some nonfiction, and my short stories. My mysteries will never see the light of day. Comedies–maybe.
Oops. You are right. I keep saying Middlemarch when I mean Mansfield Park. I have done that for years now and it’s not helped by people calling the new novel “Mugglemarch”
Pardon the brevity and the typos. This was sent from my iPhone.
Wifey…bad, bad memories.
Did I tell you I read the first pages of CV? What struck me was the writing voice–or lack thereof. The simplicity of the writing*..It was almost as if she was trying to write an adult novel in a middle grade voice, but since there was nothing middle-gradish or fantastical about the story it all just fell flat.
(*My stuff is YA, borderline MG, and by simplicity I do not mean dumbed down. My YA writing is simplistic but my story complex. You know, Katherine, what I mean.)
And I so agree on this. There are authors I adore, but would never try to write like. Oh, to write like Neil Gaiman! But were I to try, it would be a betrayal to who I am as an author. But I do travel between genres in my writing–mostly fantasy, but I also write horror. The common element in my successful stories, though, is “me.”
I am working on a manuscript right now that I shared a bit of with writer friend. The audience I believed would be looking at this (once published) is rather different than what I’m used to writing for. I held back, afraid I’d, I don’t know…freak them out? My friend reprimanded me rather sharply (and lovingly) and told me that what was missing was “me.” I put the me back in, and the story is getting oohs and ahhs from critters so far.
You did tell me, but I cannot remember where. Facebook, maybe? Last Thursday and Friday was kind of a crockpotted mess.
It was almost as if she was trying to write an adult novel in a middle grade voice
Yes. Oh so very much yes. And that, more than anything was what got me–from the pages I read–because it just underscored the bleakness AND seemed to be making the Twee reach absurd levels. I didn’t find out until later that “people carrier” is Brit Slang for “mini-van” so when i hit that line in the prologue I was just in major eye-roll mode. Because it just intensified the whole “we’re writing in that dry-wit midgrade voice that we used in Chamber of Secrets”.
People keep complaining about “you can’t compare it to Potter! It isn’t Potter!” which is partly true. It isn’t, and you shouldn’t, but since she brought so much of her Potter voice to it, I think the urge is overwhelming. It’d be kinda like Hugh Laurie doing a Blackadder reunion special with his American accent from House.
That really gets at the heart of the matter because I think her voice and style really is best suited for Harry Potter and really reached it’s zenith in _Order of the Phoenix_ (in retrospect). But she WANTS to be Austen. Serious Austen. Maybe if she tries for comic Austen she’ll do better. But I swear I really can tell when an author is down, if it’s one I read repeatedly, and I felt her depression all through the sections of the book I’ve read. I don’t think she’ll ever get over losing Harry, really.
I held back, afraid I’d, I don’t know…freak them out? My friend reprimanded me rather sharply (and lovingly) and told me that what was missing was “me.”
Yes! I’m so glad you have a friend like that. Because the You is the important element for every writer. When it’s not there everything feels overburdened with the strain of trying way too hard.