In praise of Indie authors
One of the things I like best about Indie fiction is the fact that it isn't formulaic.
This is nothing against mainstream authors who have managed to land contracts with big publishing houses. God bless them for their good fortune. That said, it's pretty clear that most of them are producing novels that are heavily influenced by market research commissioned by their publishers. Writing books according to the formulas dictated by that market research reduces the risk of publishing a novel that will not be at least moderately successful in the marketplace.
The result is a lot of books that are written by authors who follow the rules laid down by the industry.
And it shows.
The heroes and heroines - what few there are - fit certain comfortable stereotypes as do the villains. The plots tend to be predictable. That's not to say that they are "bad books," only to point out that they aren't terribly original.
That just isn't the case with Indies who are writing their stories their way. As a result, their books tend to be fresher in their approach to plot, narrative and characters. The plots, in fact, tend to be more complex, the motivations of the characters don't always fall predictably into place, and the result is an entirely different reading experience.
Let me give you one pretty good example of what I'm talking about: "Wild Concept" by C.S. Boyack is anything but formulaic.
To start with, his female protagonist Lisa Burton is beautiful, smart, loyal, strong in both mind and body, and tenacious.
She's also not human.
A highly advanced prototype robot, Lisa has been designed to look, act, and even feel emotions just like a human. As part of her field testing, she is assigned to a local police force as a detective, partnered with a veteran cop nearing retirement who is one of only two people in the Hudson P.D. that know she is a robot. Together they investigate the murders of some upscale escorts. It's a challenging case because the killer leaves virtually no clues behind as to his/her identity and uses an exotic poison to dispatch the victims.
Lisa is, at the beginning of her stint as a police detective, a cross between Sgt. Joe Friday of "Dragnet" fame and Honey West, the private eye played so sensually by Anne Francis.
(Those of you too young to remember either character can Google them...)
Along the way, however, she begins to evolve into her own unique persona and that creates an interesting problem not only for her but also for the corporation that made her. I'm not going to spoil the fun by revealing what that problem is because that would be unfair to those who haven't read the book yet and to Boyack. Suffice it to say that this "problem" becomes the backbone of the novel, giving it shape and substance.
The narrative is straightforward, smoothly written, and contains some scenes that are filled with pathos, which are - in my opinion - some of the most effective in the novel.
They are also scenes that you are not likely to read in a mainstream novel.
That's especially true when it comes to mystery novels written by established authors.
In his narrative, Boyack doesn't spend a lot of time on description, giving the reader a sense of the places that Lisa and other characters inhabit without counting every nail in the floorboards. This is a plus, in my opinion, because it gives the reader an opportunity to use his or her own imagination to fill in those details. In essence, therefore, it allows us to interact with both the story and the characters and that makes the reading experience more enjoyable. Likewise, his secondary characters are finely drawn: They are not just cardboard cutouts whose sole purpose is to fill in some dialogue for Lisa, but are nicely fleshed out.
The point is simply this: I have nothing against mainstream authors but, when given a choice, I much prefer books written by Indies because they offer me a new, often challenging, reading experience.
https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001KCABGK
This is nothing against mainstream authors who have managed to land contracts with big publishing houses. God bless them for their good fortune. That said, it's pretty clear that most of them are producing novels that are heavily influenced by market research commissioned by their publishers. Writing books according to the formulas dictated by that market research reduces the risk of publishing a novel that will not be at least moderately successful in the marketplace.
The result is a lot of books that are written by authors who follow the rules laid down by the industry.
And it shows.
The heroes and heroines - what few there are - fit certain comfortable stereotypes as do the villains. The plots tend to be predictable. That's not to say that they are "bad books," only to point out that they aren't terribly original.
That just isn't the case with Indies who are writing their stories their way. As a result, their books tend to be fresher in their approach to plot, narrative and characters. The plots, in fact, tend to be more complex, the motivations of the characters don't always fall predictably into place, and the result is an entirely different reading experience.
Let me give you one pretty good example of what I'm talking about: "Wild Concept" by C.S. Boyack is anything but formulaic.
To start with, his female protagonist Lisa Burton is beautiful, smart, loyal, strong in both mind and body, and tenacious.
She's also not human.
A highly advanced prototype robot, Lisa has been designed to look, act, and even feel emotions just like a human. As part of her field testing, she is assigned to a local police force as a detective, partnered with a veteran cop nearing retirement who is one of only two people in the Hudson P.D. that know she is a robot. Together they investigate the murders of some upscale escorts. It's a challenging case because the killer leaves virtually no clues behind as to his/her identity and uses an exotic poison to dispatch the victims.
Lisa is, at the beginning of her stint as a police detective, a cross between Sgt. Joe Friday of "Dragnet" fame and Honey West, the private eye played so sensually by Anne Francis.
(Those of you too young to remember either character can Google them...)
Along the way, however, she begins to evolve into her own unique persona and that creates an interesting problem not only for her but also for the corporation that made her. I'm not going to spoil the fun by revealing what that problem is because that would be unfair to those who haven't read the book yet and to Boyack. Suffice it to say that this "problem" becomes the backbone of the novel, giving it shape and substance.
The narrative is straightforward, smoothly written, and contains some scenes that are filled with pathos, which are - in my opinion - some of the most effective in the novel.
They are also scenes that you are not likely to read in a mainstream novel.
That's especially true when it comes to mystery novels written by established authors.
In his narrative, Boyack doesn't spend a lot of time on description, giving the reader a sense of the places that Lisa and other characters inhabit without counting every nail in the floorboards. This is a plus, in my opinion, because it gives the reader an opportunity to use his or her own imagination to fill in those details. In essence, therefore, it allows us to interact with both the story and the characters and that makes the reading experience more enjoyable. Likewise, his secondary characters are finely drawn: They are not just cardboard cutouts whose sole purpose is to fill in some dialogue for Lisa, but are nicely fleshed out.
The point is simply this: I have nothing against mainstream authors but, when given a choice, I much prefer books written by Indies because they offer me a new, often challenging, reading experience.
https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001KCABGK
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