Vikings and the [Insert Popular Trope Here] Imitiation Effect
This past week, I watched the premiere episode of the History Channel's new show Vikings. For History's first scripted series, it's clear that the network is trying to capture at least some of the Game of Thrones audience with a show that's at least partially "inspired" by historical figures. I put the word in quotes, though, because History has taken what should be a dynamic, exciting, and complex people and boiled them down to mere stereotype. The show is bad, not just because of its historical inaccuracies, but because it does wrong everything that Game of Thrones does right.
Vikings is simply the latest in the ever-ongoing trend of imitation book / film / television properties that piggyback off of a successful story. This trend has occurred throughout history, but has been especially prevalent in the pop-culture tropes of the 20th and 21st centuries. When Star Wars was released in 1977, studios scrambled to get sci-fi film properties into place; when Harry Potter became a publishing phenomenon, editors sought out the next great "boy wizard" tale; and when the Twilight books hit screens, film and television producers snatched up the rights to any YA property that might make for a prominent film or television series.
No doubt many authors and Hollywood executives have seen their careers remain stagnant in the wake of trying to imitate these blockbusters.
As a writer, it's important to consume books by other authors at all skill levels and, less so, to at least keep an eye on what's happening in the publishing world. But authors should never write to existing trends or try to predict what the next big trend is going to be. Publishing with a traditional printer means that your book won't be on the shelf for 12-18 months after it has accepted -- enough time for the current trend to wane, die and be replaced by two others. And predicting that werewolves will be the "next big thing" after vampires will almost certainly lead to failure if you write the story simply to capitalize on readers' current love of the supernatural.
Instead of writing to fickle publishing trends, authors should concentrate on the stories they want to tell. Maybe you do have a great "boy wizard" story to write, as Jonathan Stroud did during the whole Harry Potter craze, but make sure that you're telling the story for the right reasons, and that you have a good story to tell, before investing yourself in what will no doubt be a protracted process of writing and editing. (For the record, Stroud's Bartimeaus trilogy is far and away better than Harry Potter.)
As for trends, who can tell what the next big thing will be? Who would have guessed two years ago that bondage mommy porn a la Fifty Shades of Gray would ever have been a burgeoning genre? Don't try to predict the next phenomenon; instead, focus on telling the strongest story you have to tell with the most skill that you have as a writer. Do that, and you may just start the next craze on your own.
It's safe to say that I won't be tuning in for another episode of Vikings. But I eagerly await being able to watch the second season of Game of Thrones on DVD because I care about complex characters and stories that simply haven't been reheated by a storyteller with mediocre ambition to tell an original and spellbinding tale.
Vikings is simply the latest in the ever-ongoing trend of imitation book / film / television properties that piggyback off of a successful story. This trend has occurred throughout history, but has been especially prevalent in the pop-culture tropes of the 20th and 21st centuries. When Star Wars was released in 1977, studios scrambled to get sci-fi film properties into place; when Harry Potter became a publishing phenomenon, editors sought out the next great "boy wizard" tale; and when the Twilight books hit screens, film and television producers snatched up the rights to any YA property that might make for a prominent film or television series.
No doubt many authors and Hollywood executives have seen their careers remain stagnant in the wake of trying to imitate these blockbusters.
As a writer, it's important to consume books by other authors at all skill levels and, less so, to at least keep an eye on what's happening in the publishing world. But authors should never write to existing trends or try to predict what the next big trend is going to be. Publishing with a traditional printer means that your book won't be on the shelf for 12-18 months after it has accepted -- enough time for the current trend to wane, die and be replaced by two others. And predicting that werewolves will be the "next big thing" after vampires will almost certainly lead to failure if you write the story simply to capitalize on readers' current love of the supernatural.
Instead of writing to fickle publishing trends, authors should concentrate on the stories they want to tell. Maybe you do have a great "boy wizard" story to write, as Jonathan Stroud did during the whole Harry Potter craze, but make sure that you're telling the story for the right reasons, and that you have a good story to tell, before investing yourself in what will no doubt be a protracted process of writing and editing. (For the record, Stroud's Bartimeaus trilogy is far and away better than Harry Potter.)
As for trends, who can tell what the next big thing will be? Who would have guessed two years ago that bondage mommy porn a la Fifty Shades of Gray would ever have been a burgeoning genre? Don't try to predict the next phenomenon; instead, focus on telling the strongest story you have to tell with the most skill that you have as a writer. Do that, and you may just start the next craze on your own.
It's safe to say that I won't be tuning in for another episode of Vikings. But I eagerly await being able to watch the second season of Game of Thrones on DVD because I care about complex characters and stories that simply haven't been reheated by a storyteller with mediocre ambition to tell an original and spellbinding tale.
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