That Writer Can Really Only Write One Kind of Story

Why is it that some writers seem to be able to write anything, any genre, to any age, with any voice they choose? And other writers who try to move from one genre to another fail miserably? I bet you have all read favorite authors who tried to do something else and found yourself horribly disappointed? I bet you have all thought something along the lines of, that writer really can only write one kind of story. But is it true? Are there writers who are limited or is it the readership they are writing to that it limited?

Watching the Rowling/Galbraith The Cuckoo’s Calling thing, whether or not you think that the reveal was faked or not, I still think that there is an interesting truth to be found here. Did Rowling believe that the first adult title she published was treated differently because of who she was and what she had written before? Yes. Definitely. She got a lot of attention she wouldn’t have gotten if she hadn’t been the writer of Harry Potter. That attention certainly sold books. But it also garnered her a lot of reviews that were nasty, and a lot of readers who felt like what they wanted was more Harry Potter. So she tried something different. I think she succeeded amazingly well. I think the voice is so distinct and the story utterly different than Harry Potter.

But I’ve certainly read other books where I didn’t feel like that was the case at all. As an example, I will mention vaguely an author I admire who recently wrote a young adult fantasy novel. I love this author’s adult fantasy, but I didn’t care for the YA. In fact, I felt like the author didn’t know how to do YA at all and the voice was wretched. But there are certainly other readers who seemed to feel very differently.

A lot of adult authors have tried to cross over to YA or even MG lately and some of them seem to win awards and a lot of readers, while others get labeled “opportunist” and never seem to publish another book in children’s again. Was it because they weren’t trying hard enough? They didn’t do their research? Because they can’t remember what it was like to be children? Because they didn’t get the real criticism they needed to make their story better? Or is it really because they are unable to write a different kind of story?

I puzzle over this as I contemplate my own attempt to write books outside of the genre in which I first had success, young adult fantasy. I’ve tried to write just about everything, from picture books to adult literary. Am I just born to be a young adult writer? Is that just the way my voice on the page sounds to readers? Or is that just the genre that I happened to spend the most time learning early on? If I study hard, can I learn the lessons that will help me to write completely different stories?

Ultimately, I think that many times, writers are constrained by readers more than by their own abilities to write outside of the most popular genre. I know that for me, I often love most a different book from a writer’s oeuvre than is most popular. Maybe this is just my own stubborn need to prove myself different from the masses. But I really think that we get used to expecting one thing from an author that we are not open-minded enough to read other things. So I’m going to list below some of my favorite reads from authors who are known for other kinds of stories.

Shannon Hale The Actor and the Housewife

Megan Whalen Turner Three Wishes

Robin McKinley Sunshine

Lois Bujold The Spirit Ring

Brandon Sandersen Alcatraz and the Evil LIbrarians

Gail Carson Levine Dave at Night

Megan Lindholm/Robin Hobb Wizard of the Pigeons

Margaret Peterson Haddix Leaving Fishers