Why Not Mainstream?

I’ve been mining Dean R. Koontz’s book, How to Write Best-Selling Fiction, for unique writing insights that I’ve shared in recent blog posts. If you’ve found them helpful, I encourage you to read the entire book. Though long out of print, it’s available in most large university libraries and second-hand bookstores. Before we move on, notice what Koontz says about writing mainstream fiction instead of genre fiction. Most ACFW members write genre fiction, but Koontz strongly believes a talented author should write mainstream from Day One.

He began his own career by writing sci fi short stories because he was a fan of that genre, but this limited him to publication in small specialty magazines. Major book publishers seldom acquired sci fi books, even in the glory days of the “Star Wars” series, so Koontz realized he would not reach a very large readership by writing books in this category, so he shifted to writing mainstream mystery novels. In the closing pages of How to Write Best-Selling Fiction, he poses the options to us:

..As I have tried to make clear, the difference is primarily in degree. Mainstream demands more than most genre work—deeper characterization, more background, better-realized thematic structure, more attention to character motivation, fresher action scenes, and a better balance among the sundry elements of fiction. Otherwise, the patterns of mainstream and category fiction are not terribly different from each other. (Of course, this matter of degree, while simple, is enormously important. It explains why a mainstream novelist can sell a million, two million, even ten million copies of a book, while a genre novelist sells 50,000 or 100,000 copies.)[1]

Koontz once thought that budding authors could hone their skills by writing genre fiction and then cross over to mainstream fiction, but not anymore. It’s very difficult for a writer to recalibrate from writing in the structure and style of genre fiction to the richer, more complex approach of mainstream fiction. More important, when an author begins to establish a reputation as a genre fiction writer, editors and readers doubt that he/she will be capable of delivering a mainstream novel. So Koontz puts the question to us:

…Why should you write books reaching tens of thousands of readers when you can perhaps write books reaching millions? If you have an idea for a good genre novel, play with it, work with it, pull and tug and reshape it, until you have broadened the concept and can write it as a larger, more ambitious mainstream book. You will not be sorry.[2]           

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[1] Dean R. Koontz, How to Write Best-Selling Fiction (Cincinnati: Writers Digest Books, 1981), 211.

[2] Koontz, 235. 

Half a Dog Won't Hunt: Writing in a 50% World

Two years ago, I had bilateral knee-replacement surgery. The left knee is nearly perfect. It works fine. The right? That's another story. It's nearly as bad as it was before surgery. I got 50% of what I expected.

Back when temps were over the century mark, my air-conditioning went out. Zilch. Nada. The fan wasn't even blowing warm air. I called the office of the apartment complex where I live, and within a half hour, maintenance had yanked the old unit and wrestled a different one into place. (Notice I didn't say a "new" one.) The fan worked on that one, but it didn't cool. I got 50% of what I expected. After another call to the office, I actually got a new one that cools. Huzzah! 100% at last!

Years ago, I worked in advertising for Sears, Roebuck, and Co. (Yes, it went by its full name before they truncated it, hacking off more than 50%.) I loved my work. I laid out ads, designed and built floor and window displays, and wrote ad copy. When floor managers would go to lunch, guess who got to cover for them. Yep. Me! I loved that, too, because if it was a slow day, I hauled out the hefty books from which the department managers ordered their stock, and I studied, so I knew why this sofa's construction was better than that lower priced one, how muslin differed from percale, how to determine which tire tread would best suite a customer's needs, and how to tie a four-in-hand knot. I also loved those times when business was bustling. The problem-solving element of sales I found exhilarating.

Times have changed. In this 50% world, the part that has been lopped off is service. Seldom can sales clerks tell customers where to find items, especially if it's something outside their department. (In days of old, we had to memorize department names and numbers before we were let loose to help customers.)

Our writers' craft requires 100%. We can't get by with a 50% approach to research, for example. I'm not sure how writers of yore avoided anachronisms, since I'm constantly chasing down internet rabbit trails to verify some fact such as when certain words entered the common lexicon. My work in progress is set in 1935, so Tillie, my ten-year-old protagonist, can't use a bobby pin to hold her hair back, nor can she say to her best friend, "Hey, toots, wha'cha reading?" Neither term was recorded as in use prior to 1936.

As I wrote novel #2, partially set in 1860, I had to toss away a beautiful handgun. I loved that weapon. As guns go, it looked good. It was a revolver that had some shotgun features, too--a gun the southern-Indiana deputy in the story would cherish. Problem was, I learned the following:

1. it wasn't invented until mid-Civil War; 
2.  it was a Southern weapon
3. only a few hundred were manufactured
4. for the most part, it was a favorite of Confederate officers

A pre-Civil War sheriff's deputy wouldn't have had one. What if I had done only 50% of the research necessary to discover the truth?

Consider the many genres of fiction--Regency romance, Amish, bonnet, biblical, historical, thriller. The list is endless. Writers who excel in their genre possess an amazing abundance of esoteric knowledge about that genre. Recently I asked an Amish friend if she reads Amish fiction. "Yes," she said, "but only by the writers who get it right." To get it right, Vanessa Chapman, Wanda Brunstetter, Beverly Lewis, Cindy Woodsmall, Beth Wiseman, Amy Clipston, etc., can't settle for less than 100%. Even if they've lived among Plain communities, they constantly check with contacts for accuracy's sake.

The same dogged determination that drives us to get the facts right should propel us through the other aspects of our writing, as we thoroughly get to know our characters (I like to interview mine, as I've written about before), our setting (sometimes I draw up house plans or layouts of a town or farm to use as reference), and the plot.

The world around us may settle for "50% off," but we dare not. Neither publishers nor readers will tolerate it.

"Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord. . . " ~Colossians 3:23

Write on!
Because of Christ,
Sharon