Turn Ons and Turn Offs

I’ve been thinking about tropes and clichés in writing quite a bit lately, both because of interesting posts I’ve read and because I’m trying to refine my author ‘brand’ (oh how I hate that term). After three rejections of my latest manuscript, I feel like I’m either not hitting the mark or I’m really going off into the writing wilderness. To be clear, I know I’m not writing the 'auto-buy' norm in my genre, so let’s just go with the idea that I’m avoiding the commonplace and blazing my own path. There, that feels better than just being a failure.

I was browsing at the fabulous Worthington Public Library, http://www.worthingtonlibraries.org/  this afternoon and realized it doesn’t take me long to reject a book and about ten times as long to find one to check out. So I can somewhat understand editors evaluating submissions making the same split-second decisions, but I do believe it’s incumbent on these gatekeepers to not offer up the same old storylines and archetypes time after time because they are missing new markets of people like me who avoid them as soon as I read the back cover. So this one goes out to editors, agents, and publishers everywhere; Lynn Rae’s lists of fiction Turn Ons and Turn Offs, since I know they are so desperate for my business.

As soon as I see these words or phrases I put the book down:

-any title with ‘Duke’ in it

-vampires or were-anythings

-billionaires

-a protagonist younger than twenty-five

-‘hiding a secret’, 'scarred', or 'walled-off'

-any allusion to psychological problems that warrant therapy/pharmaceuticals, not the magic cure all of sex and/or tracking down a serial killer

-made-up names with lots of paired vowels, consonants, and apostrophes. Can’t pronounce them in my head and can’t keep track of the characters as I’m reading

-protagonists having a fabulous career in unbelievable ways; cupcake maker, corporate art consultant, self-employed international terrorism expert, cocktail designer. Just no.

-a child in peril

Now that I’ve revealed my curmudgeon tendencies, I’ll lighten the mood and list the terms and topics that make me pick up a book instantly

-natural history. Give me dinosaurs, giant squid, sharks, fungus, viruses, and the genetic modification of any or all and I’m on board

-protagonists with appropriate amounts of self-awareness and life skills

-accurate depictions of small town life

-natural disasters and pandemics (but not most zombie apocalypses because the science is nearly always bad)

-protagonists who make clothing, art, food, or gardens as hobbies

-books set in places I’ve been, if only for me to see if the author can communicate that setting to me

There. Looking this list over, I can see I hit the reject button on about seventy-five percent of popular fiction. Hmm…does that mean I’m too picky or does it mean there are a lot of similar books on those shelves?

Let the Writing Begin!

So it's November third and I'm deep into my NaNoWriMo story. November is National Novel Writing Month and there's an online community devoted to encouraging writers to complete a 50,000 word first draft in one month. Now this timeline is problematic for me because of the holidays that fall in November (Veteran's Day, Thanksgiving, Daylight Savings time, etc.) which means my writing time is somewhat reduced. However, I have always met my word count every time I've participated even though my books tend to run about 20,000 words beyond the requirement.
How do I do this? There are all sorts of guides and tips out there for an aspiring NaNo writer, so I won't go into those. I usually have plenty of ideas for stories floating around in my mind, so once I've set on 'the one', I start a notebook and write out my backstory, plan scenes, and write questions out that I'll need to answer as the book progresses. That starts a month before I begin writing. I also do research on the internet and with the help of the Worthington Public Library system (vote yes on Issue 53 Tuesday!).
This time around, my idea was sparked by a submission call from a publisher. Of course, this doesn't mean I'm going to end up with a book I want to submit to anyone, or if I'd even submit it to this company, but I've been enjoying writing 'on spec' for the first time.
Anticipation builds and sometimes I can't resist making note of some runs of dialogue. It's a relief when November first arrives and I can begin. So far I'm at over 5,000 words and I'm happy with where things are going and how my characters are taking shape.
I'll post more later about the story, but first I'm going to list a few of the research topics I've explored and see if anyone can guess what I'm writing about.
1. Top Chef Canada auditions on YouTube
2. Hattie Carnegie costume jewelry
3. knives
4. Daytimers