I’ve Never Read It, But I’d Like To Write It

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I’ve been hearing variations on this theme quite a bit lately, and it strikes me as off.

Note: I’m not talking about the situation where someone is told that their voice may be suited to such-and-such, so they set off on a journey of discovery to see what such-and-such is all about. There’s nothing wrong with exploration.

No, I’m talking about those who start out by stating their disinterest in a given topic, then follow it up with their determination to write a story like that. They never read category romance, but they’re going to write it. Vampires leave them cold, but bloodsuckers are hot, so off they go. It’s an odd, almost boastful attitude of, “I have no interest in learning more about X, but I won’t let that stop me.”

And every time I hear it, my brain starts whirring like Robbie the Robot and I want to say, “Does Not Compute. Does Not Compute.” I don’t get it at all.

I got into a debate recently about this exact subject. (I was the con side.) The author representing pro made the argument that someone unfamiliar with a particular genre was also free from genre expectations and restraints. The newbie could bring to the table something truly fresh and different.

Okay, I conceded. I think there’s a chance that could happen. There’s also a chance of those three chimps typing Hamlet.

Isn’t it far more likely that an individual with no knowledge of or interest in a particular subject would come forward with something either totally unworkable or else, unconsciously cliched?

I saw the former mostly when I was a regular visitor to the eHarlequin web boards earlier this decade. Occasionally the newbie would visit the board, filled with their radical ideas to revolutionize the “formulaic” category romance novel industry (which, by the way, they’d read approximately two of) by writing — wait for it — category romances where the hero and heroine don’t end up together.

The latter is apparent whenever you start wading through slush piles (or, if you don’t work in the industry, check out writer display sites or those industry blogs that occasionally open themselves up for pitch practice).

When folks advise writers to know the market, they are saying that a writer should be aware of what else is out there. what has come before, what is big now? Read, stay on top of what the audience is reading, etc.

(Note: I know writers who say they can’t read in the genre they are writing while they are writing. Fine. I don’t like to do that either. But you better believe that they read plenty of books like theirs before they attempted to write their own!)

To me, the willfully ignorant stance smacks of the popular fairy tale of someone sitting down one day, banging out a book, and selling it for a gazillion dollars. Yes, there are prodigies, but you hear about them in a disproportionate amount because their story makes for better promo copy than the people who study and work and eventually get good enough to go pro. The whole model is out of whack.

This isn’t how it works, guys. Writing is a profession, like any other. It takes research, practice, hard work, and a knowledge of others in the industry. I can’t imagine an actor who isn’t interested in seeing another actor’s work, a doctor who has no curiosity about the kind of surgeries someone else is performing, an architect who doesn’t care about the building going up across the street.

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