Trends in fiction

I can't keep up. It's starting to get on my nerves when I have a half-decent foundation for an idea - say, robots or zombies or whatever, just a starting point from which to actually begin building a story - and then I find out it's been the in thing in writing for about six months now, and I'm just another drone a-jumping on the bandwagon.

I realise there's nothing new under the sun. Cool with that. But this is getting silly. - For Screnzy two years ago, I started playing with some zombie tropes, hoping to write a funny decon/recon zombie flick. I'd been a fan of Shaun of the Dead, so I knew it had been done, but all of a sudden everyone was doing zombies, wearing zombie t-shirts, making zombie jokes and generally being Genre Savvy enough to negate my supposed cleverness. - Last year, time travel. Set out to write a time travel epic, thinking that one had been dead and discredited for ages, no one would touch it... then it's popular again. Not even sure why that one happened, just everyone knew about it. - This year, it was Mad Science and robots... and then I discovered Portal, and Girl Genius, and a raft of other things that had far, far better combinations of ideas than mine.

So, yeah, bit of a bitch. Ever happened to any other Tropers, or am I just weirdly sensitive to the hivemind?

Heh, guess it sort of happens to me. I'm writing a Urban Fantasy with heavy sci-fi elements, but works like The Dresden Files, Mahou Sensei Negima, and Haruhi Suzumiya is discouraging me.

I'm a failure of an author myself, but why don't you, instead of looking for the newest, try going back to your genre's origin? You know, for example, in zombie flick, you can do some research and find out why zombies are terrifying or appealing and where did the genre launched or how they are portrayed in mythologies and folklores? For Time Travel, for example, you can do some deep thinking about regret, you know, how you sometimes wished that you could go back to the past and redo the thing that you messed up and etc.

As my grandfather told me, if you can't find any inspiration, try studying psychology (ESPECIALLY subconsciousness*

history, or mythology.

I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.

That seems to be selection bias, more than anything else. Girl Genius has been around for at least a decade, for instance.

Da Rules excuse all the inaccuracy in the world. Listen to them, not me.

That was actually the driver behind the first two - a Reality Ensues approach to Time Travel and a reconstruction of the zombie genre.

The psychological aspect is one I hadn't seriously considered, but it makes a lot of sense. Part of the appeal of Time Travel is my own near-obsession with choice and consequence.

Aware of that now. Let's say it's more I suddenly discover a huge amount of popular and well-written fiction covering those topics I've developed an interest in. For the most part, this seems to correlate with a strange increase in everyone else's awareness of those topics and the related fiction.

edited 1st May '11 6:21:18 AM by LongJohnnyStrong

I hate to be harsh, but if your ideas are so easily and consistently destroyed by trends, perhaps they're not that good to begin with? You might want to analyse the specific causes of this and the common factors between the progression of ideas.

Swordsman Troper — Reclaiming The Blade — Watch

That.

Rarely active, try DA/Tumblr Avatar by pippanaffie.deviantart.com

First of all, there's obvious selection bias. These things have been out for years and because you're trying to write in the genre, you notice things that have done what you've done better than you.

Another thing is that you say you're trying to be clever. Stop it. Nothing outdates quicker than cleverness. Unless you can write as fast as Terry Pratchett, and outwit him to boot, don't bother.

I offer my usual advice. There is nothing new under the sun; the wisest recommendation I can humbly offer is to take some time to absorb culture that you, and your target audience, if that audience is different from yourself, typically does not. What that means for you is, of course, for you to decide. Do that, and you might pick up something the mainstream does not; things like that are powerful.

edited 1st May '11 11:01:03 AM by KillerClowns

Mentioned that myself. Would rename thread 'Pointless Bitching', but I can't.

When I say 'clever', I'm being self-deprecating. I'm shooting for something Genre Savvy, self aware, whatever. And yeah, again, I know that when you start thinking about a particular thing, you'll notice it more. My point's more along the lines of me screaming "Why are all the neat ideas taken?!" skyward.

The 'don't try to be clever' imperative is a little depressing. So, given I'm not Pratchett, I should stick to writing terrible pulpy stuff with no self-awareness or, in fact, anything going for it at all. Ok, cool. Won't bother with Horror, then, Stephen King's got that fort covered, and I'm fairly sure everything in Science Fiction was pretty much covered by Asimov. Well, that was easy. Next topic - career ideas, anyone?

I'd say that point was valid if I'd understood it. Are you saying I need to be more original (basically the gripe that started this thread) or just more persistent? Because my ideas aren't 'destroyed' by trends, like shoddy housing hit with a hammer. I'm just trying to avoid jumping on bandwagons. Like playing Frogger. Blind.

Instead of trying to do something new, deliberately do something old.

I think it's just the psychology of thinking about the subject more often causing you to notice the subject more often. For example, now that I'm writing about Beowulf and ancient Scandinavia, I'm seeing these things everywhere I go: allusions in FFXIII, the new Elder Scrolls game, allusions in that stupid anime my boyfriend got into (Kennichi), and more.

It's normal—just get used to it.

edited 1st May '11 8:14:07 PM by annebeeche

Banned entirely for telling FE that he was being rude and not contributing to the discussion. I shall watch down from the goon heavens.

Or take an old thing and add a twist (like Gender Flipping the Magical Girl genre, an idea that I'm obbessing with a little).

Or not so much make a twist so much as take the thing, deconstruct it, reconstruct it, and then make it yours. That's what I did to the classic escaped clone premise of Project One Fifty Four.

edited 1st May '11 8:16:20 PM by annebeeche

Banned entirely for telling FE that he was being rude and not contributing to the discussion. I shall watch down from the goon heavens.

If you've given up on ideas because of trends, I'd say they were significantly damaged.

In any case, what I'm saying is that you should look for the root cause be it internal or external. For all you know, you could just be perceiving the issue and your ideas might carry enough original weight. If not, you'll probably want to find out what's causing you to tread the same conceptual path as others.

Swordsman Troper — Reclaiming The Blade — Watch

You don't understand what I mean.

Think of it like hipsters. They do things that are uncool with irony. Then everyone catches on and it's not cool anymore. It's the same thing with writing "clever" (self-aware, genre-savvy) novels. If you're doing this, you're always racing what's current. Terry Pratchett writes (or wrote, I don't know how he's doing now) two novels a year. He was a novel factory, and that's how he got away with being clever. If you aren't either writing things that are short or writing very fast, there's no way you can keep on top of it.

No. The best advice in this case is to write without irony. Write something that's not dependent on trends. Write something that will always be great. You mention Stephen King — Carrie was written a million years ago and it's still horrifying. Neon Genesis Evangelion? Sure, it's labeled as a deconstruction, but it's so great in its own right that many who don't know the history think of it as Trope Codifier instead. Don't be afraid of sounding overly serious and silly. Just WRITE.

edited 1st May '11 9:10:40 PM by OhSoIntoCats