So write your story. Data be damned.
My mother loves to read. Her preferences are limited. Non-fiction or literary fiction. A high-brow reader as I like to say. I occasionally share books with her, and she with me. Rarely does that work out well. Not that I don’t appreciate literary fiction. I’ve read my share of seriously swoon-worthy prose. Books that make me giddy. It’s just that I also simply love to escape into something that allows me to wind down. I don’t read horror or graphically violent novels. I generally prefer humor and romance and tales of the unbelievable. If I read non-fiction, it will be biographical in nature. Almost always. I don’t judge anyone else’s reading list, don’t judge mine. Mom… please. Don’t.
She can’t help herself. It’s a mom thing.
Which brings us to my point today. I let my mother read my debut novel. Good lord I have no idea what possessed me. I mean, it’s a lighthearted, romantic, funny, cozy mystery with absolutely no book club discussion value. That’s not to say the reviews haven’t been surprisingly positive. My sisters, both academics, loved it. Perfect strangers loved it. I’m pretty sure it’s that escape value I built in. But my mother? Again, what the hell was I thinking?
She read it. Called me on the phone.
So I read your book…
I stopped what I was doing, held my breath, waiting for that somewhat snarky critique I knew was coming.
It’s fabulous! I couldn’t put it down.
Wait. What? My mother read what she in her words would normally describe as a airport bookstand novel and loved it. This was a game changer for me. And no, it didn’t happen thirty years ago. More like three months ago.
So let’s spin this shall we? I spent a lifetime in marketing. Battling my colleagues who felt data should drive all decisions. But why? Knowing someone loves Cheddar does not mean they won’t love Swiss. Knowing someone owns a sports car doesn’t mean they aren’t 8 months pregnant and need a change. Knowing my mother hates fluffy romantic paperbacks doesn’t mean she will hate my novel. In fact, my first instinct is to think she never actually held any disdain at all for romance novels. I think maybe she’s been harboring a secret guilty pleasure. One she will never confess to.
My research told me to write a crime novel or something for the YA market. Or fantasy. Clearly there’s more demand for these books. But being a slave to data is stifling. Unleashing my creativity would mean ignoring what for me was a life of common sense = dollars and cents.
Ever play Family Feud?
Survey says! In this highly popular TV game show, the answers to seemingly simple questions often aren’t even on the board. Nope. Nobody but Grandma Shoemaker thinks licorice is called the devil’s candy. And nobody, except her grandson, calls cinnamon rolls bunky cakes.
Data is alluring. Data analysis. Data mining. Big data. Small data. Human behavior transposed into numbers upon numbers. And make no mistake, it certainly applies when writing non-fiction. It works for refining and developing your marketing strategically. A successful book launch depends upon it. However, and it’s a big however, human behavior is about evolving. Learning and adapting. What’s true today can change tomorrow. More importantly though, as our environment and our situations change, so do our preferences and needs and wants. We aren’t static beings.
Books are. Once written, they remain as they were for the most part. Authentic. Timeless. Jane Austen wrote her fabulous novels over two centuries ago. Shakespeare penned his plays over four centuries ago. And yet we still find ourselves enraptured by their tales. Where would fan fiction be without them? What both of these prolific and perceptive authors knew is that human behavior is relatable. That humor in all its oft-masked glory is relatable. Love stories are relatable. Adventure and greed? Relatable. And all are timeless. Bestseller lists expire. Quickly.
Survey says! Write a crime/thriller and it will sell. True. Only that little but exceptionally loud voice in my head was screaming something entirely different.
Write the story in your soul. Data be damned!
So I did. I wrote my debut novel. The one that my high-brow mother adored. Defying the data. Defying my own observational research. I had to ask her. Why? She gave me a list of reasons. Notably they were purely her own individual preferences. The style and pace. Relating to the character. Believability.
She then began analyzing and critiquing my whimsical tale. One that I weaved about a never-satisfied, perfectly imperfect heroine. Thing is, I wrote a second-chance love story. She read a book about choices and regrets. One friend of mine read a mystery. Yet another read a book about moving on. They all read the same book.
One writer. Three readers. Four interpretations.
We all related to it in our own way. The human way.
From the outset, I made what’s often seen as a rookie mistake for first-time authors. I ignored the research for my target market. I didn’t do my homework thoroughly. I didn’t write for my niche audience. Which means, unfortunately, marketing it to achieve bestseller status will be nearly impossible. If I sell more than a thousand copies it will be a miracle.
I have no regrets though. I wrote it for me. I wrote the tale I wanted to tell, with no regard for hitting the bestseller lists. Survey says! If you’re writing romance, make it hot and steamy. If you’re writing suspense, make it nail-biting. If you’re writing about second chances, your MC should be over forty.
My heroine is thirty-five. She’s not an exotic beauty with sultry eyes. She doesn’t wear Jimmy Choo’s. She’s neither vegan nor a dominatrix. She isn’t the CEO of a billion-dollar tech start-up. She isn’t scrubbing floors due to some past transgression or immigration snafu either. She doesn’t have any major disorders of the moment and her family isn’t completely dysfunctional. She’s ordinary.
Wonderfully ordinary.
I’m a little in love with Annie.
I hear that quite often about my perfectly imperfect heroine. That readers see themselves in my story is really an extraordinary compliment. They relate to bits and pieces of Annie. She’s fictional after all. I doubt there’s a human alive who is exactly like her. Yet it seems readers relate to her insecurities and long-held regrets. Her pent-up frustrations with a side order of envy. Life for Annie didn’t turn out the way she expected it to. When does it ever?
Survey says! I should have given her migraines or chidhood trauma or even extraordinary abilities. Fantasy and magic are big players now. Maybe next time. Or the time after that.
For now I write the stories as they unfold in my soul.
Data be damned.
