Just a
quick post this week. I’m on my way down to Dallas for Texas Frightmare Weekend. If you’re in the area, stop by
and tell me I’m a hack. I’ll be at booth
#155 in the Made In Texas room, sharing space with the amazing Eloise J. Knapp.
Anyway, I
wanted to talk about the difference between a genre and a boom. I think it’s important to note the difference
because which one I focus on really affects what I’m writing. And why.
So, with
that in mind, let’s consider superhero movies.
Superheroes
have been insanely hot in Hollywood for the past few years. There were a lot of good and notable movies
and television shows before, but I think we can all agree Marvel Studios really
created the current climate with the success of Iron Man, the
Avengers, and the many movies before and after. Christopher Nolan just stoked that fire with
his Batman trilogy.
Naturally,
everyone in Hollywood wanted in on that action.
So the “superhero” label got slapped on lots of things. Even things that weren’t really in the superhero genre. Because superheroes
were hot.
A few years
back zombies kind of exploded. Shaun of the Dead. The Zombie Survival Guide. The Walking Dead. And then tons of people were diving in the
pool and a lot of folks slapped the zombie label on everything they could. Because zombies were hot.
But now
people are saying superheroes are on the way out. And zombies are done. So are vampires. Witches... witches are probably the new big
thing.
These
people are trying to chase the boom.
They’re trying to figure out how to make an easy buck with “what’s hot”
rather than focusing on something good in a chosen market. They’re confusing the genre with the passing
fad.
If I write
a good story, people will want to read it. No
one’s ever said “well, I though it was fascinating and nuanced and really
touched me on a personal level... but I’m sooooo sick of these superhero
movies, so I’m giving it one star.”
Y’see,
Timmy, superheroes aren’t “done” any more than sitcoms or mysteries or crime
procedurals or biographies. Harry
Potter’s come and gone, but the young adult section is still pretty full at my
local Barnes & Noble. Come to think
of it, so are the graphic novel and horror sections. Lee Child seems to be doing okay with his
Jack Reacher series, despite the fact that thrillers haven’t been hot for
something like twenty years. And just a
few weeks ago—right around the time I was handing in the latest Ex-Heroes book
my publisher had requested—the CW premiered iZombie, another zombie
television show (there seem to be a lot of them, yes?) where the characters
actually made a joke about “hey, do you think zombies are ‘done,’ like
everyone says?”
Don’t waste
time chasing the boom. It’s almost
impossible to catch, and far more people stumble into it than anything
else. Just focus on writing the best
story you can. Revise it, polish it, and make it better than anyone else’s.
Next week,
I was thinking of hanging some art. In
the execution sense.
Until then,
go write...
So you're saying we should write Supervamp-Zombie Witches?
ReplyDeleteActually, I am more inclined to think that Robots are the new boom. Specifically, stories that deal with machine consciousness. But, I'd love to see a movie about Super-vampire-zombie-witches!
ReplyDelete