By David E. Sharp
The day finally arrived. I never thought it would. I had heard the myths, of course. Legends spoke of such a day long ago, but I never believed it existed.
I would sooner chase pots of gold at the end of rainbows than put my hope in ridiculous notions that I would ever see it. I speak, of course, of the day I completed all my projects.
But here we are. Every loose end is tied off.
All the plates I’ve been spinning are safely stacked in the cupboard. And all the fires have been extinguished.
How did I ever arrive here?
It won’t last, of course. I took one week off, and I’m already going stir-crazy. It seems I’ve forgotten how to sit still, and that’s not bad. New projects are already peering over the horizon, and I must ride to meet them.
First among them: It’s time to embark on a new novel. My coffee supply is all stocked up. I’ve got brand new walking shoes so I can plot as I stroll through the nearby park trails. My computer is primed and ready to go.
The only problem now is I am still trying to figure out what to write.
I have a few backseat projects, middle-grade novels, and short stories I could expand into something. They’re all very different from the metafiction adventure trilogy I’ve recently completed.
Therein lies the dilemma.
Once a writer establishes a readership, how far can said writer stray?
Enter the concept of the author brand. If you’re a writer, you have a brand. Acknowledge it or don’t, but readers develop certain expectations once your work is out there.
You would never pick up a Stephen King book expecting to find a heartwarming romance, just as you would never pick up a Nicholas Sparks book in search of heart-pounding suspense.
Does that mean Stephen King is incapable of writing romance? Who can say? (But I would be first in line to read it if he ever did! Because how weird would that be?) When readers find a book they love, their natural inclination is to seek out everything else that writer has ever written like a deranged stalker and consume it with ravenous glee.
I mean, that’s what I do.
The logic is simple. If I like an author’s tone, plotting, voice, and storytelling style, I will probably enjoy most of the things they write. I want to enjoy most of the things they write. I want to relive that analogous, undefinable quality I loved from the first book all over again, but through different plots and characters.
How disappointing is it, then, to love an author’s book and find everything else the author penned utterly different? It’s awful! Awful enough to lob a book across the room and shout at it, “I don’t even know who you ARE anymore!”
Writing a new genre is like starting over.
You’re assembling a new readership from scratch. Plenty of authors have done it, and many have found success. Consider Nora Roberts and her foray into gritty police procedurals under the pen name J.D. Robb.
She was twelve books into the series before officially revealing her identity as the romance novelist superstar. The pen name was a great move. The readership of J.D. Robb is different from the readership of Nora Roberts.
Roberts had to divert the natural expectations of her original readership, or the new series was likely to disappoint.
So, while I could jump onto my half-written middle-grade stories or expound on humorous short stories, the better choice may be to capitalize on what my readership already enjoys about my writing and create a story they will likely enjoy.
The new book should be separate from my existing books but offer a similar reading experience. For me, that means a high-concept story with humor, adventure, and mystery that has a loose relationship with reality.
Throw in a little genre-blending, some delusions of grandeur, and plot twists inspired by my most recent fever dreams, and I’ll be close to the mark.
The Writing Bug 