Popular Fiction

The past couple of days, Kristin Nelson has posted about learning lessons from popular fiction. The responses have been very interesting to read. Some folks look at the quality of the writing in some popular novels and sneer that it's not good fiction. Other people agree with Kristin's assertion that millions of readers can't be wrong. I fall into the latter category.

My opinion is that anyone who sneers at popular fiction is missing the point. You could argue that writers write to be masters of the written word. And maybe for some, that's truly what they're about. Fine. But most of us are writing to entertain, to tell a story worthy of having someone else read it. We love the idea that a reader will get lost in our tale, empathize with our characters, and feel scared, happy or amused while they're engrossed in the journey. We write in hopes that readers will love our story enough to stay up all night reading when they should have turned the lights out. The truth is, novels are a form of entertainment, and popular books--whether you think the prose is stellar or not--have succeeeded in entertaining their readers beyond expectation. The writers have done their job.

Although Kristin suggests we should examine the popular novels with the intent of discerning 'what worked', I'm not sure that's really possible. I know the answer is in the storytelling and the characterization, but if it were easy to pick out the success factor(s), everybody would be writing hugely popular books and editors would only be buying bestsellers. Doesn't work that way. And as far as I know, most of these popular writers didn't study other popular novels with the intent of finding the silver bullet. They just sat down and pounded out their own.

My daughter bought and promptly devoured the Stephenie Meyer Twilight series. Did I cringe a bit over some of the writing when she read it out loud to me? Sure. But when I sat down to read the book myself, something magical happened--as with any of the books I've enjoyed, I stopped analyzing and just lost myself in the story. I got sucked into who and what and why, and before I knew it, I was eagerly awaiting the release of Breaking Dawn, just like my daughter. Now, I'm not as enthralled with the characters as she is--she's a rabid Edward fan--but I'm still interested in the resolution of the over-arching story question: will Bella and Edward figure out how to be together in a way that doesn't cost one (or both) of them something invaluable?

And I did spend a few moments wondering why these books worked. Twist on the already popular vampire mythology. Flawed characters, each with their own unique backstory. Internal conflict. Sexual tension. Powerful villains. Seemingly unresolvable story question. Basically, many of the same elements you're probably working on developing in your own manuscripts. I truly believe it comes down to telling a vastly entertaining story.

Some detractors of popular books say these novels will soon be forgotten, that only the truly great books endure. But people said that about Shakespeare's plays when he was writing them and look how that ended up. One thing I will say about the surge of popular teen fiction--it's breeding a new generation of readers. And for that, I'm profoundly grateful.