Write Unpredictably
NO ONE WANTS TO READ a boring story. Not even your spouse or your best friend that you have known since the fifth grade. Readers want to read something new and fresh, and more than anything, they want to read something that they can connect with and identify with either consciously or subconsciously.
I know, don’t tell me, the publishing world is not what it used to be, and there is less and less room for creative renegades who tell different types of stories. That might be true to some extent, considering the steady and sad decline of fiction sales. But we also live in the modern era of online publishing, and writers now also have the ability to self publish their own paperbacks with print on demand technology, at no cost to the writer. With all of that creative freedom, it is hard for writers to argue that they are still at the mercy of agents, publishers, and editors.
Even still, I would bet dollars to donuts that the big time publishing houses don’t necessarily want authors who write formulaic and predictable books. Every reader wants something new, and every reader wants something interesting.
I do my best to let my imagination run wild when I’m starting a new story, or a new anthology series. If my main character is an adult woman in her 30's, why should I make her a humdrum office worker, when I can create her as a diabolical lunatic on the inside, who enjoy spending Tuesday nights meeting up with her Aunt Maggie’s book club?
A few months ago, I was surfing, and in between waves I was just sitting there on my board, gazing off into the horizon, watching the outline of Catalina Island as I bobbed up and down. That gave me the idea to write a short story about an old burnout surfer dude who sees a damsel in distress struggling on a boat about 200 yards offshore. Who is the woman? Why is the surfer interested in helping her? Does she have good intentions?
You can check out my story below to see how I answered these questions.
There was really no method to it, I just made it up as I went along and let my imagination carry me along the way. The most important lesson learned writing that story was to let the story take me wherever it wanted me to go, no matter how completely ridiculous it all seemed at the time that I was writing it.
So, let go, be interesting, and let your stories carry you where they may. You may very well find that your stories are writing you, and not the other way around.
J.S. Lender’s new book They Are Here Now (Short Tales) is available in paperback on Amazon.
© J.S. Lender 2020
