How Much Quirk is Too Much?

You want me to talk about what? Quirk versus mainstream? My darlings, I'm a Word Whore and not just any Word Whore. I am the Word Whore who thinks explosions are plot points. Who am I to address writing a mainstream success? It isn't as if I've penned a flock of them. In fact, it's entirely possible I wouldn't know mainstream if it jumped up and whispered an indecent proposal in my ear.

Not to say I wouldn't listen and possibly swoon. . .(no photo of me swooning - the cat will have to do.)

I go so far as to posit that few people know mainstream literature until a book becomes mainstream literature. Which is to say, popular.

At one point, it was Oprah's book club that made a story mainstream. But unless your tale was a major downer guaranteed to send readers dashing for the Prozac, you stood no chance whatsoever. These days, publishers will tell you they're looking for 'the next ________' - you fill in the blank with the bestseller du jour. Harry Potter. 50 Shades of Gray. Twilight. At least tragedy isn't necessarily the prerequisite for mainstream these days.

That said, do you see the problem? Any story following in the footsteps of someone else's is a day late and a dollar short. The wave has already crested. This isn't to say that some authors haven't made a pretty penny writing stories in the vein of whichever bestseller speaks to them. A few have. But I can't name more than one.

As for quirk? Define Harry Potter. Or 50 Shades of Gray for that matter. Twilight had enough quirk that it enraged an entire cross section of vampire fandom. Not bad for a day's work.

Point being, I suggest that quirkiness leads to mainstream success. If shoveling the same old story out the door day after day didn't lead to rapidly diminishing returns for publishing houses, they'd do just that. It is about the all mighty dollar after all, yes? But, alas for publishing's bottom line, readers are so fickle! Jaded book sluts, even, always seeking something new to sate their wicked appetites. Yet at the same time, those readers desire the strangely welcoming and familiar - as if by falling into a new story, the reader had come home to something they'd never seen before. When that happens, new love kindles the light in a reader's heart. That is the stuff that runs a story right up the sales lists, for readers, once in love with a book, DO kiss and tell.

Too quirky? I'm sorry. Was someone just implying that it was possible to be any quirkier than Platform 9 and 3/4? Or Nearly Headless Nick? In fact, it is entirely possible that JK Rowling has taken out a patent on quirk. It is clearly not an impediment to getting sucked into the mainstream.

Now. The difference between literature and genre? Easy. Wagner (opera) is literature. Bugs Bunny is genre. As to which is preferable? Who's singing Wagner in your head right now? Elmer Fudd? "Kill the wabbit, kill the wabbit . . ." Or anyone else on earth who didn't come from an animation cell?

Embrace the Quirkiness

When I asked Google what mainstream fiction was, that lying, prevarication-inventing Google told
me it was "non-genre fiction."

Bullshit.

To me, "non-genre fiction" is a term in the thesaurus along side words like "boring" and "stale."

Books are all categorical. They all fit somewhere. Where "Romance" tells you "there's kissing and stuff in here," and "Sci-fi" says "dude, it takes place in space," the term "Mainstream" is just a catch-all term synonymous with "it's selling like hotcakes**."

**I work at a VFW. On Monday mornings, I wait tables. We do not sell that many hotcakes. I do not understand this particular phrase.

When I read the subterfuge Google was touting, I cocked my head at the screen in that classic "puppy heard a new sound" pose. The mainstream books I can think of, and those mentioned on the blog this week, all have an obvious genre to me...but, and this is key, they were adored by lots and lots of people traditionally outside that genre market.


Harry Potter, YA. Hunger Games, YA. Sookie Stackhouse Books, UF. Twilight, UF/R/YA. Fifty Shades of Gray, Erotica. Inferno, Thriller. A Game of Thrones, Fantasy. World War Z, Apocalyptic Horror.

Each genre of fiction has it's own tropes, themes, and styles. A genre novel that breaks out and goes Mainstream --admittedly usually and/or arguably-- minimizes those unique facets while maximizing the character and broadening the scope of the plot.

RWA will tell you that their romances must have a Happily Ever After, an HEA...in certain categories. Even the grand RWA recognizes that such fairy tale endings are not the right ending every time, and that it is not always believable in this modern world where traditional marriage isn't always the lovers' goal. RWA has adopted the Happily For Now ending allowable for some categories. The stories are changing because our lives are changing.

Let it be known:

Paranormal Romance is Urban Fantasy where the hero and heroine save the world, then make love. (A generalization, I know, but roll with it.) Urban Fantasy may or may not have romance in it, but if it does, the hero and heroine do it before they save the world. (Another generalization, I know, but roll with it.) Sci-Fi often has world-building that reflects a current social concern taken to an extreme and shown to work/tear down an alien society. Hard Sci-Fi has cutting edge technology, pushed farther, faster, and often looks at the worst-case scenario ramifications of that technology. Horror can be haunted and ghostly, it can be horrible monsters, or can be us at our worst.

Think about that.

Mainstream has many examples of all of those. Yes, each genre novel that experiences a Mainstream Breakout has embraced it's quirks...but if you want to give the mainstream market a genre idea, you have to make it rapidly understandable without overpowering the story or stopping all the action to give the reader a lesson in how to understand the world. It seems to me that the writer must make the characters big and sympathetic. And they must have crafted a plot that is so big, so important, that the big, sympathetic character he or she created truly struggles to surmount it, a plot so rich with emotional impact for the character that he/she learns deep lessons about himself/herself in the process. Think of it like a recipe. Reduce the "genre aspects" so that they feel like the natural setting for the character and plot. Then double the character, and triple the plot. Yield: Story with broad (read: mainstream) impact and appeal.

Too Quirky? Impossible.

What makes a work too quirky to be a mainstream hit?

~blink, blink~

That's like asking me when I stopped beating my brother.
A) "Beating" can be interpreted as the physical act of abuse or as the consistent winner in eating contests.
B) I don't have a brother.

Being quirky and being a hit in the mainstream aren't mutually exclusive. Quirky is subjective. Mainstream hits are influenced by too many factors to be forecast.  Time and taste are fluid. One generation's dreck is another's beloved epitome of literary genius. 

Hitchhiker's Guide is batshit cray-cray to some people. Fear & Loathing is so non-mainstream that it moved the friggin' stream to become a hit to a generation not even born in the time it was published.

Don't let marketing and sales decide what you should and shouldn't write. In the era of the self-publishing, there is no such thing as "too quirky." Write the best damn stories you can and make them accessible. Your audience will find their way to you.


image: http://www.clipartheaven.com