What to Write?

 Most writers have a story to tell and tell it. And in the opinion of Anthony Trollope, a writer should never do otherwise.

There are, however, indie authors who ask their readers what they should write. Personally, I’ve never seen much sense in that. It’s akin to a comedian asking his audience what jokes he should tell.

So how does a writer decide what to write? I think most of us have all manner of stories inside our heads just waiting to be told. That being said, how the story gets told is what differentiates one author from another.

Caleb Pirtle III is writing a superb historical novel series called The Boom Town Saga. It’s the story of con artist Doc Bannister, who falls in love with Eudora, a woman with a past as mysterious as his own. The books are part historical drama, part love story, part mystery — and all fabulous.

Caleb’s books are set in 1930s East Texas. But what if we took that same story and set it on a planet in the Delta Omicron system, a backwater in the crumbling Muratorian Inter-Planetary Republic?

Or what if we changed the oil that Doc Bannister is supposedly trying to find for Magic — something everyone wants and no one has in an alternate universe version of East Texas? Now, that historical novel becomes urban fantasy.

We could take Caleb’s con man, put him in 21st century Dallas, selling bogus bonds that suddenly are worth something, and play up the romance aspect in order to get a romance novel.

Same story + different setting = different story

Sometimes, we do find ourselves in the situation where we have to tell a story. Maybe we’ve been asked to contribute to an anthology in a genre that we normally don’t write. The problem is easily solved.

All we have to do is take an old story and recycle it. James Scott Bell, in his book Write Your Novel From The Middle, suggests that very approach when one has run out of ideas and is looking for one. And it does work.

The ideas for what to write are all around us. No writer worth his salt need ask anyone for ideas. But if he runs short, he can always take that old book from 100 years ago, that no one reads anymore, and turn it into gold. How many times, I wonder, have Shakespeare’s plays been retold?

Comments are always welcome! And until next time, happy reading (those old forgotten books)!