Same book

Certain writers write the same book over and over and over again. Personally, that would drive me insane. Here are the novels I have written thus far:

Novel, the first: (unpublished) is a big sweeping historical set in ancient Cambodia from multiple points of view. Third person, past tense. Adult.

The second: (unpublished) is—actually it’s so bad I’m not even sure what it is—let us not think of it. First person, past tense. Young adult.

Novels, the third, fourth & fifth: (the Magic or Madness trilogy, Penguin) a medium dark urban contemporary fantasy from three povs. Third & first person, past tense. Young adult.

The sixth: (How to Ditch Your Fairy, Bloomsbury) is a light and fluffy romantic science fictional take on luck and talent from one pov. First person, past tense. Young adult.

The seventh: (unfinished, Bloomsbury) is a dark dark dark crime novel from one pov with a weird and wonderful structure that’s doing my head in. First person, past & present tense. Young adult.

I’m not sure what these novels have in common other than my writing them. Many of my favouritest writers are much more varied than me. No two books by Karen Joy Fowler are alike and Samuel R. Delany has written every genre from high fantasy through to porn. They’re both as adept at stories as they are at novels. I imagine that they also enjoy being able to stretch themselves as writers by trying different approaches, genres, styles, voices and like me it keeps them from being bored.

But what about the reader?

I confess that I adore quite a few authors who are much less varied and further that it is their lack of variety that is a large part of why I love them. Georgette Heyer’s regencies are (more or less) the same few books over and over again with a few variations. They are some of my favouritest books in the universe. In fact, I hate the Heyer books that veer from this formula. Her detective books suck and her serious historicals are unspeakably boring. I resent the time she wasted on them. Just think: she could have written twenty more regencies! Selfish bint!

I am also not fond of the stories by Raymond Chandler that are not about Phillip Marlowe. His fantasy stories there were published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in the 1950s are dire. What on Earth possessed him to write them? Foolish man!

I am of the school that thinks F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote about the same group of people over and over again and that the novels and stories are sometimes interchangeable. I don’t care. I love pretty much everything he ever wrote. I like that he never tried his hand at historicals or science fiction. He stuck to what he was good at. Go, you, Scottie!

On the other hand, I recently read a wonderful, wonderful novel that I adored so much I immediately read another novel by the same author, which I also liked even though it was remarkably like the first novel. Then I read another one. It was exactly the same as the first two and I was bored. The sameness gave me none of the pleasures I get from Heyer and Chandler and Fitzgerald. In fact, I won’t be reading that writer again and am now feeling faintly hostile towards them. You are so talented! Why are your wasting your time and mine by writing the same damn book several hundred times? Unlaze yourself!

Ever since I’ve been trying to figure out what it is I get out of Heyer and Chandler that I don’t get out of this other author, who, incidentally, has legions of fans, is well-reviewed, hits bestseller lists, and is very talented. The one book they write is a wonderful book. I think the difference is that at their best Chandler and Heyer were investigating the genres they wrote and more specifically the kinds of books they themselves wrote. And that the variations in their own work are bigger than it would seem at first glance.

But maybe that’s what the fans of this particular writer think. And what to me looks like the EXACT same novel is to them infinite and fascinating variations that I am too dense to appreciate. Just as Agatha Christie, who to me wrote the same extremely tedious book over and over again, is a source of great pleasure to millions of people.

Different strokes? Any of you got any theories?

Posted by Justine at 10:37, 20 May 2008 under Fans & readers, Reading | 28 Comments »

Comments

Matt Says:

I see this in music a lot more, actually. I couldn’t figure out why my exgirlfriend loved Linkin Park so much, when all their songs sounded (to me) like Variations On A Theme Of Boring. But then one day she described a band very precious to me (I think it may have been Braid, or City Of Caterpillar, or – something) exactly the same way, and it became clear that what seemed like banality to me was actually a source of endless, subtle enjoyments – as long as you really loved the basic thing that they were doing. And if you didn’t, it probably all sounds the same. (Note this isn’t true for all music. But a great deal, let’s face it.)

May 20th, 2008 at 10:51 am
2. Justine Says:

Matt: I suspect that’s it. I would love to find a fan of the writer I was talking about and ask them.

May 20th, 2008 at 10:59 am
Camille Says:

I WANT TO READ THE ANCIENT CAMBODIA ONE OMG.

*ahem*

Sorry, lost control a bit there. *blush*

May 20th, 2008 at 11:22 am
4. Justine Says:

Camille: There’s a tiny bit of it here. Be warned: is weird.

May 20th, 2008 at 11:29 am
Gina Says:

Can we guess who the author is?

May 20th, 2008 at 11:43 am
Jessica Says:

I’d be really interested to know who the author was, too.

Repetition with variation is the basis for music, and so while all of Nickleback’s songs sound, to me, as if someone put the same three chords together over and over in the most musically uninteresting way possible, other people like them. On the other hand, I can listen to and play classical music that people find boring and see subtle nuances in it.

May 20th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
7. Justine Says:

Gina: I’m sure you can guess. But I will never tell. This blog does not say mean things about my fellow writers. Not in ways they can bust me for . . .

Jessica: See my answer to Gina.

May 20th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
Pixelfish Says:

I too wrote a story based in ancient Cambodia. I have a Thing(tm) for Angkor Wat ever since I read about it in the May 1982 National Geographic. (My first entry to WotF started off in Angkor–only in our future. My heroine was half-Cambodian.)

May 20th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
robin Says:

I doubt you’re too dense to appreciate the variations — I suspect it’s just that the elements he/she is varying aren’t really aspects of the story you particularly care about. (If you were reading Agatha Christie purely for gripping plot, you probably wouldn’t mind that everything else is repeated from book to book. But if you were enjoying, say, John Irving purely for his perspective on being a male writer or his understanding of marriage, you’d probably be done after one book.)

May 20th, 2008 at 2:32 pm
10. Justine Says:

Pixelfish: Angkor Wat is extraordinary.

Robin: I think you’re prolly right. Though I really really really can’t see what’s different about the author in question’s books. In fact the whole thing is bugging me so much I’m wondering if I should soldier on and read all of them just to see if there are variations that emerge when you’ve read all of them.

May 20th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
sylvia Says:

I would also be very interested to know who that author was.

It’s a good question you ask, one I think about myself fairly regularly. Partly I think it comes down to whether the author is doing that one thing well (for “well” you can substitute “in a way I enjoy”), and seems to be doing it thoughtfully and with pleasure, or whether s/he seems to be bored and just phoning it in. But that isn’t the whole answer. The question of whether the one thing the author does is a thing I particularly like is also important but, again, is not the whole issue.

Sometimes for me an author’s sameness is very comforting; sometimes it’s immediately irritating, and I quit that author and don’t go back. And sometimes I really enjoy it for a while and then get bored. (Maybe I stay interested for a bout the same number of books as the author did? Hmmm…)

As you say about Heyer and Chandler, there are some authors who do several genres, of which I adore one and detest, or refuse to even try, the others. Others of my favourite authors have written in half a dozen genres and I love them all…

May 20th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
Carrie Says:

I’m the type that can eat the same thing for days straight. So when I love a book by an author, often I want to read another book just like it. Actually, I this this in part led to me writing my zombie book — I wanted to read another post-apocalypse book and couldn’t find one.

I’ve started to realize, though, that it’s not necessarily about reading the same book by an author I crave, but getting the same experience (even if their books are very different). Diana’s the one to point out that distinction and I think it makes sense.

May 20th, 2008 at 3:37 pm
Gillian Says:

I think that part of it may be down to the way the book’s written, as well as the actual story that is being told. For example, in the case of Georgette Heyer, whose regency romances I also love (I too hate the serious historicals although am more tolerant of the murder mysteries), one of the things I really enjoy is the wit and humour in her use of language, and the complexity in her sentence structure. I sometimes find that I am turning a particularly delicious phrase over on my tongue. She is the only writer of regency romances that I still like to read. I used to like others but drifted away from them when I ceased to be a teenager. GH is still a favourite however.

With other series writers, I will devour the whole serious voraciously if I like the opening book AND there is something else to enjoy besides just the basic story that is being repeated. If there isn’t something like humour, turn of phrase etc to latch onto I will tire after a few books.

Having said that, I really like the idea of a long series. It’s great to know that there are a whole load of books out there like the one I’ve just enjoyed. The converse of this is that I am often reluctant to pick up a different type of book by an author whose series I have been enjoying. For example, I loved the Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan series deeply. But then, I was quite resistant for a long time to moving onto the Chalionverse books. Once I did though, I loved these books just as much. After another pause I am now just starting on her latest romance / fantasy series and am, again, liking it just as much. But she is a writer who has a lot going on in her work and even in her long Vorkosiverse series told many different stories.

Sorry to have gone on a bit.

May 20th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
14. Justine Says:

Carrie: I think of it as wanting the same feeling rather than experience though we prolly mean the same thing. I definitely get that from Heyer.

Gillian: I see series as a different thing. It’s not the same book over and over. It’s like a serialised uber book. Or something. I guess Chandler falls into that category. Though Heyer doesn’t. And yet I don’t really think of Chandlers book as series.

Hmmm, I think I need to sit down and think it through.

May 20th, 2008 at 4:05 pm
Jen Robinson Says:

Justine, I feel exactly the same way about the Heyer books – I read and re-read the regency romance novels, but I’ve never cared for the mysteries or the serious historicals. I agree with Carrie about Heyer’s wit, humor, and language, but for me re-reading those books amounts to comfort reading. I read them in a particular mood, looking for a particular thing, and it pleases me immensely that every single book that she wrote in this class fits the bill. I know that she won’t disappoint me. The only other author that is that way for me, though she has a bit more range, is D. E. Stevenson, a British author who wrote romance novels around the time of World War II (and before and after).

But I do agree – there are other authors that start to seem predictable, and I drop them flat, even if I liked the first couple of books. I don’t know the answer, but I’ve enjoyed the discussion…

May 20th, 2008 at 7:36 pm
Dave Hogg Says:

The ones that annoy me are the authors who write 172 books about the same characters and run out of ideas after about the 12th book.

Robert B. Parker has gotten so bad with the Spenser novels that he’s almost literally written the same book twice. He had a recent book where Spenser gets shot, faces a long grueling rehab, doubts himself, gets lots of support from his loved ones, and then returns to save the day. A couple years later, his annual Spenser novel was about Hawk getting shot, facing a long grueling…

People like that need to just stop. Write something else.

May 20th, 2008 at 7:48 pm
Patrick Says:

Dave – Just because you are no longer enthralled does not mean the books are bad. And it’s possible that new fans to Parker find the most recent book as opposed to starting at the first.

That said, I rarely read more than 6 books about the same characters. Rarely.

May 20th, 2008 at 8:46 pm
hillary! Says:

Patrick: So, does that mean you didn’t finish Harry Potter?

I totally agree about F. Scott Fitzgerald!

Recently I went through a phase where I just wanted faeries. Nothing but faeries, and the reason was because of Holly Black. I loved her novels, and I really wanted something that gave me a similar feeling, what that feeling was I can’t put into words, I just wanted faeries! Someone reccomended Wicked Lovely. I LOVED it! Some critic said it was a cheap imitation of Tithe, but I disagree. They just both give you the same feelings. And sometimes that’s just what you need when you can’t get more Holly Black because you’ve read all there is to read of Holly Black.

I think that is another part of the fascination with vampires. You read one novel, then you are addicted to that feeling so you go searching for more.

May 20th, 2008 at 11:03 pm
Nyssa Says:

Oh dear. This is a favourite topic of mine, so I have to intervene.

David Eddings >< Same themes, same characters (with different name/gender), same basic story (with a blue magic crystal the size of a child’s heart), same character expressions (”Be nice, dear”), same jokes.

So why do I still read his Belgariad/Mallorean and Elenium/Tamuli if I hold them in such low regard?

It’s like watching an old TV series you have seen before. Everything is familiar, and it’s just like a pleasant, light weight read. I reject the Elder Gods series and his Song of Regina. They didn’t fit into this model of being comfortable.

But with authors who can change dramatically from story to story, reading them is exciting and thrilling. Even if I have read the book a dozen times before, it still enthralls me. It is much easier to be loyal to them, and to say ‘I love’ instead of ‘I read’.

May 21st, 2008 at 12:20 am
El Says:

I read a book in a very popular series and thought it was a blast, and went out and got all 10 (at the time; they’re at 14 plus one) books. (Silly me.) (They are numbered for your convenience.)

Then I started reading in order, and realized that the characters maintain the exact same points of tension in book after book after book. Some people still seem to be enthralled by the possibility that Heroine will finally get together with Guy She’s Not Sleeping With But Wants To, instead of Guy She’s Been Sleeping With (with occasional breakups) for many books, but, well, when I realized not one thing was going to happen, I lost interest.

Yes, it’s true, I could read more of them and try to figure out what people still see in the books–the above (as I recall, anyway) is only one of the ways in which movement is promised and then withheld, but you never know. After all, I stopped reading them, so I may be entirely missing something huge.

Somehow, I can’t seem to bestir myself to find out.

May 21st, 2008 at 1:20 am
holly black Says:

I think the difference between authors who write on the same themes over and over again and authors who write the same book over and over again is that in the latter case, it seems that the first book is the definitive version and the other books are more watered down versions. In the former case, I feel like the writer is experimenting with how small changes in a story vastly change the story itself.

May 21st, 2008 at 1:43 am
KT Horning Says:

I think there are many, many authors who simply have only one story in them. They should stop at one, but they rarely do.

May 21st, 2008 at 9:35 am
Patrick Says:

I did read all the Potters. I’m also up to date on Book 11 of the WoT series and I recently re-read the Belgariad, to see if it still held up to my memories of it. It did.

But I only read 3 of James Patterson’s Alex Cross books. 5 of David Weber’s Honor Harrington series. I think I might have made it to book 6 of Terry Goodkind’s series.

Sometimes the world/plot/characters are so well done, I am enthralled and don’t notice the flaws, redundant plots, repeated character experience, etc. So it can take me longer before I bail.

It’s sort of a mixed bag. Writers who stick to similar themes, settings and characters tend to be an easier, more relaxing read. You know what you are getting. Writers who change genres, themes, everything, tend to be more hit and miss and I’m less likely to get on a tear and buy up all their books.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with writers who take either approach of mixing it up or not mixing it up.

As a reader, you figure out quickly which type of writer you are dealing with.

As a (aspiring, but somewhat distracted)writer, I like the idea of 3 or 6 books series, but I’m not sure I could do 15-20 books of the same world/character theme/plot.

May 21st, 2008 at 9:54 am
Magpie Says:

Justine, you’re asking a fascinating set of questions.

I think that universe-building might be a factor. I went a little crazy reading tons of novels by Murakami, and somewhere along the way I thought, “Hey, I’ve seen these tricks before. Murakami, what gives?” But then I realized he was painting the landscape of a world that encompassed all of his books.

We’re used to thinking about universe-building when it comes to fantasy or sci-fi, but of course it happens with straight-up fiction, too (if there is such a thing). Henry James’s Washington Square, Portrait of a Lady, and The Bostonians are very different books, but they operate on the laws of James’s world: characters are morally right but wreak emotional disaster; characters betray their best selves.

May 21st, 2008 at 10:31 am
Joe Richardson Says:

Maybe being enthralled by a writer’s complete body of work, versus just a few books, or, you know, a series of really slick bumper stickers, is akin to the whole infatuation v. love thing.

Infatuation: Once the novelty wears off, you’re happy to part ways. Because even though she/he had lovely paragraphs, and nice plotlines, there’s just no magic. No embers after the initial “ooo look at you” fire burns itself out.

Love: There’s something deeper that speaks to you. And that person needn’t reinvent themselves each time plotwise or thematically to turn you inside out. You just hope they’ll keep shinin’ and show’n the heart and soul what made you fall for ‘em in the first place. Be that poetry in their prose, or passion in their character(s), or particularly enchanting use of the em-dash.

Apologies for the over-extended metaphor in a blender. Set out for books and ended up in the wedding vows department…

May 21st, 2008 at 8:06 pm
Alex Cohen Says:

Saying Chandler wrote the same novel six times is like saying Shakespeare wrote the same poem 154 times. Shakespeare wrote the same form 154 times, and Chandler wrote the same form six times. But because they were both masters of language, each instance not only is different, but uses the similarity of the form to reflect and magnify the very differences.

There’s no question that there’s a form to (say) noir mystery, just as there’s a form to high fantasy or sestinas or higgledy-piggledy poems. But seeing how the artist tells the story differently each time while still satisfying the awfully tight strictures of the form is much of the pleasure.

May 21st, 2008 at 11:03 pm
ClareSnow Says:

Have you read The Great Gatsby adapted by Nicki Greenberg http://nickigreenberg.blogspot.com/ I think it’s amazing, but I was never very attached to the original.

May 27th, 2008 at 1:25 am

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