The end of originality…
When I saw the announcement of James Patterson’s new book Texas Ranger (co-author in small print, of course), my knee-jerk reaction was that this is an example of a current and endemic problem in the world of creative arts. The revival of My Fair Lady on Broadway is another. Disney’s regurgitation of the movie Frozen on Broadway (can’t we let go of that song “Let It Go”?) is yet another. Originality is getting killed, and it’s a slow, agonizing death.
I won’t read Patterson’s book. I haven’t read him for a long time, ever since he started his crusade against indie authors and indie publishers (small presses). (Of course, like all Big Five books, his are too expensive, so I wouldn’t buy them anyway.) The new book I mentioned frankly sounds too much like Jon Land’s Caitlin Strong series, which I very much admire. My Fair Lady is advertised as better than the original. Huh? That “original” already plagiarized a George Bernard Shaw work and the movie beat it to death. And the last Disney show on Broadway that had some originality was The Lion King (it was much better than the movie, in fact, which is saying a lot—Disney has lost its touch).
I think there are two important causes for this contagion that’s killing the creative arts. First, big money concerns (Patterson’s publishing assembly line, financial backers of My Fair Lady, and Disney’s greed) want to milk the public for all they can when they manage to have a success. Second, big money concerns think the public is stupid enough to want more of the same old thing—formulaic books and regurgitated plays and movies—and not wanting anything new and creative.
Big Five publishers go with the old mares and stallions they feel are sure bets in their stables, mostly formulaic authors with nothing new to say. Broadway has more revivals now than new shows because there’s nothing new to produce. Disney buys rights to Pixar and Marvel because the old Disney has nothing new to present either. Creativity and originality are in peril. Saying something worth saying is too.
Yes, that sounds harsh, but greed is the worst sin next to desiring power. I have no other way to explain the Big Five’s support of assembly lines like Patterson’s, or the many regurgitations on Broadway, film, and in other creative arts today. “Creative arts” is fast becoming an oxymoronic phrase. The contagion is invading all art forms—literature, music, drama, and so forth. It’s a shame.
But let’s talk about books. I get requests for reviews all the time. The people querying haven’t bothered to read my review policies, so I’ll just stop answering them. (Hint: this website is not a book blog!) That’s annoying enough, but I get tired of reading something akin to “If you liked X, you’ll like my Y.” First, I might have hated X, so I would then conclude (perhaps mistakenly) I’ll probably hate Y. Second, the statement makes Y seem like a copy of X.
In addition, all romance books look the same to me (I’m talking about those identified as such—a lot of fiction has some romance, because that’s part of the human condition. Even the covers with their guys with muscles and tatts and gals with frilly bodices and exposed cleavage turn me off. Crime stories often have “Gone Whoever” or “Girl on the Whatever” in the title. If authors can’t be original in the titles and cover, I immediately suspect there’s no originality inside, so I don’t even bother to “peek inside,” which I usually do instead of reviews to see if the author knows how to write.
I don’t ask much from authors in my reading when it comes to creativity and originality. For contemporary fiction, the settings and situations aren’t all that surprising to me anymore. I look for originality in characterization and twists on old plots and themes. Take British mysteries. The plots and settings are similar as are the titles—DCIs here, sleuths there, all working to solve some crimes. But the characters, the coppers and sleuths as well as the bad guys, have to be fresh, unusual people I haven’t met yet, and they have to go about solving the crimes in interesting ways.
Sci-fi has a big advantage here. Characters and settings can be weird and strange. Our common humanity in mysteries and thrillers now becomes the nexus between intelligent beings, including robots and androids. Asimov’s Elijah Bailey wouldn’t be the same without android partner Daneel Olivaw (I honor the latter in Rogue Planet).
But different settings can also make similar characters behave differently, making stories more interesting. To use my own writing as examples (I know it best), Detective Dao-Ming Chen of the “Detectives Chen and Castilblanco Series” and Sirena from the “Clones and Mutants Series” share a lot of characteristics, but the settings are completely different (time is part of settings, of course). Mary Jo Melendez of the “Mary Jo Melendez Mysteries” and Penny Castro from The Last Humans (to be published by Black Opal Books in 2019) also are similar characters, but the stages they act on are completely different.
I prefer to have completely different characters, of course, reflecting the diversity of human beings and their behaviors. The FBI agent and the priest in Soldiers of God bear no resemblance to any other characters I’ve created, although both FBI agents and priests often appear in my books.
Over the 10+ years I’ve been in the book business, I’ve seen originality and creativity take a hit…and it’s getting worse. I’ve seen it slaughtered in movies and plays. I can only surmise that the public approves of this. I don’t. Join with me in championing the creative and original. Everyone will benefit.
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Soldiers of God. In the future, an FBI agent and a priest must battle religious fanatics…and a criminal mastermind. This stand-alone novel is a bridge between the “Clones and Mutants Trilogy” and the “Chaos Chronicles Trilogy.” Great late summer and fall reading. On sale now at 50% off on Smashwords.
In libris libertas!
