Why Rowling and King and Meyer suceeded

Discussion in 'Discussion of Published Works' started by Jack Asher, Jan 7, 2015.

  1. Tenderiser

    Tenderiser Not a man or BayView

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    Neither JK Rowling or Meyer forged a niche - the point's been made several times in this thread that there have been vampire love stories and orphans with magical powers for decades, even centuries. They just did it in a way that millions of people found captivating.

    I'm sure there are some authors out there who chase trends, but I haven't met any. All the ones I know (and that's now MANY) are writing what they want to write.

    It's telling that it's incredibly difficult to sell a vampire novel right now, or a dystopian YA, and who on earth is going to publish a book about a wizard school?

    Traditional publishing does not mean re-hashing the most recent bestseller. It really, really doesn't.
     
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  2. Steerpike

    Steerpike Felis amatus Contributor

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    Diana Wynne Jones wrote works that anticipated Potter long before Rowling. And in many ways she's a much better writer.
     
  3. G. Anderson

    G. Anderson Active Member

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    I think it has more to do with the characters. There are a lot of characters in each of these works, and everyone will find someone who they connect with. And then of course the fact that it's series: you want to know what happens next.
     
  4. Nyx Redus

    Nyx Redus New Member

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    During the dark times, Rowling faced clinical depression and even thoughts of suicide.
     
  5. jim onion

    jim onion New Member

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    Some of the greatest successes have come out of dark times.

    As @Nyx Redus said, Rowling was facing depression, in the midst of (if I recall correctly) either being broke, or just about to be.

    Stallone's story about how he wrote the script for Rocky is another amazing example, and similar to Rowling's in some ways. Stallone was at the lowest point in his life, he said.

    I find that I really relate to how darkness can drive you. When you're backed into a corner, your only option left is to fight. So when you've got no other option other than write your ass off and hope for the best? Well, hopefully you either become a great success while you're alive, or dead in the case of Lovecraft.
     
  6. R.P. Kraul

    R.P. Kraul Member

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    I think a common thread among successful creative types is that they're persistent and they yearn to get better, and better, and better. Talent gets you started, but then you have to sweat and bleed.
     
  7. SadStories

    SadStories Active Member

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    These are just my speculations, but I think what makes Harry Potter and Twilight so popular is similar.

    Both have very personable, sympathetic main characters that are bland enough for basically anyone to lose themselves in them. Once you've, so-to-speak, become this character you're then thrown into a new world that is as unfamiliar to you as to the main character. In both these cases, it's a new school. Now this new setting has lots of stakes (no pun intended) like things you may want to avoid (such as some classes or groups) and things you may desire (such as the hot vampire guy). It even has some routines and repetition.

    The point is that these books basically provide you with a comprehensive second life which quickly starts fulfilling all your wishes, like when Bella and Edward actually start to hang and Harry Potter becomes the Quidditch captain.

    Obviously there are a lot of other qualities to these books, but I think this is the fundamental mechanic which makes them so addictive and the fans so intense. After you have a taste, many soon prefer it to the real world. I think most media that is as addictive and has the same kind of fans has the same mechanic.

    As would be expected, this was precisely the effect of Avatar in which a simple soldier infiltrates and falls in love with an alien society.

    Stephen King is a little bit different, I think. His greatest talent is probably his capacity to write really down-to-earth, common people who are very relateable and thus easy to form connections with which makes us care about what is going to happen to them when they get into danger. In other words, he usually has one half of the equation. You don't have that whole new world with ladders to climb though, like in Twilight and Harry Potter. As would be expected, Stephen King is usually not addictive in the way Harry Potter and Twilight is. Rather his most avid fans tend to be more like Star Trek and superhero comic book fans. As his books are full of small details and connections, which from what I understand all link up in The Dark Tower series, to many people it becomes addictive to try to become living Stephen King encyclopedias.
     
    Last edited: Dec 23, 2016
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  8. Cave Troll

    Cave Troll It's Coffee O'clock everywhere. Contributor

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    @SadStories

    Harry is the child version of Jesus complex, and plot demands. (In theory the whole saga could have been about Neville Longbottom.)
    Bella is a rope (or 2x4 in the movies) in a game of tug of war between which hot guy gets to win her over.
    As for Steve King, well he is an evil who in whoville, that got lucky.

    Can't say any of these three are overly noteworthy when it comes to storytelling at a certain point. King wins the gold in being boring.
    Rowling for best whiny teenage boy portrayal and chosen one story since the bible. And Whats-her-Face for making Vampires the most
    uncool sparkling fairy princesses with no real lore to support the glitz and glam.
     
  9. OJB

    OJB A Mean Old Man Contributor

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    I am glad I am not the only person who thinks this. With that said, each of these writers did do something right. King, has 'high concepts', and Rowling's books are easy to read. I've not read Twilight, nor do I plan on it anytime soon, so I can't comment on that writer's work.
     
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  10. SadStories

    SadStories Active Member

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    Well, you can make fun of anything that way. I think it is much more interesting to try to figure out why some things are successful.

    Honestly I'm glad I like popular things. It's like when David Lynch said he wished he had the tastes of Steven Spielberg, because then his movies would sell better.
     
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  11. Steerpike

    Steerpike Felis amatus Contributor

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    @SadStories You're right on target re: King. He's good at creating relatable characters and he knows how to tell a story. He also manages a "voice" such that even when his underlying story doesn't seem that great the writing is enough to interest the reader.

    Rowling, I think, is all about characters.

    Meyer is a very good storyteller (as opposed to technical writer). Really, all of the explanations that look outside of the works themselves are just nonsense. Aspiring writers are often the first people to miss the boat on this sort of thing.
     
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  12. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    I think the significant thing about all of these writers is that they wrote a story (or stories) they would have loved to read. They didn't know they would become runaway success stories when they started out. They just wrote what they wanted to write, with a specific audience in mind. I doubt they spent much time worrying about what the market currently wanted. If they had done that, they would have copied written something else.

    Obviously if you want to be a success as a writer (as opposed to being stuck in a garret writing only to please yourself) you do need to engage with your potential readers. But if this forum is anything to go by, I fear that many new writers are more concerned with other issues—such as will this catapult me into the big time? or will this ruin my chances of publication?

    If they really want to follow Meyer, Rowling and King, they should craft an imaginative and original story THEY would love to read themselves. Then work hard at making other people love it too.

    I can't personally think of any writer who exploited a popular writing trend, and became more successful than the writer who started the trend. Can you? Perhaps they exist ...but I suspect they are in the minority.

    If you want to lead a trend, you have to dive into uncharted waters.
     
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  13. Iain Sparrow

    Iain Sparrow Banned Contributor

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    I don't think it was a matter of literary trends, both Rowling and Meyer exploited wizards and vampires... unfortunately, that trend never dies! I actually consider Rowling to be a good writer. Meyer though... is just plain bad. We shouldn't forget who it was that brought vampires back into the light many years before Meyer lowered standards. It was Anne Rice. Interview with the Vampire, is pretty good. Anne Rice has a kind of unsettling creepiness in the way she tells a story. Her vampires never sparkled.
     
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  14. Steerpike

    Steerpike Felis amatus Contributor

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    It's not unsurprising, or unusual, that the majority of the hate is reserved for the books that appeal to teen girls. Meyer is a competent, but mediocre, writer. There are much worse out there that also became famous (Paolini is orders of magnitude worse than Meyer, but since his work also appealed greatly to boys, he doesn't get anywhere near the level of hate).

    https://www.mnn.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/stories/amp/why-do-we-hate-things-teen-girls-love
     
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  15. BayView

    BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

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    Meanwhile boys and grown men make total fools of themselves over whether one group of athletes can carry a ball further in one direction or another and it's just enthusiasm and good spirits. Sports fans get so worked up they actually brawl and riot and kill each other, but it's teen girls who are stupid when they get worked up over One Direction or whomever.
     
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  16. Steerpike

    Steerpike Felis amatus Contributor

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    Yeah. I mean, I like hockey and football (not enough to riot), but I also don't bag on Twilight and One Direction. They're both very good at doing a specific thing.

    Story about Twilight I've told before: my daughter went through a couple of years phase of not reading at all, after being quite a reader when she was younger. When she got her hands on Twilight, the books single-handedly transformed her back into a reader. I caught her in her closet with the door shut, and with a flashlight, way after bed time, just because she wanted to read those books. The vast majority of writers will never write stories that have that kind of impact on readers. If you can pull people in to that degree it's a mark of a very good storyteller, and rationalizations to the contrary are so strained as to be ridiculous.

    Also, although Twilight is mostly a teen girl phenomenon, and gets hated accordingly, people seem to forget how far beyond that demographic those books stretched. I was working in downtown Kansas City. Coffee shops full of adults reading them. Professional colleagues, including middle-aged and older men and women with post-graduate degrees were reading the books and talking about them (oh, and did you get to this part?!) in the break room of our office building. Of course, that kind of reach accounts for the sales of Twilight. The cold fact is that the vast majority of writers, including those looking down their noses at Meyer, will never even come close to connecting with a readership on that kind of level. And I don't mean they'll never be exactly that successful, I mean they'll never even be in the same ballpark or even on the same planet. There are different ways to define "good," but for at least some reasonable definitions of "good" achieving that level of connection with that large a readership has to go well beyond good.

    Of course, there are much better writers from a technical standpoint (I stand by the idea that Meyer is competent but mediocre in terms of technical craft, and I read a lot and have seen much better and much worse). But on a story-telling level, the level where you engage the reader fully to the extent that they just have to have more of your story, whatever she did "right" was done to a degree than only a handful of writers in existence can say they've achieved, and is extremely unlikely to even be approximated by the vast majority.
     
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  17. minstrel

    minstrel Leader of the Insquirrelgency Supporter Contributor

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    Really? I must be out of touch. I've never heard Paolini described as anything but awful. It seems he gets a huge level of hate. Writing for boys doesn't get him a free pass; people still despise him.
     
  18. Steerpike

    Steerpike Felis amatus Contributor

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    Yeah, I've had this conversation a ridiculous number of times with people who love Paolini. And even setting that aside, something like Twilight always gets held up as the target for hate despite the much worse Paolini and others. You rarely see those just gratuitously thrown into conversations likes Twilight is so often, especially among fantasy writers, and even more especially among aspiring fantasy writers, most of whom won't have even a tiny fraction of the readership at any point in their lives.

    Of course, Paolini had a readership as well, despite the technical writing being truly bad as opposed to just mediocre, so I submit that from a storytelling perspective he must also have done something right that was able to balance out the bad writing.
     
  19. Cave Troll

    Cave Troll It's Coffee O'clock everywhere. Contributor

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    While I don't outright despise Rowling for basically copping out and writing the most generic chosen one
    story with a few neat ideas added to the mix. I made it all the way into the 5th book. She does have a
    knack for engaging the reader into a story. The whole angsty Harry thing made me put the series down
    because it put me off. Though the story overall is not tailored to one type of person, which I think most
    people really like to sit in flatland and only enjoy 1-2 genres and trash the others. Rowling gets cred where
    do in basically having a fun little series, that even some of the most vehemently Fantasy/Urban Fantasy
    haters actually enjoyed.

    King has also managed to be one of those that tends to have a fairly diverse readership. Not really sure why
    as he is the Hawthorn of Horror in being boring and dull. Perhaps it is because he has been around for like 30+yrs,
    and is a household name at this point in time. While I will concede he does have some interesting concepts,
    his style of writing is just not for me.

    As for Meyer and the whole Twilight thing. Well most parodies are of things that are really amazing, and things that are
    exceptionally terrible. Not entirely sure how 50 Shades is a Fan-fic of Twilight, considering they really don't share
    any commonality. But not going to get into that one, as I have made my opinions perfectly clear on what a skidmark
    that entire series is. While this controversial series does have the strangest 'cult' following with some of the diversity,
    it really isn't for everyone as many point out. Since I am not a big Urban Fantasy fan, nor a hormonal teenage girl the
    series doesn't really appeal to me. Though in a way it has almost sparked a new cliche: The Complacent Female MC.
    I mean to me the whole premise of going along with whatever hot guy of the moment is for bad reasons XYZ. It really
    speaks highly of the one who happens to be writing it. Basically it is almost like the author is using the MC as a proxy
    for themselves to wave their hands in the air and scream: Hey look at me, give me attention because reasons!
    To be fair there are many 'books' that do this (Possibly why I can't find decent BDSM Erotica). The point is this character
    trope is someone who is someone ordinary that defaults into an abusive relationship that basically destroys them
    emotionally and physically for no other reason than to add 'drama', to a story that really has no real substance. Having
    the MC make all the wrong moves, as if they were in a Horror movie for the sake of killing them off by the slasher makes
    no sense. So don't expect me to care for the character that falls for the chainsaw killer, and then they get murder-fucked
    by them, and then ask for sympathy because they knowingly put their junk in hornets nest for the dumbest of reasons.
    (My apologies for a soapbox on this last one. Just had to get this thought off my chest.) :)

    King basically is a staple that is inescapable. Rowling can tell a good yarn for a fashion. And Meyer, well I still don't
    have the foggiest idea (Gonna go with the 'So bad it's good', as that is the best argument I can muster that gives it
    a somewhat positive outlook).
     
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  20. Sam Woodbury

    Sam Woodbury Member

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    I've read quite a few Stephen King stories, and did not find them boring at all. I can see where the story seems thin or maybe not well researched, but I am able to look past that. The Stand held my interest particularly because of what I consider to be a successful description of the United States in the wake of a major disaster, but the Shining is my favorite. I like how he develops settings and brings to life his characters. I really liked him when I was in high school, but I drifted away as I studied more serious literature in university. Lately I reread a few of his older works (the Shining, Christine, the Dead Zone, the Talisman) and a couple of his newer ones (11.22.63, and Black House) and found that the appeal is still there. I suspect that what other people find as boring is what I am drawn to; the at times lengthy anecdotal back story episodes with elements of local color. I did not make it through the Dark Tower series, but the Takisman and Black House seem to tie in with that.

    By the way the television adaptation of 11.22.63 looked terrible.
     
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  21. Moe1795

    Moe1795 Member

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    I have mad respect for rowlings but harry potter is not for me. I can apreciate it for what it is, but its not what I like to read. Never been crazy about star wars either. Kinda makes me sick now that im older to tell you the truth.
     
  22. Krispee

    Krispee Contributor Contributor

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    Have you heard of the Chaos Walking series? So far, and I`ve only read the first in the series, it is proving to be pretty complex with a real grown up edge. And very well written.

    I think that there is room for all types of subject matter. Whether it is a light entertaining read or a dive into humanities depths. Sometimes I just want to sit down and read a Lee Child novel or something else that will relax me and give me a chance to unwind without having to confront my own mortality or examine my own shortcomings. At other times I do want that, to really think about what I`m reading.
    There is room for all, is what I`m saying.
     
  23. Iain Aschendale

    Iain Aschendale Lying, dog-faced pony Marine Supporter Contributor

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    I recall, dimly, Stephen King saying in one of his author's notes in a short story collection that he really appreciated everyone buying his books and going to see his movies and making him a millionaire and all, but even if we didn't, he'd still be writing, because the stories were the things that kept him up at night. Not going to go hunting for a cite, but if that's the way you work, you're doing very well.

    Up to Queen of the Damned was okay, but I really couldn't stomach the stuff she did after that. She refuses to have an editor change even a single comma in her work, and oh does the word "preternatural" get old.
     
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  24. Iain Sparrow

    Iain Sparrow Banned Contributor

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    I don't know if it was the quality of the writing, or that I just had enough of the series, but I quit reading her on any account.
    I think it's a common problem for writer's who become wildly successful and have movies made based on their work. Editors must get cold feet and stop diligently editing. I'm noticing the same thing with some of the long running SF series I've been reading.
     
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  25. Hypatios

    Hypatios New Member

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    Anne famously loathes editors, and her writing clearly suffers because of it. Source: that one rant.
     
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