Write Like Yourself by Andy Scheer

I thought I’d done him a favor. But his email made me wonder.

I’d recently edited his manuscript. The book was powerful, especially for only his second novel. But he’d come to the task well prepared. And he was exploring themes that held his passion.

Now he was asking me about future novels. The next would be a sequel. But for the third, he was weighing a new direction. Rather than a novel set in familiar territory, he’d “like to move toward an international mystery/drama.”

After suggesting how he might take his main characters to an appropriate setting, I unintentionally planted seeds of doubt. I recommended he read a general market bestseller: The Columbus Affair by Steve Barry.

Since an international drama would be new to him, I thought he’d benefit from reading a stand-alone by a master of that genre. A co-founder of the thriller writers group, he sets the bar high for both story and craft.

That was the problem. “I’m about half way through it,” my friend said. “It’s a super fast paced read. It’s a great book.” Then he asked, “Do you think I have the ability to write something with that kind of pace and creativity?”

Time for some damage control. I suggested he view the Steve Berry novel as more than just a recent international thriller. It’s also Berry’s eleventh published book, created after he’d been writing fiction for twenty years. A well-practiced effort, it’s stronger and more complex his earlier novels.

My friend would be setting himself to fail if he tried to write like Steve Berry, James Rollins, Dan Brown, or anyone else. Yet if he wants to get published in that field, he’d be wise to consider what elements in their approaches might also make sense for him.

I suggested he learn what he can from masters of in the genre, especially where it stretches him. In his case, especially consider how these writers plan a complex plot, depending less on seat-of-the pants spontaneity.

But there’s a limit in reading top writers. Learn what you can from them. Incorporate what make sense. But don’t try to let another writer squeeze you into their mold.

If he learns from the best, rather than try to imitate them, the result will be a stronger story—that still sounds like him. And because it will spring from his deep faith, the story will resonates with themes often absent in international dramas.

Can you write like that? Don’t even try. Yet by learning from them—and incorporating your unique skills and perspectives—you may be able to write even better.

Other Writers’ Success by Andy Scheer

How do you view other writers in your genre: competitors? colleagues? supporters?

Would you view them the same way if your own publication and sales depended on their success?

Steve had been writing for a dozen years while holding down a full-time job. After one unpublished legal thriller, he moved to a genre he loved: an international thriller that blended action, history, secrets, and conspiracy.

But since the end of the Cold War, publishers considered the genre dead. “If you were John Le Carre, Ken Follett, Robert Ludlum, or Clive Cussler, you were fine,” Steve says. “But if you were ... trying to break into that genre, you could forget it.”

Then another writer, a few years ahead of Steve, got lucky. Dan had been published three times, but without spectacular results. But for book number four, he proposed something usual. Doubleday bought it—and thought it had the potential to go far.

Steve says, “Everyone looked at it and said, ‘You know, this is a little different. It’s action, history, secrets, conspiracy, international settings.’ Guess what I was writing? That’s exactly what I’d been writing all those years.”

With the hope that Dan’s book might open a new niche, Ballantine took a chance and offered Steve Berry a contract for The Amber Room—after his previous novels had received more than eighty rejections.

Dan’s book didn’t disappoint. “When The Da Vinci Code was published,” Berry says, “it just went through the roof. ... It brought the international suspense thriller genre back to life. And I got a break. I was in the right place at the right time at the right moment on the 86th time—when Mark Tavanti, senior editor of Ballantine Books, was looking for something to go with The Da Vinci Code.”

The Da Vinci Code “brought a genre back to life,” Berry says, “and introduced readers to a lot of writers they would otherwise never have seen or gotten a chance to read.”

What about you? If you keep hearing that nobody is interested in your genre, consider praying for another writer’s success.