The bestseller lists have always been dominated by tellers of good stories. From Dickens and Poe to Dan Brown and J.K. Rowling nothing sells better than a book with a brilliant story.
Truly great stories endure for thousands of years. The fairy tales of Cinderella, Aladin and Red Riding Hood have their roots in the spoken word of ancient cultures, going back to times before people could even read or write.
Look at television. The most watched programmes on TV tend to be the ones with the best, most original stories: ‘Heroes’, ‘Lost’, the soaps. People love to be taken out of their drab, everyday lives and propelled into worlds beyond their experience. The same goes for movies.
It doesn’t matter what the setting is – whether it’s Hollywood, Hawaii or the next street to where you live – the most important factor is the story.
And for a successful story, you need structure. You have to have a beginning, a middle and an end. You have to have a protagonist who experiences conflict when he strives to achieve his (or her) goal.
For more about story structure and plotting, check out:
Million Dollar Story
Where many would-be writers go wrong is in thinking that they can copy a winning formula. Some get away with it with limited success, but everyone involved – from their publisher to their readers and even themselves – know they are following rather than leading.
They also miss the point. To write a “blockbuster”, a true bestseller, you need to be original. Though maybe not totally original.
Before Joanne Rowling wrote the first Harry Potter book, ‘Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone’, there was no tradition of books about schoolboy wizards. If there had been, her efforts would almost certainly have been lost in the crowd.
J.K. Rowling didn’t invent stories about wizards and she didn’t invent stories set in public schools (as we call “private” schools in the UK). What she did was to combine the two into a situation that offered a wealth of dramatic possibilities. The result was a series of fantastically successful stories about a schoolboy wizard called Harry Potter and his friends.
Needless to say, there have been dozens and dozen of books published since then trying to emulate J.K. Rowling’s success, but none of them have made their authors millionaires.
Dan Brown didn’t so much invent the genre of “code mysteries” as resurrect it and give it new life. Back in 2003 the thriller genre was in decline. Stale novels containing serial characters who had run out of plots and the demise of the Soviet Union combined to deflate the genre. ‘The Da Vinci Code’ woke everyone up with its great story, full of original aspects.
As a reviewer, I’ve lost track of the dozens of copycat novels that have plopped on to my mat since then. One even managed to top the New York Times bestseller lists. But the bottom line is that none of these clones made the impact or gave their authors the money that Dan Brown has earned from his original idea.
To make it really big, you’ve got to be original first.
For help writing your novel from bestselling author Mark Timlin, click here
