Before attending my first writer’s conference in Oklahoma, I poured over the biography of all the speakers. Each one was asked to disclose a classic novel in their want to read list. Despite the different books listed I was shocked to realize that I had read them all except for one, The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot. However, that claim didn’t make me extremely well read. Multiple speakers mention Anna Karenina, perhaps because a movie based on the classic had been produced in 2012.

During lunch at that same conference, I sat across the table from an editor seeking a new kind of book which she described as very dark, “the darker the better.” Then, the keynote speaker addressed the entire room, inquiring if any of us had the experience of reading works by an author and wishing to write like that.

I whispered, “That would be The Idiot by Dostoevsky.

The editor snapped, “Nobody writes like that anymore.”

The Idiot revolves around a naïve Prince Myshkin in a corrupt Russian society that was pretty dark. One man was dangerously obsessed with a woman, while that same woman grew merciless towards the man who had abused her for years. The Idiot was an extremely dark book despite skirting around explicit descriptions of cruelty. Perhaps a modern version of it would have been exactly what the editor was looking for. However, Dostoevsky wrote classics so this editor simply could not see his novels as comparable to current best sellers.

This brings up the difficulty of providing agents and publishers with “comps” (books comparable to the one that the author is submitting). As I read a long list of instructions written by agents describing what they required I noted the short time periods for acceptable comps. Few would accept books published more than ten years ago. But, one insisted that writers not bother him if their comps were books that had been on the scene more than two years. This agent was too eager to obtain an author producing a sure thing, emulating what was currently selling. This short range of years for comps increased the likelihood of receiving works that read like many others. I was certainly not going to interrupt his little bubble by submitting any of my own attempts to create a unique novel.

While many authors want their work described as similar to current best-selling authors, I fret about writing a novel that imitates another work too much. I don’t want to produce a mere imitation. I realize that not a lot of current works deal with the souls of people in the way that Dostoevsky’s novels do. However, even if I wished to write like him, I am not familiar enough with nineteenth century Russian society. My work may be influenced by his in the way conversations reveal interior thoughts and characters play games to manipulate others. But, I do not want to regurgitate something too similar to his work.

The best way to avoid producing work which simply mimics other authors is to have a wide-range of reading, a range that goes well past one’s lifetime and encompasses the work of multiple centuries and distant societies. I have noted an increasing disregard for notable authors of the past centuries. Does writing well depend on being well read? No, but I’m not sure of that anymore.

A counter question has been growing in my mind — does being well-read actually hamper a writer’s ability to publish popular books, today? Knowledge of classic authors from past centuries is not necessary to be considered well-read today. However, authors can feel free to copy characters and rewrite scenes from these novels without being concerned about people recognizing this content. Evidently, nobody writes like them, or even reads them, anymore.