Writing and the Stock Market

Posted on February 28, 2025 by knlistman

All ideas have been done before. It’s basically impossible not to reuse one. If it hasn’t been done before, the idea will make almost no sense to anyone. That defeats the purpose of using it. Conformists want ideas that are popular right now and writers of this type tend to flood the literary market with the same ideas until these are labeled cliche.

Robert J Sternberg described an idea for creative production that works for a number of professions including writing. He gives it the same name as we use for trading stocks for profit, “Buy low, sell high.” Essentially, look for an interesting idea from a past period that appears infrequently in current time. It may have fallen out of favor as little as twenty-five years ago. That is about the length of time assigned to each new generation such as Gen-X, Millennials, Zoomers, and so on.

A non-conformist can build an extensive library of ideas drawn from past years and centuries. These no longer popular ideas are often viewed as creative and sometimes become the next new craze. However, there is a problem using Sternberg’s advice as a new author. Publishers often want a sure thing and demand recent comps (comparable works) from new authors. Yet, avoiding the recreation of a recent bestseller is what produces new and intriguing work.

Avoiding the recreation of a recent bestseller is what produces new and intriguing work.

An author can attempt to create a character that has never been described before. But similar to the main idea of a book this character will have a number of doppelgangers from the past. Still reading older material (by that I mean anything from 50 years ago to 5,000 years ago) is still a good way to leverage the “Buy low, sell high.” technique with character personalities.

Developing a unique voice is a bit easier because language changes frequently while foibles of human nature seem doomed to repeat themselves. However, a unique voice may not captivate readers. Especially with the average reading level decreasing over the past few decades. This decline could come from a number of sources. Increase in viewing of movies, simplification of language on the internet or educational years lost to COVID-19. Many audiences are looking for easy reads, which have resulted in a number of current best sellers written at a sixth grade level.

Captivating an audience with a unique voice in fiction, requires a style that a sizable number of people understand and appreciate. But don’t try to attract the entire world. The unique voice needs to be authentic to each author and based on their experiences, perspectives, fears and aspirations. It takes a bit of soul-searching and time to write in this manner. Copying current trends seems easier, especially with AI writing software designed to capture them. Still some readers search for their preferred style of writing like a treasure. If your style is not a frequent find among new books, you may become one of the few current authors that they favor.

Photo Wikimedia Creative Commons CC0 1.0 

Posted in Creativity, Generation X, Ideas for writing, Literature, Millennials, Style and voice, Trends in books, Zoomers | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

What are Looks in a Story?

Posted on January 21, 2025 by knlistman

If I describe one of my protagonists as chubby with a large pyramid-shaped nose, fat eyelids and thin hair, I believe I’ve indicated she is not attractive. So, she is not deluding herself when she says she is ugly. However, I’ve encountered people who assume she just doesn’t know how to fix herself up and she must follow the trope of eventually becoming gorgeous because she is the main character.

Still, my main character is spot on in her assessment of herself and this is not going to change. Other people in the story do not consider her to be good-looking either. Readers may see what they want to see, no matter how I paint characters’ portraits. That is something that I cannot control.

How much should I describe the exterior appearance and traits of the people in my stories? The sister of a chubby and ill-favored protagonist is seen as beautiful by the others in this story. I actually say little about her appearance other than she has long blond hair that hangs in loose curls. If I explained what the younger sister looked like in detail, some readers might not agree with my assumption of attractiveness. So, it is more important to indicate how the other characters react to the person’s appearance than it is to describe the details. This helps readers get past preconceived notions about how certain kinds of body shapes, skin tone, hair or eye color, or even facial features look in their mind.

It is more important to indicate how the other characters react to the person’s appearance than it is to describe the details.

I know the interiors of my characters well; I have drawn their thoughts and traits. They are based on real people, so I maintain a good idea of what makes them tick with insight into their passions and their fears. I even make up a family tree. Although that is not included in the story. However, their appearances are often based on random photographs. Typically they are not described so well that the reader can imagine them in detail.

A greater depth in describing appearance does not keep a character from being simplistic. Readers who struggle with the time spent learning about well-drawn individuals may prefer stock characters. Those who expect to jump into immediate action and learn all about the character by the end of the first chapter will tend to find beautifully described but such characters in their favorite books. That may be what they are asking for, but not the kind that I want to write.

Photo by K.N. Listman

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Allowing Ourselves to Grow

Posted on January 2, 2025 by knlistman

Imagine entering a store to buy some clothes for the upcoming year. In the athletic section there’s one style of outfit and it comes in four basic colors that all go together. The same is true for casuals clothes, business outfits, and outer wear. Only one style; only the same four colors. What would you do? You might try to find a clerk to ask the reason for this unusual lack of selection. You might not find one because there’s no real need for assistance in a store with such limited variety.

Would you simply buy some clothes because you can’t walk around naked in public? Steve Jobs’ “uniform,” the all black outfit with a turtleneck, was iconic because it was his choice of a simple outfit. No one else would have noticed it if everyone else followed his style due to lack of choices.

I thought about those questions when dealing with a person who assured me most people prefer to buy novels repeating the same kinds of characters and tropes. The questions in the first paragraph is also a good set for an author who assures us that readers don’t want to deal with anything over a sixth grade level. And these questions should be asked of those that insist readers prefer not to suffer through reading about serious or difficult concepts. However, this defensiveness about aiming work at the average audience makes me wonder.

In my mind I imagine a kind of Orwellian book selection, similar novels that are rearrangements of the same characters and plots, written at different levels for the upper, middle and proletariat readers. Then, I recall a scene in 1984 when the main female character appears in a old woman’s dress, rather than the typical utilitarian overall/jumpsuit. The dress is appealing because it is different and not following the style everyone else wears.

At what level should books be written? There are upper and lower limits for reader engagement and comprehension, but there is a wide range in between. I try to find a reading level that is both comfortable for me to read and to write. This it is not always the same. Writers should not be pigeon-holed. There is no need to assume they must cling to the style and subjects that they used when initially published. I was fond of Robert Louis Stevenson’s “A Child’s Garden of Verse” when young, But, many years later I became intrigued by the predicament described in “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.” How egotistical it seems for readers to limit the artistic growth of writers by demanding the same kind of fiction repeatedly.

The truth is most readers aren’t doing that. It may be the authors’ fear of not producing enough that leads them to crank out similar new work at a somewhat unreasonable pace. It has authors imitating their earlier work, rather than expanding on it. Readers grow and authors should, too.

Photo of Rose Gardens, San Angelo, TX by K.N. Listman

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Names and Xenophobia

Posted on December 5, 2024 by knlistman

Imagine a reviewer whose major complaint with a fantasy book manuscript was the number of times that words weren’t recognized by MS Word spell check. This person even provided me with the total–all names of people and places within the story. Fantasy is not the same world as we live in. Why expect the names to be the same?

Wishing to avoid another encounter of a book rejected based on names, I requested help from other writers for an historical novel. I could select each name and change the language so I know it’s spelled correctly in the original tongue. Then, I would have to add them all, including the possessive form, to the dictionary spell checker. Eventually, I would overload it. 

So, I provided the writers with a list of possible Welsh and Cornish names and asked which ones they preferred. “Choose the ones that are pronounced like they are spelled,” was the only advice I received. That’s quite a challenge. The double l in the Welsh name Ellyn is pronounced by sticking your tongue behind the top of your teeth and hissing.  

Spell checkers are a bad way to determine legitimate names. I pasted the Latin names from an article about Marcus Aurelius into MS Word, and other than Marcus Aurelius, it didn’t recognize any of the other names. They were all real historical Roman people.

Why would I defend unusual names? I have one myself. My middle name, Neree, is a new family tradition inherited from my mother, who received from her parents, who read it in a book. A family of Slavic origin, Neree de Babberich, included a notable symbolist artist, Karel de Neree tot Babberich. Perhaps, this is the very person my grandparents read about. My middle name could have roots in the slavic word Nera. But, no one knows.

Neree occurs with the highest frequency as a surname among French African families in Haiti. It is also a first name found in older French Canadian men. What does Neree mean in French? Again, no one knows. Most genealogy sources say Neree is a French version of a name from another language. I bear a name that others frequently mispronounce (in case you’re curious, it rhymes with Marie). I don’t even know the meaning of it. Cool isn’t it?

Neree was not passed on to my own progeny as my husband only accepted normal names–ones from his family, such as Otsy, which is not recognized by MS Word spell check either. It is a German nickname for Arthur, so that became our compromise. Arthur is also a Welsh name and one of the few people recognize due a certain famous king never actually existed. However, Neree has not died out in my family. I have both a cousin and a niece with that unusual moniker.

AI scrapes internet for the most popular names and those are the ones found in spell checkers. Some people’s minds work just like that. They have room only for the most familiar names, which could be considered a kind of xenophobia. Why does a personal preferences for certain kinds of names have to affect how people judge writing?

Art by J.W. Listman

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    A Stuck Character

    Posted on November 21, 2024 by knlistman

    The character that I’ve imagined is stuck. Literally. He’s in solitary confinement, or in a dungeon, or abandoned on an island, and I know how he’s going to escape. But, for now he’s stuck. Should I just jump ahead to the completed tunnel or the finished raft as my protagonist prepares to leave so I don’t bore my readers? Or, should I take them through this daunting isolated period in my main character’s life?

    Perhaps you are familiar with movies such as Castaway in which the protagonist spends over half of the time on an island by himself. Or older films, such as Papillon and Midnight Express in which the major character is in prison for the majority of the film. These prisoners may not spend most of their time in isolation but they still seem stuck in one place without much to do except focus on escaping.

    You may also be familiar with some famous books. The Count of Monte Cristo is not about a real count, but a wrongly imprisoned French sailor named Edmond Dantés. He spends much time in the first part of this historical novel in prison and in isolation. Of course, there is the famous novel Robinson Crusoe, with the eponymous main character who spends 28 years on a tropical island.

    How do I make a solitary life interesting? First, there is the matter of survival. The main character must figure out how to continue to live. Most readers assume this person will survive until the end of the book, but this often requires finding sustenance and evading dangers. It becomes a game of wits. Making survival seem difficult but plausible is the challenge I take on to keep the reader’s interest.

    Most authors do not leave this person in complete isolation. Dantés digs a tunnel that ends up in cell of another prisoner, Faria. Caruso helps a man, whom he calls Friday, escape from cannibals. However, living in isolation can mess with one’s mind. Finding just one other companion is a major accomplishment.

    Making isolation interesting may be challenging, but it’s also an opportunity to bring maturity to the main character. While stuck in the dungeon or on the island, there will be lessons the protagonist needs to learn or goals that he needs to achieve. Most of these we would not have considered unless we had gone through these same experiences.

    Finally, the main character doesn’t need to be male. The Island of the Blue Dolphins is an excellent story of a woman who survived in isolation for many years. So, the solution to having a character who is stuck is often not to jump ahead to the escape. The most exciting part of the story may be taking your reader through the challenging experience of surviving in isolation.

    Photo by K.N. Listman

    Posted in Characters, Drama and movies, Ideas for writing, Literary devices, Literature, Novels, Story structure, Teaching writing skills, Trends in books | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

    My Boring Little Life

    Posted on November 7, 2024 by knlistman

    What dark secrets can I dredge up to reveal that occured during hours of deliberating about the plot? If I promised to tell the audience the deepest secrets of my life and lived up to my promise, they would be bored. Many well-known writers lead notoriously uninteresting lives. 

    Where do they get their ideas from?

    Noticeably more introverts indulge in writing books, as it is a solitary occupation requiring hours alone with some way to convey ideas in their heads as words on paper. Some make the major conflict in a novel reflect their own fears about asserting themselves in public. They recall the time another student took credit for an elaborate diorama they created for a school science project. But, the stakes are higher in their story.  The little diorama is morphed into a top-selling book, or a patent for a completely silent engine. 

    They may base fictional stories on the most interesting part of their lives but must add thrills and dangers greater than their fibbing partner in the school project. This requires research to fill in the blanks. Authors must read to inform themselves as well as write. They become versed in the stories of others, too.

    Many conflicts in books are borrowed from other people. Character personalities come from a similar source. Authors may fulfil their own wish to be in the limelight through a glamorous and charming character or draw from their own strengths to create an independent and self-sufficient one. But, usually there must be more than one or two characters in a story. Observing people around them, and watching how they deal with struggles provides an inventory of ideas to develop multiple fictional characters. 

    People with lots of friends avoid solitude. They fear being alone and will seek out the company of other people even when these are nuisances. People with few friends seek solitude and actually find comfort in being by themselves. Sometimes this leads to avoiding social situations unnecessarily.

    Authors can collect dramatic conflicts from the works of previous writers, confessions other people tell them, and their own fearful imagination. Some friends like to talk and have stories to tell. If you are around them very long you’ll discover that you’ve heard them more than once. That’s when authors use imagination to embellish these stories.

    As a wrap, you have your own life, your own dreams, those of your friends, and those of people you know who aren’t friends to draw from. In addition there are ideas recorded in books that you can blend with your own life. No longer do you have to worry about boring your reading audience with your own little secrets.

    Photos by K.N. Listman

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    The Terrifying Part of Horror

    Posted on October 24, 2024 by knlistman

    The terrifying part of horror is often the nature of the threat. Perhaps only one lucky survivor remains alive through a traumatic adventure out of sheer luck. The terrifying part of reading horror is realizing how much of it is based on gory scenes producing adrenaline in the reader rather than a comprehension of a complex overarching threat.

    My son, who enjoyed reading Edgar Allen Poe and Ray Bradbury, showed me a short story written by Bradbury concerning people trapped in a mansion similar to Poe’s House of Usher. Ironically, they could have escaped if they had been familiar with Poe’s work, but they were not.

    It’s not a complete coincidence that Bradbury used this idea of willing illiteracy more than once.

    Edgar Allen Poe wrote stories above a sixth grade level (often at 8th grade level or higher). Bradbury repeated the theme of willing illiteracy by a public who simply wanted to be entertained. The lack of desire by the population to read challenging works is the reason that book burning began in Bradbury’s most famous novel, Fahrenheit 451.

    Much of a generation not used to reading this more difficult literature doesn’t have the patience to dig through Poe’s work. The average adolescent reader hasn’t gained the vocabulary necessary to understand what was said in The House of Usher. I know that is not true of all adolescents. My son is not a one-of-a-kind person.

    Because of the preference for simple direct language by many publishers, well known authors create obvious action scenes in horror stories rather than complex psychological problems. On the other hand, Poe provided subtle clues to the horror behind his stories. This deeper interest in human nature leads some readers to prefer writers that delve into human psyche, even if it requires a more complex understanding.

    Here’s another article if you wish to read more:

    https://today.yougov.com/entertainment/articles/44107-no-film-genre-divides-americans-like-horror-does

    Photos by K.N. Listman

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    Do You Know What Polyandry Means?

    Posted on September 19, 2024 by knlistman

    If you are familiar with Clint Eastwood’s first movie, a musical called Paint Your Wagon you’d realize that a woman having more than one husband is not a recent idea. If you recognize “polyandry” as an ancient Greek term for the woman’s version of polygamy, you’d know that this concept is far older than most current romance authors claim.

    Therefore, It surprised me when I saw an author on Facebook bemoaning remarks from a reviewer that hadn’t detected that the plot would revolve around this often castigated behavior of polyandry at the beginning of her fantasy novel. When I read the author’s description I understood why. The author indicated that the heroine has no resources to deal with the stress of deciding between multiple suitors. That would indicate a problem or conflict. As the conflict is a key component of the plot, it becomes disappointing when the problem simply becomes “no problem.” The men are all fine with being part of her “harem.” This leaves the reader with no real resolution.

    This brings up the question: what exactly comprises a romance novel?

    I could see why a reader might criticize a book that does not have the complete plot arc for a romance. A conflict that turns into no problem is usually only an acceptable conclusion in children’s books and literary works. And, the book in question was obviously not either one of these. This brings up the question: what exactly comprises a romance novel? If the struggle is not finding the right person, even among multiple possible lovers, and ultimately overcoming the problems to get together with the right one, should the book be classified as a romance?

    Dr. Zhivago is the story of a man torn by his love for two women, at least in the movie (there’s a third one in the book). What genre is this famous novel by Boris Pasternak? You should not consider it a romance, but a historical literary novel. Pasternak received the Nobel Prize for Literature after he smuggled this novel out of the Soviet Union. The fictional doctor’s romantic liaisons are woven in between a detailed record of pain and suffering caused by the Communist Revolution.

    It doesn’t really seem to matter if the novel concerning a woman struggling over which man (or men) to choose is written by a male or a female. Both Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert and The Awakening by Kate Chopin end up as tragedies. It doesn’t always have to be that way, as Paint Your Wagon is a musical and a comedy. But, are any of these really considered romances? 

    So what should be the genre of a book dealing with polyandry or polygamy?

    Photo: “Мечты Стеллы Марис” by Stella Maris – https://500px.com/photo/86751947/in-dreams-by-stella-maris. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

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    The Happiness Requirement

    Posted on September 9, 2024 by knlistman

    “And they lived happily ever after” is not just a matter of fairy tales. A Happily Ever After (HEA) ending remains a favorite of many readers and has likely been one ever since stories were first told. In this age of growing social unrest, HEA as a required satisfying resolution has morphed into the defining factor for an enjoyable read for many audiences. A romantic novel is often not considered as belonging to the romance genre unless the lovers end up in this situation.

    Novels are a temporary distraction rather than a recipe for fulfillment. Readers of the initial book in a series may want other similar ones to a point. They probably will not tolerate the major couple splitting up and getting back again more than once. So, HEA may not be the ideal ending for a novel in a series. D.H. Lawrence’s main character in his first semi-auto biographical novel, Sons and Lovers, indicated that happiness was not his goal.

    So long as life’s full, it doesn’t matter whether it’s happy or not. I’m afraid your happiness would bore me.

    D.H. Lawrence

    Penny Locaso, author of Hacking Happiness, views happiness as a state of being that requires constant improvement. Her assumption that no state of mind is permanent came from climbing the economic ladder without finding satisfaction. That’s not a great shock to me. As I grow older I increasingly notice people, who gained everything they wished to have when younger, and yet are still frustrated or fearful. Locaso also noted that fear caused by unfamiliarity with others can cause unhappiness. People who acknowledge both negative and positive emotions tend to be happier.

    But, novels are fiction, so I read to find out how an overwhelmed protagonist deals with a problem that I hope to never encounter. What leads to a momentary happiness may be enough to end a book in a satisfactory manner. Let’s return to Hacking Happiness and research findings by the author, Penny Locaso. Happiness may result from helping others. Often characters in romance novels seem self-centered, living in a world revolving around their own desires. Knowing that one character truly made a difference in the life of another could be a happy ending.

    For a character to be interesting they should have serious problems. Perhaps, a suitable ending is learning to adapt to problems rather than getting rid of them. So, what if blissful happiness is not the final destination of your characters? They can make the courageous decision to let go of a mindset requiring their own happiness and create a better world for others, or help others overcome their own depression. Either outcome can be considered a successful ending that rivals the traditional “and they lived happily ever after.”

    Photo of Geffen Playhouse, Los Angeles, CA by K.N. Listman

    Posted in Characters, Ideas for writing, Literary devices, Literature, Mental health, Novels, Psychology, romance, Teaching writing skills, Trends in books | Tagged | Leave a comment

    The Language of Empires

    Posted on August 29, 2024 by knlistman

    Have you ever wondered why we have two words–who and whom–both meaning the same thing. What is the difference? These two words are different cases of the same [pronoun, which are forms which provide clarity. Even people who don’t know how to define “case” notice the incorrect sound when a young child screams, “Me do it!” By school age most of us figure out that “I” is used for the subject of a verb, and “me” for the object. Cases are forms of nouns and pronouns, which clarify meaning.

    Who and whom are similar; “who” is the subject and “whom” is the object. But, in American English we forget that. We tend to use who for both: Examples: “Who is there?” and “You hit who?” We relegate “whom” to indirect objects, such as, “To whom this applies.”

    This leads to other questions: “Who added cases to our language?” You could blame it on empires. Greek and Latin are the languages of ancient empires and they both used various cases frequently. 

    A sixth grade student approached me during a class silent reading period to ask a question. I allowed students to do this when stumped on the meaning of a word. Often they knew the word and just wanted to stretch their legs. However, one student’s question intrigued me. He asked if I could explain the genitive case to him. A basic class in Koine Greek allowed me to respond without thinking.

    “It’s the possessive form of a word,” I explained. “If the book you’re reading belongs to Bill, it is Bill’s book. If it belongs to me, it is my book. ‘Bill’s’ and ‘my’ are the genitive case.”

    He nodded with a look of comprehension, before the shock hit me. The boy was trying to stump me.

    “Who taught you about language cases?” I asked with some suspicion.

    “My dad’s teaching me Latin.” He grinned.

    Koine Greek was the business form of the poetic literary Greek used by Homer. It spread through the conquests of Alexander the Great. Like the Greeks, the Romans had numerous cases in the language. The widespread use of the Roman alphabet indicates some of the reach of this huge empire. Fluency in Latin was the mark of higher education long after the time period and far beyond the geographic reach of the Roman Empire. 

    Although Greece and Rome have left their mark on English, our language is Germanic at its roots.

    Although Greece and Rome have left their mark on English, our language is Germanic at its roots. There was no written record of any Germanic languages before the Romans met the Goths. (That’s what happens no one speaking the language reads or writes.) So, understanding the development of the Germanic languages is based on the deductive linguistic work of the Brothers Grimm. Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm did more than collect fairy tales. 

    Many current languages have far more cases than English. The romance languages of French and Spanish use them to indicate if words are subjects, objects, masculine, feminine, etc. When cases no longer serve a purpose we tend to drop them. But, until that time we will also not sound quite as civilized when other people still know the difference between who and whom.

    Illustration: First encounter of Hernan Cortes with la Malinche at Duran Codex. National Library, Spain (Dreamstime.com)

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