Written Repetition

One of the problems I’ve found with prolific authors is repetition. We’re all guilty of it, telling that joke more than once because it got a good reception, or cooking a meal exactly the same way as before because it tasted so good. When an author writes a book and it gets good praise, they try and recapture what it was that captivated the audience. Some authors write a sequel, and although good, the series never usually lives up to its predecessor. Other authors just continue writing stories in the hope that they will appeal to their fan-base.

We may be able to come up with one or two completely original novels, but with several hundred years of fictional printing, most ideas have been had and to keep coming up with something new is difficult. So what do we do then? Some authors repeat themselves, which is not what their audience wants. They take a novel that worked really well and just change character names and/or locations. A friend had recently told me that they have gone off a favourite author of theirs. They did mention the name, but I forget what it was. The author was medically trained and wrote thrillers to that effect. A disease would break out, there’d be an epidemic, a lesser known doctor would come up with a cure amidst falling in love with a beautiful heroine and all would be well. The characters names would change, as would the disease and the effects of the disease but the main staple of the story would be the same. I guess you could say that of most genres. Crime: There was a crime, the protagonist solves it. The end. Romance: Man and woman fall in love despite difficulty from (insert antagonist here) and they eventually live happily ever after.

So we all repeat ourselves, but to what degree? I strongly believe that there is no formula to a good novel, but a certain amount of repetition is sometimes necessary to ensure that we adhere to genres, or ideas that the audience base likes. What if there was a series of crime novels where the crimes were never solved, would the reader be disappointed? A romance where the hero and heroine end up hating each other? These things wouldn’t work, because they aren’t what the reader wants. We are authors because the audience enjoys our stories. That’s just my opinion though.

What do you think? Read, follow, comment and enjoy. M x