A Short Discourse on Competitive Works
9 Mar
Eaton's Santa Claus Parade, Toronto, 1926/Archives of Ontario
The other day I was e-mailing with one of our readers about a book proposal she’s working on, when all of a sudden she said she was dropping the project.
The reason: a similar-sounding documentary film that was already in production.
Whoa, whoa, whoa.
First, I understand her concern. I don’t have any evidence to support this other than my own experience, but I agree that your work competes across genres. Some books/films/shows/websites cast a very long shadow.
That said, you don’t want to drop a project at the first sign of trouble for the following reasons:
1. Your perspective can be skewed
When I was in the middle of writing HEAD CASE all I saw were brain books. I was hyper-aware of how other pop neuroscience books compared to mine.
But were my potential readers as minutely attuned to every single similarity and difference? I hope not, because that would mean they were clinically insane.
2. No one gets a clean shot
I challenge you to find subject matter that hasn’t been covered in a book, film, television show, YouTube video, blog post, tweet, etc. Not only is our culture a free-for-all, but the internet makes it a free-for-all seeped in redundancy.
You’re going to have to fight for attention no matter what, so you might as well make your peace with that.
3. Audiences are fragmented
You think that the world doesn’t need another book about the Civil War, but then someone writes a YA novel set in the aftermath of Gettysburg and suddenly teens everywhere have Civil War fever. (I’m making this up . . . I think.)
Your competition may have you beat when it comes to divorced Boomers living in California, but married Xers who blog about publishing and live in Minneapolis are there for the taking. (So take them!)
4. Quality trumps all
Just when you think a category is exhausted a writer will come along and make it all new again.
Personally, I’m sick to death of zombies (you’re probably a little late to the party, zombie Jane Austen) but then again . . . .
5. You may have no choice
I wouldn’t dare compete with Dan Savage in the explicit, sarcastic, tell-it-like-it-is sex advice category. Unless that’s what I really wanted to do with my life.
Your dreams are your dreams. You’re stuck with them. Act accordingly.
Beautiful–and reassuring. Were there many times you had talked yourself out of persistng with “Head Case”? And in addition to the reservations you’ve mentioned, as we set the bar increasingly higher for ourselves how often do we become convinced whatever we’re attempting just isn’t good enough? The latest “New Yorker” article on David Foster Wallace, through the exchange with his editor and others, seems to capture his personal anguish at wrestling with the problems the idea for his last unfinished novel presented.
My struggles to complete HEAD CASE were many and varied. Worrying about the competition turned out to be the easy part.
As for the confidence issue, I’d lump that in with #1. Only you see your work the way you see your work. (That’s also true for what’s good about it.)
…and the hardest part?
. . . wouldn’t fit in a comment. Maybe some other time.
Fair enough.
I think the competitive work scenario has a positive side. Particularly when the works concern a not very well known subject, one of them can whet the public’s appetite for more. I’m sure this is the theory behind the slew of books that always come out around any major new event. No doubt someone’s treatise on Indian slums is selling better because of Slumdog Millionaire. The public’s reaction to that competitive documentary may be “I want to know more!” and a book might be just the thing for that.
Lee raises a key question. If you see similar works out there, is yours offering too little, too late? Or (thinking more positively) is it providing the critical mass for an emerging trend? Only one way to find out.
Also, because I am a bit of a chess nerd, I will share this quote from Tartakower, the 19th century grandmaster and chess journalist: “No one ever won a game by resigning.”
In an earlier draft of this post I had a “crowds are good for you” entry. Sometimes you don’t want to be first. Sometimes walking in “late” means you benefit from entering an ongoing conversation. There’s an audience, context, etc.
Part of your job as a player in the culture game is having a read on the particular situation you’re entering. In this case, our reader’s first read was the wrong one. The doc-in-the-works doesn’t pose a threat. With a different set of circumstances she might have been right.
nice! i’m gonna make my own blog