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My Best Seller
- Louisiana State University Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
87 My Best Seller I’m going to write a best seller. Because women buy most of the books, my best seller will have a female protagonist. I’m going to call her Greta because I’ve always thought Greta is a pretty name. In addition, I have become aware that the supernatural is hot, that people enjoy elements of mystery and magic in their best-selling books, that otherworldly creatures have a romantic appeal while also providing avenues for surprising turns of plot since supernatural creatures , by definition, are not bound by our natural world. However, the most common supernatural creatures—werewolves, vampires, witches, elves/orcs, and dragons—while “hot,” are also said to be potentially “overdone,” or “spent.” Above all, my best seller will be original , so my best seller will not have any werewolves, vampires, witches, elves/orcs, or dragons. Therefore, the protagonist of my best seller will be a female yeti, also known as a Sasquatch, by the name of Greta. The working title (tentative) will be Bigfoot Woman. Greta may or may not have a pet unicorn. It has come to my attention that a good strategy for a best-selling book is to write in a way that will appeal to young adults and adults alike, primarily (though not exclusively) women. This makes sense when one realizes that adults are just grown-up children, most (but not all) of whom would prefer to return to their childhoods because deep inside we all retain a child’s sense of wonder. If there’s any doubt 88 about this, go to the Fourth of July fireworks and tell me there aren’t plenty of grown-ups going “ooh” and “ahh” at the rockets’ red glare and bombs bursting in the air. So the protagonist of my best seller is now a teenage yeti named Greta who may or may not have a pet unicorn. For obvious reasons, the working title has changed from Bigfoot Woman to Bigfoot Girl. All good books have conflict, and one form of conflict is internal conflict, something that goes on inside all of us, unseen but also unavoidable . Often, writers draw on their own experience when developing conflict. An example of an internal conflict is a writer trying to decide what kind of book to write. I have decided to write a best seller, so I have no more internal conflict, thus I will have to look elsewhere for Greta’s conflict. Since Greta is a teenager, and teenagers often struggle over issues of identity, I’ve decided that this is what Greta will struggle with. In order to make this struggle more apparent and accessible to my reading audience of young and not young— primarily but not exclusively—female readers, my protagonist will be a teenage half-yeti, half-human female named Greta. I’m starting to have strong doubts about the pet unicorn, unless it can also talk, or perhaps read minds, or maybe change colors depending on Greta’s mood, which would be an interesting way of symbolizing Greta’s conflict come to think about it. What you’ve seen right there is what we writers call “creativity,” real seat-of-the-pants invention-type stuff where you’re just letting your mind go and seeing what connections it can make. I was about to ditch the pet unicorn, but instead I made it many times better. It’s an incredible thing. This is one of the chief pleasures of writing, second only to getting official notification that the book you’ve written is a best seller. You should try it. My half-human, half-yeti teenage protagonist Greta will be struggling over her identity: Namely, is she human, or is she yeti? Some reviewers will surmise that this internal conflict is analogous to someone ’s struggle over their sexuality or racial identity, and because I am [3.238.195.81] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 15:33 GMT) 89 savvy (a prerequisite for writing a best seller), I will let them say these things, even though they’ll be wrong. Greta’s internal struggle will be over whether she is human or yeti and nothing else. Some things just are what they are. My best seller will need a setting, a place for my character to engage in action. I am choosing the setting before I develop the action because good writers know that action does not come first. Action flows out of character, conflict, and place...