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Post by account_disabled on Jan 2, 2024 5:50:57 GMT
I still remember the anecdote told by Stephen King in his essay On Writing . It was about his first novel. The agent told him that he had good news and bad news. The good news was that they were going to publish his book. The bad news was that he would be classified by everyone as a horror writer. That anecdote stuck with me, I have never forgotten it and I have been reading that book for a few years now. And when I think about it, I'm not sure I have a precise opinion on the matter. But I remember that it seemed absurd to me to consider Stephen King a horror author just for having published a horror story as his first novel.
But perhaps at that moment I was thinking as a writer and not as a reader. The expectations of us readers When I read Walter Moers' first novel, The 13 ½ Lives of Captain Blue Bear , I couldn't wait to read another of his stories about Zamonia and its crazy inhabitants. How would I have reacted to a Moers thriller or a Special Data science fiction novel or a mainstream one? I have no idea, but I know I would have bought it with my eyes closed, unless it was something completely outside of my reading list. When I read the Harry Potter saga, I hoped to read other fantasies by Rowling, but when the author published The Vacant Seat , I decided to read it anyway.
I didn't regret it, in fact, I really liked it. But readers are all different, there are those who only read fantasy and have not followed Rowling in the events linked to that vacant seat nor in the cases of Cormoran Strike, written under the pseudonym of Robert Galbraith. Does the first published novel really identify us? Because, if this is really the case, then that novel must be chosen with care. Then a writer must reflect on his (probable) cataloging by the public. And about his entire future career as an author. He must also be ready to disappoint his audience , if he decides, as Rowling and other authors like her have done, to dedicate themselves to other literary genres , to accept new challenges, to test themselves with completely different stories.
But perhaps at that moment I was thinking as a writer and not as a reader. The expectations of us readers When I read Walter Moers' first novel, The 13 ½ Lives of Captain Blue Bear , I couldn't wait to read another of his stories about Zamonia and its crazy inhabitants. How would I have reacted to a Moers thriller or a Special Data science fiction novel or a mainstream one? I have no idea, but I know I would have bought it with my eyes closed, unless it was something completely outside of my reading list. When I read the Harry Potter saga, I hoped to read other fantasies by Rowling, but when the author published The Vacant Seat , I decided to read it anyway.
I didn't regret it, in fact, I really liked it. But readers are all different, there are those who only read fantasy and have not followed Rowling in the events linked to that vacant seat nor in the cases of Cormoran Strike, written under the pseudonym of Robert Galbraith. Does the first published novel really identify us? Because, if this is really the case, then that novel must be chosen with care. Then a writer must reflect on his (probable) cataloging by the public. And about his entire future career as an author. He must also be ready to disappoint his audience , if he decides, as Rowling and other authors like her have done, to dedicate themselves to other literary genres , to accept new challenges, to test themselves with completely different stories.