Being specific.
I read a well-loved book (and I enjoyed it, too, don’t get me wrong) but I discovered that the reason there were jarring elements was that she’d intended for the story to take place, believably, “anywhere.” It’s set in the U.S., or at least hinted at.
It is not by an American author.
There are little details that automatically call it out as such. A “rental car” is called a “hire car.” Zippers are called “zips.” Again, not enough to ruin the experience. The story was fun, and the depth of the characters made up for it. But those were definitely enough to show that trying to flatten something out to be “Anywhere, USA” is 1) unrealistic and 2) ineffective.
If they’d tried to flatten the characters as well, it would have been utter disaster.
Again: one size never fits all.
I have often said that one size fits all fits no one well. You need to tailor your work, and find the intersection between what you do best and love, and what the market is looking for.
Not everyone is your specific reader… and not all of your quirks and peculiarities are meant to be written about.
If you worry that what you are passionate about, and how you write it, is too obscure, if you’re looking to make things more accessible to “the masses,” then you may be doing yourself a disservice.
Write what you uniquely know, inside and out, and you will access more people than you think. They say the devil is in the details, but in this case, the delight is, too.
The slippery slope to stereotypes.
If you try to capture things in broad strokes to let the reader fill in the blanks, for example, you’re going to create cardboard cut-outs of characters. “Everytown America” does not exist, except in the dim memory of old sitcoms and some Hallmark movies. Even Dystopians have their own flavor of dystopia.
Making the reader do the heavy lifting of putting their own vision into a generic work is basically like giving them rice cakes when they were expecting chocolate chip cookies. It gets the job done – they’re not starving – but they’re not happy, either.
Drafting in someone else’s wake.
Similarly, if you’re trying your damnedest to simply follow the most (current) successful path, you are doing yourself a disservice, not only as an artist, but as a businessperson. Because people only really remember the frontrunner. It sounds trite, but you don’t want to be the “next” Stephen King, Rebecca Yarros, Amy Tan. You want to be the first you.
That means “hitting them where they ain’t” as they say in baseball. Take an established successful genre or subgenre, then look at where you can provide value, depth, and meaning from your unique viewpoint.
If you’re trying to “play safe”…
For people like myself, BIPOC people, or LGBTQIA+ authors, or people with disabilities, it might feel easier to brush those under the carpet and try writing mainstream, because they “sell better.”
You have absolutely no obligation to make those aspects of your identity a showcase of your work, incidentally. You don’t owe anyone your personal life.
That said, if you have been writing with those elements but now want to “play safe,” a simple Google search, a glance at your bio, a glance at your photo, will tell the readers that might be unhappy with who/what you are that your books are not for them.
From a simple marketing standpoint, trying to win over Artic tundra cold leads is not only nearly impossible, but a waste of time, energy, and money. Better to just own who you are and find the audience that does appreciate you. It’s more effective, and I promise, there is an audience out there. It’s a matter of finding it. (Which, again, is another series, although you can go back and read the Right Reader emails I sent a bit back.)
Universality comes from specificity.
I got this from an (unfortunately anonymous) literary agent, quoted on the internet. I like it so much, I’ll repeat it.
Universality comes from specificity.
For example, there is a detail I include in my book Do Me a Favor, where the female main character goes home to her parents. The smells of cooking and Asian medicine, the “bag of bags” and Costco furniture, everything is described in detail… right down to something almost every Vietnamese-American kid is aware of.
The dishwasher isn’t used to wash dishes. It’s a storage space for plastic containers and bakeware.
(I don’t know why this is, by the way. But if you know someone, you can ask, and they’ll probably laugh and agree.)
The majority of my readers aren’t Viet and may not have been aware of this. That said, the specificity of the detail, the quirkiness of it, brings to mind the quirks and family oddities in their own families.
It can be just that easy. From specific, to universal.
And from flat and lifeless to vibrant… and truly, uniquely yours.