David Farland's Four Elements of Every (almost every) Bestseller

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Not too long ago I went to LTUE where I met the fabulous Sheena and Susan, and yes they are even more awesome in real life.

 We attended a talk on “Tricks on How to Make a Living as an Author,” by David Farland.  He gave great advice like write stories that win awards and become bestsellers.  Okay maybe he had a few other suggestions too, but those were two of them.  If only it was that easy.  :)

But Farland did give his personal insights on what makes a bestselling novel that I thought I’d share.  He said he looked at a list of the bestselling novels of all time and identified four commonalities.

1.   Immersive, interesting setting.  Most of the bestselling novels make the reader feel transported to another place and/or time.  For me this could be overdone and come off as a little self-indulgent like in the series The Wheel of Time (someday I’ll blog about this).

2.  Wide audience appeal .  A lot of bestsellers have a story line that appeals to a lot of people with a diverse cast, strong male and female leads with old and young characters.  A little ethnic diversity doesn’t hurt either if done respectfully. 

However, Farland also recognized that sometimes it is wise to target a specific audience especially if you are an avid reader of that genre or subgenre.

3.  Highly emotional.  Most of the bestselling novels evoked a strong emotional response from readers.  Personally, I believe that stories tap into that emotional side of us, and emotional payoff is essential to a great story.

4.  Lengthy.  A lot of bestsellers are very long, longer than publishers and agents recommend.  Most likely because it takes a lot of pages to create a strong story with a detailed, realistic setting.

So that is what makes a bestseller according to David Farland (I'd add romance or a romantic subplot to his list).  I have to say that a lot of blockbuster novels and movies that I love fit these points:  Harry Potter, Les Miserables (threw that in for you Melanie), Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, etc, so there may be something to it.   Although a lot of stories even those that aren’t best sellers also fit these four criteria.

I wish I knew the list of books he based this analysis on, but I did a little googling and I found some lists for the bestselling books of all time here and here.  And because I’m an avid fantasy reader, here’s the list for the bestselling sci-fi and fantasy writers.  Check them out, and see if David Farland is onto something.

So what do you think?  Is David Farland right?  What do you think are the keys to producing a bestselling novel?

~MaryAnn

In Which I Live a Dream and Become a Real Writer

I have this secret dream that all of us Prosers get together and do OSC book boot camp this year. It would be amazing, and I can tell you that for sure, because last Saturday I had a tiny taste of it.

Amazing!

 I went to LTUE with MaryAnn and Susan. That, for your information, is what Susan actually looks like. I had no clue. It's kind of funny, but all of you Prosers have become like sisters to me, and we haven't met before. It didn't feel to me like we were meeting for the first time.

 I felt the same way when I met Sabrina, except with better lighting.

Open invitation for the last three Prosers I haven't met yet,( Sarah, Tricia, and Melanie), let's go to lunch!

 We had TOO much fun at LTUE. We laughed, and learned, and talked about books and publishing and met real life authors. It was a book nerd's paradise.

It was my first convention, and I think I'd never gone to one before, because I had a million excuses not to. But mainly, I didn't want to have to commit to this dream I have, because whenever I say I'm a writer, I have a secret fear that people will read my words and see my soul and say, "Ick".

 But mostly I didn't want to be weird. It's not normal for a mom and Mormon woman to daydream about what life would be like to live on a moon of some far off galaxy. It's not normal to drive my kids to school, and be whispering bits of dialog, or world building, or be thinking what if. It's not normal to worry about if people will think less of me for publishing a book on my own, or to look at a sixteen year old boy and think he'd make a cute hero. It's not normal. I'm officially not normal.

 I know this, but I didn't want to be the not normal that goes to scifi conventions. That was my own personal line in the sand.

But I've crossed it now, and I liked it.

What I took away from the conference, more than the inspiration from Susan and MaryAnn on how to fix the climax of my book, or hearing brilliant people say things I've thought, and things I never would have, that gave me a new path for my own ideas, or even the ...fact... that Dave Farland discovered both Twilight, and Harry Potter, was the clear and secure knowledge that I'm not the only weirdo out there.

 There were hundreds of men and women who got the Dr. Who references, and the spoke of some inspiration they got from one of my favorite books, and a ton of books to my TBR pile to inspire me later, who were amazed at the idea of goats in space, or the importance of the sewing needle and how it affected our society.

The amazing thing, is that there are thousands, maybe millions more of us out there who didn't go to LTUE, but who have the same dream. That might be intimidating number to think of, if you see all those people as competition,  but I don't. I've read a thousand books that have taught me the same singular message I learned from LTUE. I'm weird, but I'm not alone.

I'm weird like you.

Now, I'm off to fix my climax.

Happy writing, happy reading, happy life,
~Sheena