Today’s article is written by regular contributor Lydia Sharp.
A good restaurant does one sort of food brilliantly. A bad one does fifty badly.
~Gordon Ramsay, chef and restaurateur
I have a confession to make. I’m addicted to Gordon Ramsay’s reality shows. My favorite of all of them is Kitchen Nightmares. Perhaps it’s the idea of taking something on the brink of death and breathing life into it again, I don’t know. I like to fix things.
One of the main areas Chef Ramsay analyzes in Kitchen Nightmares is the menu. Most of the failing restaurants he visits have the same problem—they are offering the customers too many choices. Varied choices that don’t really go together, like chicken cacciatore and wonton soup.
You would think that having more choices was a good thing, but as Chef Ramsay explains to the restaurant mangers and head chefs, one of the best ways to get word-of-mouth recommendations and repeat customers is to simplify your menu. Focus on a single theme.
Why? Because it shows you have a specialty. The customers can rightly assume that you have mastered how to prepare every item you serve. They will expect a quality product.
If you walked into a Chipotle one day and saw they added cheeseburgers to the menu along with their massive, amazing burritos, would you expect those cheeseburgers to be as good as the ones they serve at Five Guys? (For those of you who have never experienced the culinary delights of either Chipotle or Five Guys, I’m so very sorry for your loss.)
The same is true of your fiction.
How to Simplify Your Writing Menu
Like the head chef of a restaurant, you are in charge of what you serve to your readers. Choose one thing you are passionate about writing, and stick to it long enough to build a loyal fan base.
So if you’re a writer who likes to dabble in different genres, how do you decide which one to focus on for your career? How do you take an overcrowded, confusing, unfocused menu and whittle it down to something brilliantly simple?
Consider the following questions:
1. How many novels have you actually finished writing?
If the answer to that is none, then you aren’t ready to even be thinking about a menu yet. You’re still an apprentice, not a head chef. Come back to this post later, after you’ve had time to develop your skills and discover your personal likes and dislikes. If the answer to that is one, good. Now finish another. If the answer to that is two or more, move on to the next question.
2. What genre/type are the novels you’ve finished?
You need a good amount of passion to get you from page one to “the end.” Don’t underestimate how genre affects what stories you actually finish. The brain’s natural inclination is to eschew unpleasant behavior. So you must enjoy writing, on some level, the novels you see through to the end.
3. What compiles the bulk of your reading?
This is quite possibly the most important factor when analyzing why you enjoy writing a certain genre. A person’s reading tastes often vary, but if you take note of all the books you read and enjoy, you should see one particular type stand out from the others.
A chef’s passion for cooking certain food stems first from his passion for eating that food. If you cook the food you like to eat, the work involved in preparing it won’t seem like a chore. So as an author, it only makes sense to write the type of books you enjoy reading most. Because there is work involved. Every novel is a labor of love.
4. Think of your favorite authors. Why are they your favorites?
Personally, many of the authors I love have a flair for writing quick paced, character-focused, contemporary fiction. It’s easy to read, it connects with me, and it’s also (not surprisingly) my favorite thing to write.
By putting yourself in the same group as your favorite authors, you aren’t trying to be them, or copycat them. (Please, for the love of spilled ink, don’t claim you’re the next J.K. Rowling, or the next Stephen King, or the next [insert absurdly famous author name here].) You’re simply admitting that you have similar tastes. You could even rightly say they’ve influenced your work.
It took me some time to figure all of this out, and then a bit more time after that to accept it (because I also have a love affair with sci-fi and fantasy). And again, it took even more time after that to craft a career goal based on this analysis. So don’t rush anything. Be honest with yourself. And choose your specialty with care.
Focusing on a Single Theme Doesn’t Limit You
As Chipotle says, “Our menu isn’t long – but it’s long on options.” From one main product comes a variety of choices, but those choices are not headache-inducing because they have the same foundation. Inside of one genre/type of fiction there are endless story possibilities, enough to keep you busy writing throughout a lifelong career.
Don’t open a restaurant doomed to failure by making an easily avoided mistake. The simpler your menu, the less confused your customer, the more likely they will be satisfied with what they’ve ordered because what you serve will meet their expectations.
Happy eating writing!
Oh great, Lydia, now I’m hungry (not fussy either, a cheeseburger or burrito would do nicely). I agree, you have to carve a niche, even within genre (I don’t write just fantasy, I write epic historical fantasy), before you can branch out. One of my favorite authors, Jacqueline Carey, just published a contemporary urban fantasy, but she established herself with nine epic historicals first. I’ll happily genre hop with her, but I’m not sure I would’ve after one or two epics.
Nice post, even if you did make me hungry well before lunch. 😉
Excellent points, Vaughn! I think an author can successfully switch genres (without a new pen name) *after* they’ve established a readership in one particular area. But even then it isn’t a sure thing. Look at all the controversy over The Casual Vacancy. People want more from JK that’s like Harry Potter, not something completely new, but others are enjoying her new book just fine. So no matter how successful you are, there’s always a risk. But I think that risk is greater the fewer books you have behind you when you switch.
Thanks so much for your comment!
Lydia, this is great advice. I’ve got four books in three genres coming out in fairly rapid succession. My task is going to figure out how to market all of them when I’m going to have to search out different venues such as bloggers and book reviewers in three different categories. It’s definitely going to be a challenge. It would be much easier if all of my books were, say, YA. (Now, why couldn’t I have read this two years ago?) 😉
Thanks, Margaret, and congrats on all the book deals! That will certainly be a challenge but not impossible. Good luck!
Thanks for the tasty post–a lot to chew on! I’m a picky eater (and picky reader!) and when in doubt, I go for the house specialty. Hey, wait a minute. Do you mean to tell me that since I’m also a lousy chef, (potatoes, pickles, pancakes and popcorn) I need to stir things up? (Like Vaughn, I’m hungry, too!)
“House specialty” is a great term! Now how can we apply that to what we write? Another good thing to think about.
And LOL to your chef skills. Potatoes, pickles, pancakes and popcorn all start with the same letter at least. That could be a theme, right? 😉
Thanks so much for your comment!
Great post! I’m more of a Top Chef girl than a Gordon Ramsey fan, although I did enjoy Kitchen Nightmares. And fortunately, I knew exactly what you meant by Chipotle and Five Guys (my current burger obsession!)
I’m wondering what your take is on changing your menu, as it were. I’ve slowly changed my menu over the years, since my own tastes changed. It does mean sacrificing some audience, but it has strengthened the through line of what I like and what I believe is my strength (humor.) It straddles genres, though. Would you say that’s like having a “raw foods” genre, as it were, where the menu changes but the theme stays the same?
Excellent question, Cathy. I’m not sure I have the right answer for it, or if there even is a “right” answer, but here’s my take: even Chef Ramsay is in favor of changing up the menu from time to time so it doesn’t get too stale. You want to keep things fresh and exciting. But the key is, like you said, sticking to the same theme.
I think you’re on the right track. If you can cross genres while keeping a similar thread (in your case, humor) then you’re less likely to lose readers overall. For example, I write LGBT adult fic, occasionally, as well as YA LGBT (my main focus). No, I don’t expect all my YA readers to read my adult fic, but I also understand that a lot of my YA readers *are* adults. So there’s potential for crossover, even more so if the topic is similar.
Hope that helps. Good luck!
I love Gordon Ramsey!!!!
This is a brilliant post, by the way.
haha, thanks!
These are great suggestions for all writers! As far as my creative writing (I write creative nonfiction), it took me a long time to figure out my specialty, and I’m still working on perfecting it. But I can definitely understand why it will be worth it. I love Gordon Ramsay too, by the way! Thanks!
Melinda
I’m finding there are a lot of closet GR fans among us, haha. Thanks so much for your comment!
I have never written a novel, so I’m not sure if this leaves me in category 1, but I’ve been writing professionally for almost 20 years. I mostly write short stories (erotica), as well as some essays (humor, usually, but sometimes social commentary or academic), poetry, and a smattering of flash (sometimes spec fic, sometimes realism). Within forms, I specialize — my nonfiction is usually about disability/chronic illness and my erotica is all lesbian and also often disability-themed. Do you think this advice applies to those of us who write short form as well as book-length? I’m wondering because even though I’ve been publishing lesbian erotica for a decade, I’m often blurbed or reviewed as an exciting “new name,” so I’m thinking I’m not getting name recognition because I’m not saturating the market enough (I’m not prolific because my illness limits me).
First off, Sharon, darling Sharon, I need to tell you how truly impressed I am with your writing history. Truly. I feel like you should be giving me advice, not the other way around, so I’ll do my best to answer your question.
Absolutely I do feel that this applies to short story writers as well as novelists. I don’t think you have to be super-prolific to build a solid backlist, either. But short fiction is tough to market on its own (meaning, outside of an anthology or magazine). So yes, part of the lack of recognition may come from the fact that there is simply not as much reader awareness of short stories, in general, as compared to novels.
The advent of e-publishing is changing that, though. More and more digital first publishers and imprints are looking for short fiction, usually in novella length, to release as single-title ebooks. These seem to be more popular even than standard print anthologies lately, especially for anything that involves romance. Just something to think about, going forward.
Since you seem to have a specific brand in place, my next step would be to analyze how much effort you’re putting into promoting these stories, and whether or not those efforts are misplaced. Meaning, are you marketing in the most effective arenas *for your work* as you possibly can?
Different genres/types of fiction have different readers and therefore require different marketing strategies. Going back to the example of restaurants, would you expect an advertisement for McDonald’s Value Menu to do well in a magazine geared toward 5-star chefs? Or would it perhaps be better placed in a magazine geared toward busy working moms?
Hope that helps. Thanks for weighing in here!
Yes, that does help. Thank you!
I do think I could be doing more to gain attention in the areas where I’m known. I have some plans in that direction, but I keep putting off putting them into action. I’m held back partly by my fear (largely by my fear?), partly by my always wanting to do too many things (dog blogging, erotica writing, disability humor, etc. — what to do first?), and partly by the constraints of my illnesses.
About the fear, I think I don’t take myself seriously enough or believe in myself enough. For example, I was shocked by the first two sentences in your response. I almost didn’t post because I thought, “Well, people who are writing book-length works are the *real* writers. This doesn’t even apply to me.” Recently, a couple of people referred to me as a “disability literature rock star” and the like, and I asked them to please stop. It made me deeply uncomfortable.
So, thank you for the shot of confidence and the reality check. I’m going to push myself to do the things I’ve been wanting to do that I feel so afraid to do! It’s ridiculous, really, that I should have such a fear of having my work rejected since that is part of the job description of being a writer!
Great advice, Lydia! It took me the longest time to realize that all my books and short stories are essentially romantic comedies, even though some are mysteries, some women’s fiction and some historical fiction. Even my poetry has comic and romantic elements. Once I realized that, I could start branding my work and promoting myself to the right audience.
That’s a perfect example of how to apply this to cross-genre writing, Anne. Thank you so much for sharing your own experience!
Really good points, but I think I’m doomed. I like doing too many different kinds of writing. I’ve got 2 picture books in progress (one about to go to press), a middle grade, a memoir, a mystery. I think my issues is more about getting my manuscripts completed. It does seem that in managing a writing career, the industry and the public would prefer that you write in a single genre. Thanks for a great post.
I don’t think you’re doomed, haha. But you might want to consider using a pen name if there is one particular thing you write that doesn’t seem to fit at all with anything else. For instance, picture books and middle grade both fall under kid lit, so I don’t see an issue there. The others, though… that’s definitely something you’d want to discuss with your agent and/or editor before moving forward. Good luck!
Interesting perspective. I’ve just returned to writing, having recently gone through career counseling where my therapist reconnected me with my first love (twenty years after a thoughtless college English professor tore us apart). I told her about many stories I have in my head based on personal experiences and dreams, and she has encouraged me to just start writing and see where it goes. The first challenge I’ve given myself is participating in NaNoWriMo this year, and my novel is underway. As a classic INFJ, though, I’m looking way out into the future to picture what this all could look like, and this is my dilemma with your post. Like others here, my interests are broad and varied. Right now I’m writing sort of a gothic suspense story based on my personal experiences, but I’m also interested in writing children’s fiction with a core theme. I’ve been thinking about if – in the future, even if I self publish – I would want a different pseudonym for one genre or another. I agree with your Gordon Ramsay comparison – a pizza joint shouldn’t also serve escargot and hope to gain an audience. Perhaps I’m getting ahead of myself, but pen names are certainly on my mind, as the story I’m writing now could cause embarassment to my family if it were published under my real name.