Writing A Bestselling Series

Chapter 6: Round Two

I decided that one way to move into fantasy would be to simply begin edging toward it. So I decided to write a science fiction novel with a fantasy element.

I also decided to explore a new world that felt more like fantasy than science fiction. One writer has astutely observed that the difference between science fiction and fantasy is that "Fantasy has trees, science fiction doesn't." So I thought, What if I created a rich biological world that smells more of forests and rivers than of circuitry?

My publisher suggested that I write a sequel to On My Way to Paradise, but I didn't want to be one of those authors who writes in the same world every time.

In fact, I realized quite early that I loved creating worlds. So I set my novel in a different universe.

Also, I began thinking a lot about audience analysis. I read a book at that time on screenwriting, where the author gave a list of the top 50 movies of all time and asked the reader to make a list of the things that they had in common. I noticed three things right off the bat. But at the end of the list she said basically, "See? They have nothing in common. They're not in the same genre or time period." Yada, yada, yada.

Well, I noticed that all of the top fifty movies transported the reader to another time and place, and that seemed significant. Most people read to escape the world, at least in part. In fact, I suspected that the movie or book that transports the reader best will become the most popular.

I also noticed that in most cases, the movie was written to appeal to a wide demographic—targeting both men and women but sometimes also going for younger boys and girls.

And I could see that the most popular movies were the ones that had the strongest emotional appeal in their genre. Thus, if they were horror films, they were the scariest of the lot. If they were comedies, they were the funniest of the comedies, and so on.

(See my book for more on what makes a bestseller.)

So, I realized that my tactics in were a bit wrongheaded. I'd written about an aging male protagonist, thus restricting my audience. So I decided to try something new.

My first novel had been written in first person, from the point of view of an older male. I decided to switch to third person and alternate between my male protagonist and a couple of female characters, so that it would become easier to plot.

For the setting, I had heard a scientist talk at a science fiction convention at BYU about how he had extracted DNA from a supersaurus bone, and that was exciting. I'd always been fascinated by dinosaurs as a kid. In fact, on one occasion when I was nine or so, a woman asked me what I wanted to do when I grew up, and I tried to explain by saying, "I want to be a genetic . . . paleo . . . biological engineer." Those words seemed to describe what I wanted to do. She asked, "Oh, those are such big words, so what do those people do?" and I proudly answered, "We build dinosaurs. Of course, we can't do it yet, but someday . . ."

So I decided to create a world that had been developed in our far future by such folks, people researching how ancient creatures had acted. They populated each continent with creatures that had existed at different times on the earth. Since I was fond of Neanderthals, I decided to make my primary character half human and half Neanderthal, and to make him a young man rather than an older one.

I have to admit when I first considered the idea, I thought of writing a story about a contemporary family that finds themselves stranded on an island where biologists have recreated animals from the Jurassic era, but that just seemed "too Island of Doctor Moreau."

In case you don't notice, I still wanted to write outside the box, choosing a difficult world to write in, creating a protagonist who was different from others. At the same time, I was struggling to create a novel that had more elements of a classic hit, with a strong setting and characters who were likeable.