So true. They feel secure in a familiar theme. And when the familiar theme works well, it's usually phenomenal. (Boy meets girl, loses girl, wins girl. Rich foreign princess loses money then moves to other country and rebuilds her own empire and gets handsome sexy financially-secure jock to boot. Ah Danielle.)
And there are the "33 plots" that every story supposedly falls into. So I can deal with Romeo and Juliet or Romeo must die or Hamlet or West Side Story. But you're right. IF a writer always uses the same theme or plot, chances aren't likely that she's gonna be original. She won't write Rome and Juliet one year, or RMD or H, or WSS. Especially if they stick to one genre. I can also understand if a writer writes something similar ten years after writing a similar story. Maybe they feel they haven't done it well. Or maybe they want to explore some area they haven't. But if it's rutting or churning...then. For instance, I think The Stand was one of the best Stephen King Books. He doesn't have to write another end of the world book. Green Mile and Shawshank were both good prison stories that dealt with similar themes but were different. I can't imagine him writing another prison story ...WELL. But who knows? As for haunted dogs, houses, cars, etc, I tried to read Cujo (or was that pet sematary) and I saw Christine. They were horrible. He still writes some great stuff occasionally though. Don't give up on him. The boy who loved Tom Robbins was good. (Think that was the title) And there was Bag of Bones...okay, although I thought he should let Grisham do courtroom dramas. -C --- In [email protected], "Kelly Wright" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hello Carole, > > I am a great fan of detective fiction and when I discover a new writer > (new to me), I tend to read them voraciously UNTIL THEY START > REPEATING THEMSELVES! And all serial writers eventually do it. I > stopped reading Stephen King almost twenty years ago, when he hit a > horrible rut and virtually published the same novel with a different > title for five consecutive years (a haunted dog, cemetary, car, etc.). > I stopped reading Robert B. Parker's wonderful Spenser novels when he > repeated the first one almost verbatim. > > As someone who almost never rereads a novel by choice, I am extremely > peeved when someone suckers me into buying a thematic reissue under > the guise of a new novel. > > There are, of course, readers - romance readers for instance, who > enjoy reading the same story over and over and over again. > > ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Life without art & music? Keep the arts alive today at Network for Good! http://us.click.yahoo.com/FXrMlA/dnQLAA/Zx0JAA/DtIolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Community email addresses: Post message: [email protected] Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe Digest Mode: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED]: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SciFiNoir_Lit/ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SciFiNoir_Lit/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
