With the release of the list of finalists for the 2009 Archibald Prize (annual Australian portraiture art competition), The Australian‘s Christopher Allen has commented that “the painters are driven by the irresistible force of the struggle to survive, and nature, or the Archibald judges, will ruthlessly select in favour of the best-adapted.” In other words, because big heads tend to win the Archibald, entrants paint the portraits bigger and bigger to try and please the judges in this particular art ‘microclimate’.

Writers trying to find favour with publishers and editors will follow the same logic. If Dan Brown-style historical-puzzle-thrillers are in and selling like hot cakes, writers will try to produce something similar – and why not, since publishers will be desperately looking for something similar: these big hits pay for all the losses.

However, if you’re sitting down to write your first novel, I wouldn’t recommend this approach, for two generalised reasons.

The first is purely practical/logistical and has to do with lead time. If you’ve only just realised Twilight is the next big thing and your most likely path to publication is to write a knock-off, you’re already a few years too late. By the time you’ve written the thing, got it out to agents or editors, had it accepted and edited and laid out and produced and printed and finally to the bookstores, the world’s moved on from sparkly crazy-stalker vampires to chocolate-addicted flying werewolves or invisible shape-changing unicorns (Oh yes. You heard it here first). You need to be lucky enough to already have a suitable book under the eyes of agents etc when a new trend makes itself known (or be the reliable go-to author a publisher will hire to turn out a book meeting a new trend).

A related part of this logistic reasoning is that you’re not the only person who has noticed the trend: by the time you’ve got your book ready to send out, so have hundreds of others, and all at once, editors are swimming in vampire stories and primed to reject them all (no matter how much better yours is than everyone else’s). You won’t stand out if you swim with the other little fishies: which is fine when you’re avoiding sharks but not good if you want to get…the…hook…that analogy went awry but you see where I’m going.

The other big reason has to do with motivation and creativity. When you’re first coming to writing, the writing itself can be hard enough – creating the habit and finding the words, controlling a plot and managing characters – having to do all that for a story that you yourself aren’t all that invested in anyway is a sure recipe for failure. On those days when things are going badly for me, I can still force myself to sit and write…but I couldn’t imagine maintaining that willpower if it was something I was churning out because I thought it would sell well rather than because I genuinely loved the underlying story. Write what you love, love what you write.

Of course, if what you’re really into right now happens to be vampires, don’t let the current popularity of sparkly vampires put you off either. It’s not a genre that’s going away, and there’s always rooms for more, if you make it original and compelling.

And lastly, there is a place for observing trends in writing – those fashions like the rise of first person narrators over third-person POV, or the more modern styles of fantasy and so on, which are likely to last a while – changes in style or ongoing developments in your genre, as opposed to temporary fads. That’s why you read widely and pay attention what seems to be working well – not to copy, but to learn.

Caveat: this advice comes courtesy of a self-proclaimed niche writer who is not mainstream, never will be, and has no desire to be. If your aim is to be a bestselling bookstore author, then, actually, yes, you should be monitoring and researching trends and sales and trying to catch the next wave, and you’re perfectly welcome to think this entry is the dumbest advice you’ve ever heard…