That old can of worms again. . .

[B.R.Stateham]

Craig McDonald has an interesting interview with Leonard Elmore. What's interesting is the comment Elmore makes about editors sending him 'scripts with comments about how this writer or that sounds like him (Elmore).

I read that and immediately thought, "Yeah. . . editors and publishers are looking for something new and different all right. Yeah, sure."

[Eve]

I suspect editors are looking for something like something already successful but different and original...quite a trick if you can pull it off.

[Grant McKenzie]

That's exactly the secret formula that everyone keeps talking about, Eve.
Congratulations, you've cracked it ;-)

[Eric Christopherson]

It's "the same but different" for short.

[John McFetridge]

What I find odd is how little of that stuff sounds anything at all like Elmore Leonard.

Though, I have to say, it was a big moment for me when I finally got a review that talked about my own book and didn't just call me a second-rate Elmore Leonard.

[B.R.Stateham]

What the hell . . . it seems the only way a person's writing can be judged is to compare it to someone else. I don't know if this is good or bad. But it sure throws a label of 'stereotyping' onto a writer.

[John McFetridge]

It's not a bad thing, B.R., it's just what happens when 300,000 books gets published a year.

And you can categorize books, some are more alike than others. In the case of books being like Elmore Leonard what people usually mean is that they are more in the voice of their characters and those characters are cops and crooks. Cops often talk in precise terms because that's what they do filling out reports and giving testimony (my brother says it runs in the family, I write creative fiction and he writes creative reports).

Once in a while I read stuff that is quite original and not like any other books - maybe Donald Barthelme or even James Ellroy would qualify (my curent fave is Michel Houllebeq), but I can't have a steady diet of that stuff.

[Jack Getze]

Don't see how being compared to a bestseller could be bad, BR. These writers have lots of fans who might try our books on such a comparison, and as we all know, getting readers to try something new is the toughest part of this game. One reviewer said of mine, "If Elmore Leonard had gotten a securities license, this is the book he might have written." That's not only my favorite quote, but the one several experts have told me to certainly include in my marketing materials.

[RONALD FEASEL]

I read your reply and I agree