Publishers and agents will tell you not to try to write to fit a trend. Usually by the time you’d have something ready, the trend would be over. However, there is one way that I think writers can benefit from looking at trends.
The specifics of a trend are transitory, but underlying every trend is some kind of human desire that can be used as the basis of a powerful story. For example, I looked at the Google Trends page recently. It tells you what the hot searches are that people are conducting on Google (in this case, in the U.S.). The top two were:
- Amanda Todd – the 15 year old hanged herself
after being cyber bullied (over 1 million searches). She had posted a video on
YouTube in which she held up signs that chronicled the abuse she’d endured
after a man she’d been talking to on the net pressured her to send him a
picture of herself, topless. He then circulated that picture. Todd also wrote
of self-harming and previous suicide attempts.
- In the UK the biggest trend was, and still is, the unfolding story of the late Jimmy Saville, who abused young girls for many years with impunity, using his celebrity and philanthropic activities as a shield. The girls who came forward at the time were ignored or even punished.
I’m not suggesting that you write a thinly-disguised fictional version of these sad stories, just they help remind us that it’s strong emotions, the plight of the underdog and the victimized, and the desire for acceptance that make us feel something for a real person and also for a fictional one.
Of course it's not only negative events that work this way; another huge story recently was the man who jumped to earth from the edge of space--someone having the guts to take on a challenge like that thrills and inspires us.
Sometimes fiction has the ability to open people's eyes to the real things that are happening around them or awakens something positive in themselves. Don't underestimate the power of what you write.
It's a cliche to say that even if what you do helps one person that makes it worthwhile, but it's true. The other week, after a talk I gave at the London Screenwriting Festival, someone came up to me and said, "I read your book a few years ago and it changed my life." The book was "Your Writing Coach," and I'm assuking he meant it changed his life for the better. He went off to a talk without giving any further details, but I can tell you that getting a comment like that once in a while makes up for a lot of hours spent working on a book or sometimes getting a disappointing royalty statement.
