What makes an idea original and fresh--or commercial--is in the execution. A big part of execution is your writing. Your skill as a writer. Your voice, your facility with language, your sense of humor--or ability to create gut-wrenching angst--your psychological or social insights. Writing skills have to do with a lot more than mechanics and a grasp of basic grammar.
The other part of execution has to do with stage trappings or motif. The framework of your story is where the commerciality comes in.
Here's an example of how you take an ordinary plot and make it topical and commercial.
Let's start with a basic tried and true story idea: hero rescues former lover from danger.
We've got a million possibilities (and at least five of the seven basic literary plots at our disposal), and how we decide to spin this yarn will determine whether publishers, reviewers, and readers will find it fresh or not.
What we do is take some "hot" elements in M/M fiction--ex-lovers, foreign lands, and the military--and combine them with what's newsworthy or currently selling well in mainstream fiction and--pay attention--non-fiction. Like ... the war in Iraq.
So the new and improved plot is: the leader of a Special Operations force is sent into the wilds of Iraq to rescue his missing ex-lover, a Navy SEAL.
Lots of potential there for both internal and external conflict--and that's crucial. You want strong ideas that support a meaty story. Ahem. And in romance, conflict equals plot. (We'll talk more about that later.)
Our Special Ops protag rushing to the rescue of his ex-lover has lots of potential for action and adventure--there's nothing like shared danger to bring two guys together--and what's sexier than Navy SEALS or Special Ops? Just looking at that tagline I'm wondering why these guys broke up, and why did the Navy SEAL's mission fail, and will he be glad to see his ex-lover or will it be too tough on his ego having his ass saved by his ex? Is the SEAL injured? Who dumped whom?
There's a story here--lots of story. It's hot, it's topical, and it's commercial.
But how do you know what's currently selling in mainstream publishing? Visit your bookstore. Check out Amazon's bestsellers list. Check out Publisher's Weekly. Even better, subscribe to Publisher's Lunch through Publisher's Marketplace. www.publishersmarketplace.com/
In fact, our soldier sent to rescue his ex-lover scenario was based on a couple of deals I saw in Publisher's Lunch.
The first was a US marine captain's Band of Brothers account of his platoon in Iraq "showcasing how love and faith prevail even in the darkest hours of the war." The second was for another nonfiction memoir by the leader of a Special Operations force sent to rescue a missing Navy SEAL in Afghanistan.
Now, while it's true that much of our work in M/M fiction is never going to appear on the mainstream publishing radar, I'm not advising you to steal your concepts and ideas wholesale. Obviously, you would need to tweak such ideas, make them your own. Change the names and faces and setting and military rank to protect the innocent.
Still, military rescues are not news in the history of the world. Soldiers have been sent to retrieve missing comrades since man first started crunching heads with handy dinosaur bones--we've all read the books and seen the movies--everything from Gunga Din to Saving Private Ryan. It's not a new idea, but there are ways to make it fresh. Turning it into an M/M love story is one of them, but in itself not enough.
Again, when you're looking for a concept or motif for your story, pay extra attention to the elements that are selling well in non-fiction. For example, flipping through my recent copy of Publisher's Weekly, I'm seeing books out on underwater photography, an Italian-American pastry chef with a bestselling book on desserts, and the story of two male slaves who escaped to freedom in the 1800s.
That's some good, workable stuff. There's a dearth of realistic ethnic and minority M/M stories; underwater photography hasn't been done much, if at all; and chefs, cooking, and all things culinary are trendy right now. Just check out Polly Z. Brite's New Orleans series or the Romentics Hot Sauce.
Read the newspaper, watch the news, scan the Internet for those goofy, off-beat tidbits. These are all good sources for timely and interesting plot ideas.
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