Writing Excuses 21.05: The Same, But Different 

From https://writingexcuses.com/21-05-the-same-but-different

Key Points: How do you write something that feels original, but still meets readers' expectations? Genre or sequel? Sequels, structure or cast? Change one. Don't change too many things, one difference can be enough. Grounding questions may carry over. Window dressing genre or elemental genre? Keep the window dressing the same, but play with the elemental genre elements. Aesthetic driven or structure driven genres? What are the questions underlying your stories? Writing as hospitality. How do you avoid repeating your tropes? Do it consciously. Honor the fact that you are not the same person. Ask what if about your writing! 

[Season 21, Episode 05]

[Mary Robinette] This episode...

[unknown] Kimi no game system... [advertisement in Japanese] [Singing Lenovo, Lenovo]

[Mary Robinette] ... of Writing Excuses has been brought to you by our listeners, patrons, and friends. If you would like to learn how to support this podcast, visit www.patreon.com/writingexcuses.

[Season 21, Episode 05]

[Mary Robinette] This is Writing Excuses.

[DongWon] The same, but different.

[Erin] Tools, not rules.

[Mary Robinette] For writers, by writers.

[Mary Robinette] I'm Mary Robinette.

[DongWon] I'm DongWon.

[Erin] I'm Erin.

[DongWon] And this week we're going to talk about one of... A topic that I'm deeply fascinated by, and, I think, one of the trickier things to figure out when you're talking about genre writing, when you're talking about series writing in particular. But I think it's really true of the entire publishing process. Right? And that is how do you write something that feels original, but still accomplishes meeting the reader's expectations? And that can be down to meeting the same genre expectations, that can be down to writing a sequel, that feels in conversation with the original but is its own thing and is unique. Right? I mean, again, we are creatures of pattern recognition. Right? We want certain beats, we want a certain feeling from our romance or fantasy or science fiction or mystery or thrillers. Right? Like, there's this idea of fiction being trope-y or formulaic. But those tropes and formulas are the building blocks of genre storytelling. So, how do you look at differentiating the story that you're writing from the things that came before it?

[Mary Robinette] So, I think that there's two ways to think about this. One is with sequels and one is with genre. I'm going to start with sequels first.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] So, when I wrote Shades of Milk and Honey, it's basically Jane Austen with magic, it is more or less a straight up Regency romance. In romance, the structure is that you write the first book, and there's a very specific romantic structure. And then when you write the second book, the structure is the same, but the difference comes from a different cast. So it's the sister of the heroine and the boyfriend's BFF. Now follow form. I didn't want to do that. So what I did for my same but different was I changed my structure, but I kept my cast. And what I see when I see people moving into sequels is that a lot of times they are keeping the same ca... The sequels that feel flat is that a lot of times it's the same cast and they are facing the same kind of problem. So it's the same and the same. And they  aren't bringing anything new to it. So I think one of the things that you can think about when you are moving into a sequel is keeping the same as this is the heart and the core of this story. Those are the things that you keep the same. Because I also see that the other problem which is that someone moves into a sequel and  then go the different and the different.

[DongWon] Yep.

[Mary Robinette] And it's so far away from the original that people... People go back to that sequel because they want a specific thing. And so if you remove that piece of the same, and you then... Then there's no reason for them to go back to it. So I think looking at kind of what is your intention, keep those things the same. And then, what are the places you want to kind of surprise or bring something new?

[Erin] I was thinking about, because I haven't written novel sequels, like, where I've encountered this. And I kept thinking about my time when I was writing for Zombies Run. It's interesting, because it's the same cast of people, and it's the same action. There are zombies and you are running from them. Every single time.

[DongWon] You've got one verb.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah.

[Erin] It is a game with one action. Run. And so, something that we would find is early on the instinct would be to throw a lot of new things, to try to make each thing different. Like, there's more zombies, and they're on fire. And you're in space. No, not really. But, like, and they're all happening. And it turns out that a lot of times one difference makes a huge difference because people are like, oh, I understood how they got through everything, like, they really figured out how to run from the zombies. But now the zombies are on fire. Which is bad. And so, like, this one difference accelerates the tension, in part because you're like, they can't repeat what has already happened, so how are they going to get out of this situation this time? And so, you don't have to change everything, and, like, throw all the toys into the bin, you can just have this one thing that they can focus on, and that actually adds a lot.

[DongWon] Yeah, I mean, going to sort of MICE quotient, right, you have all these different components that make up a story, from milieu to the characters. And I think choosing one or two of these, I mean, you can do a thing where you're keeping most of these the same, and if you're doing, like, romance, you're really keeping a lot of things very similar. Or if you're doing, like, procedural mystery, then a lot of it is staying using the very popular phrase these days, standalone mysteries with series potential, you're going to want to be able to carry things through. But if you wrote the first book as a true standalone, now it's like, okay, how do I do book two? Right? And so figuring out what you want to carry over from book one, whether that is purely the setting, have new characters or pick up side characters, or you have the same cast and you're putting them in a different situation. I think those are the things that you need to start thinking about, of, like, wait, what are the things that I want to be fixed points as I'm looking forward to telling this new story?

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. Like with the Lady Astronaut books, I've got Elma has anxiety, and so... But we go into space and all of that. And so in book one, we don't fix her anxiety, but she has come to a place where she accepts the choices that she's making and... But in the second book, the thing that I change isn't, oh, now she has a new problem. It's, she still has anxiety, but it's a different trigger this time. Which is often the way that things happen in real life. You're like, ah, now I have a handle on this. Oh, wait, circumstances are different. So a lot of times, just changing the context, whether it's setting your zombies on fire or sending someone to Mars, is enough to shake things for the character.

[Erin] And if you think about... Like, a lot of science fiction that, like, at least I grew up on Star Trek, it's very procedural. Like, it is...

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Erin] The same but different, like, episode after episode after after episode in the series, where it is the same cast and theoretically the same... Like, they're still part of the Federation, they're still trying to, like, seek out new worlds, but it's what's on this world? What does this alien do that we didn't expect? How are our expectations of how we can  handle this shifted? And I think we, like, see a lot of that and have experienced a lot of that as watchers, as people who are engaged in science fiction. But then sometimes when it's written, it like freaks people out. It's like, nah, you cannot have... If people really love your characters, like, fanfiction will tell you, if people love your characters, they will watch them open an alternate universe coffee shop together...

[Chuckles]

[Erin] Because they just really want to  be in a place with these people.

[DongWon] Well, and sometimes it's important to realize that you can wander pretty far afield.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah.

[DongWon] Right? I mean, I'm thinking about two classic examples of 80's science fiction movies, which is Terminator and Terminator 2. Right? Which is just a complete inversion of the first story. Right? They're the same structure, in a lot of ways. Same beats in a lot of ways. But instead of the Terminator being the villain in one, now he's the hero in two. Right? Instead of Linda Hamilton's character being the victim in the first movie, she becomes this incredible badass action hero in two. So it's like, oh, what if we just flipped everything on its head, but told the same story, How does that change? Right? Which makes it a really fun, easy to grasp thought experiment as you're looking at it and being like, oh, I get what this is right away. Also, this feels like a Terminator movie, has the same tone, and it has the same body. And another example is the jump from Alien to Aliens, which is a complete genre shift. It goes from horror science fiction to action science fiction. Right? The second movie, wildly different tone, wildly different vibe, same aesthetics though. Right? It's using the same visual elements and it's still quite scary. There are still, like, horror elements to it. But the difference between there is one alien and it is picking us off one by one to oh, hey, God, there are thousands of them and... But we have a whole military unit with us. Completely different tone, but, again, same but different.

[Mary Robinette] I think... Talking about the tone also brings up a thing that you can do when you're looking at a sequel, and I'm thinking of the Gideon the 9th and...

[DongWon] Harrow...

[Mary Robinette] Harrow. That there's a big tone shift when you go from one book to the other. Because we shift POV characters...

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] Because of a bunch of other things. But there are also so many grounding questions that are carried over...

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] From the first book that you are still engaged with it, even though there's a lot of difference...

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] In that one. But the big kind of question of sort of who am I and how do I define myself...

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] And pushing against systems that want to keep me in a specific place, like, that's very consistent from book to book.

[DongWon] Or, again, A Memory Called Empire jumping to A Desolation Called Peace. Right? We read A Memory Called  Empire a little while ago on this podcast, but the second book takes the same characters or many of the same characters, the ones who make it through the first book, and then they put them on the bridge of a starship trying to figure out how to communicate with some very different aliens. It's a really different problem and setting. I mean, one... In the first one, we are in an epic fantasy succession sort of story, and then in the second one, we're in this Star Trek how to meet the aliens story. But, because of the same characters and the tone and the questions are the same, they are still questions about connection and communication and language in a way that the first one is, it feels of a piece, even though they are radically different from each other. Okay. We're going to take a quick break. And when we come back, I want to talk about some... Zooming out a little bit in sort of a more macro scale, How do I keep this feeling the same, while not just doing a direct sequel.

[DongWon] Okay. DongWon here. I wanted to remind you that in September, our last annual cruise will set sail from Alaska. And on February 15th, ticket prices will increase. The hosts are teaching classes on the business of publishing, world building, conversational storytelling, and game writing. You can sign up and learn more at writingexcuses.com/retreats. Hope to see you there.

[unknown] Lenovo gaming devices, like the Lenovo Legion 7I Gen 10 are engineered for victory. With powerful GPUs, ultra-responsive displays, and advanced cooling that stays chill under pressure. This back to school season, upgrade to a gaming PC that takes you from study mode to game mode in an instant. With exclusive student pricing, 10 times Lenovo reward points, and more through Lenovo's online education store. Join for free at lenovo.com. [singing Lenovo, Lenovo]

[DongWon] Okay. Welcome back. We're going to keep talking about the same but  slightly different now.

[Chuckles]

[Mary Robinette] Do we get to talk about genre now?

[DongWon] We get to talk about genre now.

[Mary Robinette] [garbled]

[DongWon] I want to talk about genre now, but I also want to talk about your career planning. How to still feel like you as a writer. But let's talk about genre first. So, in terms of genre, I think a lot... Many, many years ago, Writing Excuses, before I joined the podcast, did a season that I think about all the time, that I find so useful, which is the idea of elemental genres. You sort of have your window dressing genre, which is sort of are there ray guns and spaceships or are there dragons and swords in this? And then you have your elemental genres, which is is this fundamentally a mystery? Is this fundamentally romance? Is this a story about wonder and discovery? Right? And so when I think about the same but different, I think the things that need to feel the same are the window dressing things, kind of carry through, but then the things that you get to play with more are the elemental genre things. Right? You can set a mystery inside your cyberpunk setting. But the cyberpunk setting needs to hit certain aesthetic beats and hit certain elements to feel of the same.

[Mary Robinette] One of the things that I talk about a lot and think about is that there's, I think, aesthetically driven genres and structure driven genres. So aesthetic ones are things like science fiction, fantasy, historical, Western, that there's a look and a feel and a vibe. Set dressing.

[DongWon] Yes.

[Mary Robinette] Costumes. Ray guns. And then structure driven ones are things like romance, mystery, heist, thriller... That there's certain beats that you have to hit in order to do that. And the nice thing is that you can often get your same but different by layering those things.

[Erin] I'm curious though. That all makes sense to me, but how do you know what readers, or should you care what readers are responding to? Let's say you have a cyberpunk mystery that everyone's like, wow, cyberpunks cool, but I was really into this cyberpunk detective and, like, the actual unraveling of the mystery. And therefore if you make your next book cyberpunk romance, this... People might be like, oh, yeah, that was fine, but, like, I was really hoping for more on the mystery side, less on the cyberpunk side.

[DongWon] Well, I think one thing that's really important is we're talking about aesthetic versus structural genres. I do want to flag, though, that even though it is aesthetic and we're talking about it as set dressing, the aesthetic often has a question embedded in it that's really important. Right? So talking about cyberpunk specifically, it is about a certain set of questions and issues, and I think when cyberpunk doesn't feel like cyberpunk, it is just like hackers and flashy stuff. But there's no question about like what is individual... How do we operate within an oppressively capitalistic society? Right? I think, like, one of the primary elements of cyberpunk is the punk part of it. Right? How do we DIY ourselves under corporate oligarchy? Right? I think that's a really important thing. So I think if you carry through that question from one to the other, it'll feel connected. Right? I mean, this is Blade Runner versus Blade Runner 2049. are interested in really different or have incredibly different story structures. One is sort of like... The first one  being more of a detective mystery and the second one being more of this, like, more sprawling story about tevolution and inheritance. Right? But they both feel like Blade Runner stories because, not just the aesthetics carry through, the question carries through of what makes a person a person.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. I think that that is absolutely true. And also, I think that in... You're thinking about the question, but then there's also the thing you're asking is that that may be the thing that the creator is interested in is this question. But the readers may come for something else. And so for me, this goes to a metaphor that I've talked about before, which is the idea of decorating the house. Amal el Mohtar talks about writing is an act of hospitality. So I think that when you're thinking about this same but different, which pieces do you keep, you're thinking about when you move from one house to another, there's some things you keep and there's some things you don't keep. but it's ultimately still your house. So when I did Shades of Milk and Honey, and did the next book, which was secretly a military war novel disguised as a Regency  romance, I did lose readers. Because there were readers who wanted... The same that they wanted was the structure. And I lost readers. But that was a ch... And I knew I would. It was a choice I made on purpose because I... As much as I love romance, I didn't want to be trapped in writing Regency romances. So I think that you can do that, but you just have to be conscious of it and decide why you're making the change and who you want to invite into the house. And what house do you want to live in?

[DongWon] Yeah. And I think this goes into sort of the second half of the question I had, which is, as a writer, when you're thinking about your career, when you're planning out what book is next, if you're not writing a series or even necessarily writing in the same genre, how do you make sure your next book still feels like a project from you? Right? What is an Erin Roberts story, and then what also feels like one, when you're thinking about what your next story is? Right? Like, is that something you two think about actively in planning that out?

[Mary Robinette] I think about it with novels.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] I do not think about it with short fiction. With short fiction, that is the place where I am deliberately and joyfully playing all over the map.

[Erin] I think... Yes and no. Like, I think it's just like part of the story is a reflection of who you are. And so, when you think about the same but different, we are ourselves are often...

[Mary Robinette] Yeah.

[Erin] The same...

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Erin] And always different. And I think one of the struggles when the world is moving at a pace, we'll say, and things are happening is you're changing a lot...

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Erin] And you're trying to figure out who you are and what's going on. That also changes your writing. And I think, for me, feeling beholden to a past version of myself feels like trapping myself in a relationship...

[DongWon] 100%.

[Erin] I didn't want to or locking myself in a house and refusing to move.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Erin] Even though the neighborhood's on fire. and so I think it is... Even though who knows what the consequences of that may be.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Erin] It's better to do something that I feel is a reflection of the thing I'm trying to say and maybe I'm the only one who likes it than writing something that I think other people will want, but I'm not happy with and I feel uncomfortable in the space. I'm not being hospitable to myself.

[DongWon] One thing I look at when considering taking on a client is what is their project. Right? Is the way I think about it. And when I say project, I mean not just what is this book, but what is the big question they're tackling. Right? Are they writing about liberty and authority? Are they writing about family inheritance? Right? Are they writing about morality? There's all... Or are they interrogating capitalism? Right? Like... And I say that in a way that sounds very highfalutin, but sometimes, like, I have this question about Chuck Tingle, too. Right? Chuck Tingle is writing about how to be queer in a world, how to find joy in a world, where things are really difficult. And these are big thematic questions told in a way that is often very light-hearted and accessible. But everyone I think is interrogating a question in their fiction in one way or another. Right? Whether they know it or not, and whether they're aware of it or not. And it's not a question I ask them and that I need them to answer, but this is a question for me of can I see it and can I figure out how to support that question. Right? And... So I think to some extent that connectivity is really important from one book to the next book of being able to feel like they're still talking about the same stuff. 

[DongWon] But I've also noticed something, and I'm new to doing creative works on my own. Right? I've worked a long time supporting writers, but I've been doing a thing recently in preparation for an upcoming project where I've iterated on a bunch of games really quickly. Original settings, different groups, different themes. But I keep finding myself tripping over... Like, oh, crap, I did the same thing again. Right? Oh, I put doppelgangers in this story again. I put twins in the story again. Or whatever it is. Right? Like, there's a few repeated tropes I have. How do you spot the things and resist the things that are too same-y, same-y from story to story, and keep it feeling fresh? Or do you not worry about it at all?

[Mary Robinette] I don't worry about it often when I'm drafting. And there's some things like... There's some things I do on purpose. Like, with my books, one of the things that you know is that you're going to get committed family people. Whether it's a couple or friends, that there's a strong relationship that's not threatened. You will usually know that you're going to get some pretty costumes. The thing that  I notice is that I have a... And I think this is a... I have a really strong tendency to injure my characters' hands and arms.

[Chuckles]

[Mary Robinette] And I suspect that  that is because as a puppeteer, that is the thing I'm most afraid of. And so that's the part of the body that I'm most likely to damage. And so I will catch myself doing that sometimes and pull it back. And other times, I'm just like, no, that's actually the appropriate part of their body to injure...

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] And we're just going to...

[DongWon] We're just going to do that.

[Mary Robinette] We're just going to do it.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] So, like, it's when I look at it, I think, okay, why do I need to change this, and do I need to change it? Like, the number of times that someone actually is going to binge all of my material back to back and then write a thesis going, ah, she has broken five arms... It's unlikely to happen.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] A lot of times, the patterns that we see in our own work are because we are living with our own work, not because other people see it. And then other people will see patterns that we have no idea are there.

[DongWon] Right.

[Mary Robinette] Like, someone just pointed out that I've got three different books, one of which isn't out yet, that are essentially about... That have this through line of the cost of celebrity.

[DongWon] Interesting.

[Mary Robinette] And I'm like, oh, yeah. Elma doesn't want it,  has it forced on her. Tesla in Spare Man, that was a conscious theme of that book. And then the new one, I'm like, oh, yeah. No, look, I've done that again accidentally. Huh.

[Erin] Something that I think is really exciting to do is to use the way you write as a way to push yourself. So, something that I find in... At some point, I actually did have two stories where I was like, wow, these stories are very different, different settings, but I was like seems like I'm writing a lot of stories about a person who realizes their place in the world is worse than they thought it was and lashes out as a result. Against something or someone or in some way, and so I was like, well, that's cool. But what happens after you lash out? Like, what happens, like... It's a short story, so, like it ends there, and there's, like, a lot of implication about what that might mean. But I'm like what happens after an act of, like, violence or anger? Like, what does the community... What are we left with and how do we deal with the aftermath? And a lot of the work that I'm working on now is about what do we give to each other and what do we do as... In the aftermath of, like, an act that is not a good one, but is still one that you have to live with? And I'm like, who knows? Maybe at some point I'll get sick of those and be like then what happens, like, when you want to do restorative justice?

[Mary Robinette] Yeah.

[Erin] [garbled] Like and so it actually becomes, like, this larger story of, like, how do we deal with life? As I have different things that I am interested in. And part of the reason that I push myself was, I was like, oh, I'm sick of writing the same story, but also, it was partly like maybe I do need to interrogate a little bit a harder thing for me to write. But it's something that I'm still interested in writing.

[Mary Robinette] I think that's exactly the key to writing the same but different, is to honor the fact that you are not the same person.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] And to always be like, well, what is it... I mean, science fiction and fantasy in particular is really the story about, like, what if.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] That's one of the main things that drives us. So I think doing that with your own work... It's like, well, what if I try something different? What if I push this? Even if it's not a theme or a question... What if I push this area of craft? Like, all of these things are ways to have the same but different. Because you are the same person writing it.

[DongWon] Yeah. Exactly. Okay. I think we're going to leave it there. Thank you guys so much for talking this through with me. I have a little bit of homework for the audience. This one is less of a writing exercise and more of a critical one.

[DongWon] What I would love you to do is to take two works from the same franchise, either a direct sequel or just two things in a series. Could be a TV show, could be a movie, could be a book. And then I want you to take note of did you like the ways in which they handled the sequelness? Did it feel the same but different? And then I want you to do a detailed analysis of that. Really write down, component by component, what carried over, what didn't carry over? Did it feel good to you that this thing changed, did it feel good to you that this thing stayed? Did it feel really static, did it feel dynamic, did it ask new questions? And take note of that and think about it as you plan out your next work.

[Mary Robinette] This has been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses. Now go write.