I know how this sounds, and I hate to be the cynic grumbling about how unfair everything is. But I’ve got to say, “story” is dead in 2024. Seriously. Gone are the days when publishers, agents, and media companies just wanted a good old-fashioned adventure with a touch of magic or a twist. Now, unless your main character is suffering from some debilitating ailment, has mental health issues, or is overcoming terrible hardships or abuse, they’ll have nothing to do with it. Why? Seriously, why? Do I really need to be reminded how shitty everything is? Don’t we all just want to escape for a while? For the record, this is not a post about representation. I get all that—it’s good; we need stories from all walks of life, all perspectives. But this \^\^\^ (SMH) — this is something different. Can’t we all just lighten up?
by fitzgatz
17 Comments
Just because mainstream publishing isn’t putting out what you enjoy doesn’t mean people are not still writing it.
I am pretty this *is* a post about representation but you just put that in there for whatever reason. Don’t read something if it doesn’t represent you, it’s that easy. I agree it’s more prevalent but it’s because a lot of people haven’t been well represented in the past.
I tend to disagree, there is so many books released every year that you will always find what you like. And I don’t think that those plots are the major part of those books !
>Now, unless your main character is suffering from some debilitating ailment, has mental health issues, or is overcoming terrible hardships or abuse, they’ll have nothing to do with it.
While these are more common, they’re far from occurring it every mainstream and popular book. Could you provide some examples because I haven’t noticed this in of the newer boks I’ve been reading.
Sounds like you need to change how you discover books. Are you just reading what’s on the top charts or something? I don’t have the problem you’re describing.
So confused. This isn’t r/bookscirclejerk? Have you tried reading the Dr. Bronner’s bottle? It’s a good time, I swear.
> Gone are the days when publishers, agents, and media companies just wanted a good old-fashioned adventure with a touch of magic or a twist.
I read a book or two a week and I have never had any trouble finding a good bit of adventure. I mean, I don’t even have to look, just browse around Amazon a bit, note some likely-looking possibilities, pick one and leave the rest on my list for later.
If all you’re finding is trauma porn, you’re doing something very wrong.
it’s not like cozy fantasy, a genre all about feel-good adventure with a touch of magic is on the rise. Or like stories have historically very often been about people dealing with terrible things. It’s not like Lord of the Rings is about being unwillingly drafted in a conflict that is darker and bigger than yourself and that conflict changing you so profoundly that you can never be the same person again, or the Odyssey is about being (literally and metaphorically) unable to return home after going to war, or Don Quixote is about the delusions brought forth by impossible dreams or… I lost track, what was I saying? Oh yes. You’re absolutely correct. Story is dead because publishers, agents and media companies have suddenly started caring about the human condition, a subject that has gone ignored for the past several millennia.
That seems needlessly dramatic and also not true. There is so much stuff being published, and plenty of it is “a good old-fashioned adventure with a touch of magic or a twist.” I don’t see the need to make a post about representation (which you’ve done) to protest the seeming inability to read as an escape (when, ironically, the very books you describe also offer a form of escapism for readers). Find the books you like, of which there is no shortage. Take your own advice and “lighten up.”
Fantasy is one of the best-selling – if not *the* best -selling – genres right now.
This has big “they don’t make good music anymore” vibes. There are books coming out now that you would love, self publishing is allowing more people to write and release things now than ever, just gotta find them.
“Story” is not dead lol, come on…
I don’t know about nothing else being published but I have a big dislike for tragically flawed protagonists. They seem to be everywhere. Perhaps they always have been and I’m only now just noticing.
Ok boomer.
There are books for everyone. The kind of book you describe is out there. Sorry that too many books include suffering for your taste, but suffering is part of life. You can simple seek out lighter books than ranting about how we all need to lighten up.
So….you don’t want conflict?
I’ve never been one for those kind of books but I’m sure someone is publishing them.
Skill issue. No really. If you can’t find anything but doom and gloom. Maybe it speaks of how limited the genres you read are? Or maybe you need to find another (better) way how to discover new titles?
Google and everyone else is tracking your interests. If you find nothing but trauma porn. It’s because you keep looking up trauma porn.