Sell Out, Dumb Down & Get Published

When I was eleven, I was in the deepest throes of my Sweet Valley High obsession. With my childhood best friend, I read all the books, knew the characters and their background as well as I know my own and even assumed the personality of one of the twins (Jessica, my best friend was Elizabeth for no other reason than I had a louder voice). For years we called each other Liz and Jess with badly exaggerated American accents. We even used to fold up the bottom corners of the page if there was a description or moment on that page that was so Sweet Valley, it had to be shared. It usually involved Lila Fowler’s wardrobe, or the stalwart first-few-pages description of the twins and their sparkling blue-green eyes, long, sun-streaked silky hair and matching dimple in their left cheeks.

We quite quickly exhausted our SVH library. When we had read all the books (and rescued them from the fireplace, where my parents had put them one afternoon) we were faced with the prospect of never finding out anything new about the wonderful existences of Sweet Valley’s inhabitants and so we began doing the only logical thing. We began to write our own. We’d spend the days of our precious summer holidays in front of her family’s huge, 90s computer bashing out our own installments of the series; our biggest masterpiece was Stalked, a thrilling ride full of Californian fashion, love triangles and dramatic dialogue. Compulsively readable. Unputdownable.

I developed a taste for writing trashy teen fiction. The formula was easy; choose borderline ridiculous name for borderline ridiculously good looking protagonist (Lupe, Pisces, Cede, Coco) introduce two gorgeous romantic interests (with washoard stomachs and crisp polo shirts) cultivate a love triangle and set all of this against the backdrop of a North Carolina college, a beach or a summer holiday. Voila. It was actually quite therapeutic, particularly when, as I got older, for the sake of my friends’ and my entertainment, I wrote teen trash stories based on our lives. A notable title I penned as an eighteen year old springs to mind The Girls of Baycliff College, which could directly translate to The Girls of Macquarie University.

When I came across this article in the UK’s Daily Mail, I immediately thought of Stalked and Baycliff College. Not because I am a star with a publishing contract (although I’m contemplating a television career just to get a damn publishing contract, it seems to be the only way these days) – but because the excerpt of Martine McCutcheon’s impending novel, The Mistress, read a lot like the novel an eleven year old and a ten year old bashed out one summer holidays in front over their big 90s computer, and pretty much exactly like the tome a fresh out of high school eighteen year old wrote for a bit of a joke.

Image from Dailymail.co.uk

Then again, it was a rare occasion when men’s eyes didn’t linger on the stunning beauty that was Ayesha Heaton. Her father’s Arabic blood meant her smooth skin was the colour of warm taffy. Her large chocolate eyes were rimmed with long, dark lashes and framed by perfectly shaped dark brows. Her lips were full and today coloured with a deep, plum gloss. Soft, dark brown hair that usually fell to her shoulders was casually pulled back, a few loose strands escaping and framing her face.*

Excerpt taken from The Girls of Baycliff College

Spot the difference.

Publishing houses should be ashamed of themselves. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – the sheer greed behind shoving ‘authors’ like Jordan and Lauren Conrad down the gullets of the public is revolting. And it is greed – one of Jordan’s books outsold the entire Booker Shortlist – not because these publishers genuinely believe in the drivel these celebrities are coming out with. However that this greed is being catered to at the expense of genuinely talented writers is an utter travesty. Martine McCutcheon is no doubt a lovely person. I loved her in Love Actually. I’m sure she was fantastic in EastEnders. But the book looks to be dreadful. Trite, overwritten, so cliché it’s almost cliché to use the word cliché. It brings nothing new to the literary world. Nothing fresh, nothing intelligent, nothing insightful. And yet she will get the support as a writer that most genuine writers could only ever dream of.

A few years on from the heady days of Teen Trash, and twelve years on from my debut in the world of formulaic fiction, I am beginning to wonder if I didn’t have it right all along. Sell out, dumb down and gloss it up. Then wait for the movie deal.

*There’s plenty more where that came from.