We all hope to write a book that captures the world’s imagination, perhaps even beyond our lifespan. But that’s easier dreamed than done. In a guest post on Jane Friedman’s blog, Catherine Baab-Muguira examines why Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein still sells thousands of copies a year, outselling about 99% of all newly-released titles.
But why? Sure, we love Frankenstein, but why are 40,000 readers still buying copies of this well-known story, 200 years after it was written?
First, the story presents characters with problems that we still recognize today. “Victor Frankenstein, a starry-eyed scientist, is blinded by ambition, leading him to an act of creation he comes to bitterly regret,” Baab-Muguira writes. “Meanwhile the monster, like all of us, finds himself here, alive and breathing, without ever having been consulted. Stranded and alone, he craves love. Denied it, he plots revenge.
Baab-Muguira says readers can identify with a child – even a Frankenstein monster – who is abandoned and rejected. “Since our parents’ love is key to our survival, all of us know what it is to need it—and far too many know what it means to get something rather less than what they’d hoped,” she writes. “When stories touch us on such universal fears and on longings so fundamental they virtually define our species, then they can survive beyond their own epoch.”
This is why a great premise is more important than great prose, Baab-Muguira says. Shelley’s premise is so strong that it can survive multiple retellings and can be reimagined in multiple ways.
The final reason is one out of our control. “Books that survive tend to keep surviving,” Baab-Muguira writes. “Which means that Frankenstein’s survival has contributed to—and still contributes to—its survival.” Is that something you can plan for? Baab-Muguira says you can plan for the opposite – writing quickly or writing to trends just to get work out there, without considering whether your novel will sell over time.
Perhaps counter-intuitively, Baab-Muguira says the difficulty of getting published and the greater competition for our audience’s attention may make it more important for writers to aim higher. “Under such conditions, it makes sense to attempt your own masterpiece—to aim to create work that might endure rather than something so topical it won’t,” she writes. “If the odds are desperate, not to say impossible, why not try to write books that are, per the Internet parlance, “very lindy”?”
