The first post in this series of three explored ‘tricks of the trade’ used by best-selling authors. The second post summarized five of James W. Hall’s twelve features from Hit Lit: Cracking the Code of the Twentieth Century’s Biggest Bestsellers.
This final post outlines Hall’s remaining six features.
Feature #7 – “Bumpkins versus Slickers”
In most bestsellers, there’s a central character who sets off on a journey that takes her from rustic America into turbulent urban landscapes … almost as often, the heroes of bestsellers make an exodus in the opposite direction
Hall and others refer to this as the hero’s journey, a structure that has worked in endless permutations to leverage the ageless clash between city and rural values.
Question: is feature #7 the commoner versus the nobility in historical fiction?
Feature #8 – “God Sells”
Our twelve bestsellers all feature religion in prominent ways, consistently critiquing orthodox religious practice and the dangers of zealotry.
The secular world is juxtaposed against religion that has gone astray and people who claim to adhere to religious values while clearly committing contrary acts. False piety, says Hall. Common sense struggles against religious conviction, science against faith. Langdon of Da Vince Code fame is an example – a man of science clashing with powerful religious leaders.
Question – does religion have such prominence in historical fiction?
Feature #9 – “Americans delight in reenactments of our national myths.”
The rise from humble roots to become rich and powerful. A character struggling against injustice and, finally, triumphing over oppression. And we are also grimly fascinated by the flip side of these stories.
Hall illustrates: Mitch McDeere’s belief in the American Dream (The Firm), Scout Finch’s triumph over racism (To Kill a Mockingbird), Scarlett O’Hara’s example of the virtue of hard work (Gone With the Wind), exposing injustice (The Da Vinci Code), the freedoms of American society clashing against communism (The Hunt for Red October).
Question – is there an equivalent to America’s national myths in historical fiction?
Feature #10 – Rebels, Loners, Misfits and Mavericks
The heroes and heroines … are all rebels, loners, misfits or mavericks. They don’t fit in worth a damn, and that’s one of the reasons we love them so much
Hall explains that the “tension between mavericks and conventionalists operates at the core of the biggest bestsellers”. Heroes of these novels reject conformity and convention. They are strongly individualistic.
Feature #11 – “Fractured Families”
In each of our twelve novels, a member of a broken family finds an ingenious way to transcend his or her crazy stress.
A few pages later Hall states that “twelve of the most successful novels in publishing history and not a traditional, fully functioning family among them, yet all our heroes and heroines find ways to make peace with their extreme losses”.
Perhaps these novels function partly as therapy for readers coping with their own family distress particularly at a time when the traditional family model is changing (some would say has changed).
Feature #12 – yes this is the last one – Sex
In every novel on our list, one key sexual encounter plays a decisive role in the outcome of the plot and in the transformation of the protagonist.
Scarlett’s sexual encounter with Rhett Butler. The false accusation of rape in To Kill a Mockingbird. Unresolved sexual tension between John Smith and his former girlfriend in The Dead Zone. Raunchy sex just before a woman is eaten by a shark in Jaws. Mitch McDeere’s infidelity on a deserted beach in The Firm.
The sexual language may be toned down to broaden the books’ mainstream appeal, but copulation, both violent and extreme, still plays a crucial role in the outcomes of these stories … somewhere in our national consciousness we know that one good roll in the hay can change everything.
So … there you have it, the twelve features of bestsellers according to James Hall’s analysis. By the way, he has one final ingredient to add – personal passion. “Without this one last ingredient, a novel might easily contain all the recurring features but still remain a lifeless pile of mush.” There’s still magic involved.
Feedback – what do you think? Do these twelve features resonate in the stories of your favourite historical fiction writers?
7 Responses
Hi. Once again, thank you. In the last comments you asked if this would all translate in NZ. I think the spirit of the features would translate – but in their own special way.
I was having a conversation with a friend recently about how (North) American fiction really seems to glorify the lone wolf/rebel/maverick hero type at the expense of more community-oriented, cooperative, collaborative heroes often found in Eastern literature. The rebel mythos is definitely a construct of our individualist culture, so I do see the appeal for some people. I, personally, sometimes grow tired of it, though.
An interesting thought about Western vs Eastern themes. If I do my survey again, I’ll have to explore that (and other topics!!)
What works in Western Literature is tension. If you have a group of people who get along in a “Japanese MBA business school saving face kind of way”, you’ve just killed all the tension. The Filipinos also have a concept of Kapwa, which means togetherness, which is the opposite of individuality. The emphasis in Eastern cultures is conformity and togetherness. I don’t know about you guys, but I would much rather read about a guy who doesn’t conform to society so much, a guy with an unusual past, say, like “Kim” in the Rudyard Kipling classic. In the opening scene, Kim is sitting on the big Zam-Zammah gun outside the Museum Wonder House in Lahore in defiance of city ordinances. He’s of European stock, but speaks Urdu like a native, “lies like an Oriental”, eats with his hands, and becomes the ‘chela’ of a Tibetan monk. Isn’t this more interesting than a character who has normal parents, a normal childhood, conforms in school, never swears, never runs away, and would never dream of spying for the British?
Point taken, Rachel. We are tension junkies!!