Should Writers Follow Writing Trends—or Do Their Own Thing?

Some authors enjoy or love working within established genres, formulas, and stylistic conventions. Others can’t get excited about writing unless they depart from them. Many writers combine familiar and unusual elements in proportions that vary from project to project.

One size doesn’t fit all.

Some writers succeed by following trends closely, whereas others succeed by ignoring them. Either way, you should be aware of what’s trending.

At some point, every author decides—consciously or subconsciously—how much individuality to put into their writing and positioning. That decision affects important choices such as genre, setting, structure, and story premise. It also affects less important choices such as sentence length, chapter titles, punctuation, and whether to use em dashes.

There’s no universal right balance between market awareness and individuality. But authors should understand the balance they choose.

Quick Summary

Studying writing and publishing trends can help authors understand readers, agents, publishers, and the market. Following those trends can make a book easier to categorize, position, and sell.

Following your strongest creative interests can produce more distinctive, meaningful, and engaging work. It can also make the book harder to describe or market.

Either approach can lead to success. Writers make better decisions when they understand the benefits, risks, and reasons behind their choices instead of following—or rejecting—trends automatically.

Trend awareness is useful information but it shouldn’t be treated like a rule.

Key Takeaways

• Studying trends is smart; obeying them automatically isn’t.
• Following formulas can produce successful, original, and satisfying work.
• Rejecting formulas can also produce successful and satisfying work.
• Trends, genre conventions, formulas, and writing fundamentals aren’t the same.
• Every writer chooses where to be familiar and where to be distinctive.
• Originality is valuable when it improves or enriches the reader’s experience.
• A unique book still needs clear positioning.
• Small stylistic decisions deserve the same conscious consideration as major creative choices.
• The best balance can vary from one writer—and one book—to another.

Table of Contents

1. Every Writer Chooses a Balance
2. Trends, Conventions, Formulas, and Fundamentals
3. Benefits of Following Trends and Formulas
4. Risks of Following Trends Too Closely
5. Benefits of Following What Most Excites You
6. Risks of Following Only Your Instincts
7. Combining the Familiar and the Distinctive
8. Major Creative Choices and Their Tradeoffs
9. Small Writing Choices Matter Too
10. Fear Can Lead to Conformity or Rebellion
11. Decide What Success Means for Your Book
12. Make the Decision Book by Book
13. Position Your Book Without Erasing Its Uniqueness
14. Questions to Ask Before Following—or Rejecting—a Trend
15. Frequently Asked Questions

1. Every Writer Must Choose

Even writers who say they never think about trends are influenced by other books, cultural expectations, genre conventions, and ideas about what “good writing” looks like.

We absorb patterns from everything we read, whether we like it or not.

A novelist might instinctively introduce a major problem near the beginning because that approach has appeared in countless stories they’ve read. A nonfiction author might organize a book around a clear promise and practical steps because that structure has become so successful.

Those authors might not feel that they’re following a formula. They might have simply absorbed it so completely that it feels natural. Like it was entirely their own idea.

Writers who deliberately write to market still make personal or individual choices about:

• Voice
• Character
• Theme
• Humor
• Pacing
• Examples
• Emotional emphasis
• Language
• Perspective

Everyone works with some combination of inherited conventions and personal instincts. What varies isn’t always that but how consciously the writer makes those choices.

One author might think:

I’m using a familiar mystery structure, but the protagonist, setting, and central moral dilemma are unusual.

Another author might remove every unconventional element due to fear that literary agents or readers won’t accept it.

Both authors are making decisions about originality and marketability.

Following a trend isn’t the problem. Following it without understanding what you’re losing or gaining can be.

2. Trends, Conventions, Formulas, and Fundamentals

Writers often group various things together as “rules” or “trends.” Separating them can make your creative decisions easier.

Writing Fundamentals

Fundamentals are broad principles such as:

• Clarity
• Coherence
• Credible emotion
• Appropriate pacing
• Meaningful conflict
• Relevant information
• Reasons for readers to continue

A writer can apply those principles in traditional or very experimental ways. Breaking a current stylistic convention isn’t the same thing as producing work that readers can’t understand. An unusual structure might be effective, but an unintentionally incoherent structure usually isn’t.

Genre Conventions

Genre conventions are expectations associated with a type of book. A mystery usually needs, well,, a central mystery. A romance generally needs, you guessed it, a central romantic relationship and an emotionally satisfying resolution. A practical nonfiction book should normally deliver the information or transformation it promises.

Readers often choose genres partly because they want certain information or experiences. Writers can depart from those expectations, but they should do so consciously. They should understand what readers might believe they were promised—and what the book actually delivers.

My article about book genres and literary agents explains why genre is more than just a descriptive label. It communicates audience, expectations, positioning, and market potential.

Writing Formulas

Formulas are repeatable structures, devices, or patterns that have worked before. The more they’ve worked, the more writers should consider them.

Examples include:

• Three-act structure
• The hero’s journey
• Dual timelines
• Enemies-to-lovers romance
• The detective interviewing suspects
• The thriller protagonist racing against time
• A prescriptive nonfiction book organized around a numbered method

Formulas can provide a useful structure or architecture, but they can also feel predictable when applied too mechanically.

Writing and Publishing Trends

Trends are approaches, subjects, genres, settings, character types, styles, or techniques receiving unusual attention during a particular period.

They can influence:

• Which books are acquired
• Which books receive attention
• What readers discuss
• Cover and title styles
• Narrative structures
• Point-of-view choices
• Sentence and paragraph patterns
• Marketing language

Trends generally change faster than fundamentals and genre conventions.

Personal Style and Creative Identity

Your creative identity includes the voices, rhythms, subjects, themes, structures, characters, and questions that most interest you. Some of those qualities may align with the market. Others might not. Understanding the differences among these influences can help you decide which ones deserve the most influence over a particular choice.

3. Benefits of Following Trends and Formulas

To me, following trends isn’t inherently cynical, or unimaginative.

It doesn’t make you less of a creative artist.

In fact, it can help you:

• Understand what readers currently enjoy
• Recognize active markets
• Identify useful comparable titles
• Make your book easier to describe
• Find appropriate literary agents
• Help agents and publishers see where the book belongs
• Benefit from existing interest in a subject or category
• Create a satisfying experience for genre readers
• Learn from techniques that are working well
• Build a consistent author brand

Following a formula can also free you up creatively. As someone who likes writing poetry, I can tell you that a poet working within a fixed form like haiku doesn’t surrender creativity. The form provides boundaries within which creativity operates. It can, in fact, ironicially, make you more creative. The same can be true for a mystery structure, romance arc, thriller pace, or practical nonfiction framework.

Some authors genuinely love delivering familiar experiences in fresh ways. A romance writer might enjoy creating the emotional beats readers expect. A mystery writer might love planting clues and designing a satisfying revelation. A self-help author might thrive when translating complex ideas into an accessible step-by-step method.

There’s nothing inauthentic about enjoying an established form.

A formula can be a creative instrument vs. a creative limitation or prison.

Market awareness can also improve writer decisions without controlling the book. Studying comparable titles can show you how related books are positioned, who reads them, and what might make your work distinct.

Jane Friedman’s article about writing for yourself while knowing your reader is another reminder that creative motivation and audience awareness can coexist.

4. Risks of Following Trends Too Closely

Trend awareness becomes limiting when writers give it too much power.

For example, if all writers followed the same trends:

• The market would become crowded.
• The trend might weaken before the book is published.
• The book might feel derivative.
• The author might lose enthusiasm during writing or revision.
• The author’s natural strengths might not suit or fit the chosen approach.
• The manuscript might resemble successful books without offering a compelling difference.
• The writer might remove the qualities that gave the project energy.
• The result might feel calculated instead of alive.
• The author might build a career around work they don’t enjoy producing.

Writers can also misread the market. A trend that appears to be growing might already be overrepresented among books being submitted to agents and publishers. Published books reflect decisions made months or years earlier. What looks like an invitation might be evidence that publishers have already acquired many similar projects.

That doesn’t make the trend useless. It does mean that imitation has limitations. A writer who chooses a popular premise still needs strong execution, a compelling angle, and a reason readers will choose that book instead of the alternatives.

Following trends can also tempt writers to remove anything that seems difficult to categorize. In the process, they might remove the book’s strongest reason to exist.

Don’t do that.

A book can fit the market perfectly and still give readers no reason to choose it.

5. Benefits of Following What Excites You

Writing from your strongest interests and instincts can lead to:

• Greater enthusiasm
• More distinctive work
• A recognizable voice
• Deeper curiosity
• Stronger emotional investment
• Greater persistence through revision and rejection
• Work that remains meaningful after a trend passes
• A clearer long-term creative identity

Writers often produce their best and most marketable material when they’re fascinated, emotionally engaged, or obsessed with a question.

That energy and intensity can appear on the page as:

• Authority
• Specificity
• Humor
• Emotional urgency
• Unusual insight
• Conviction
• Voice
• Originality

Those qualities can’t always be “manufactured” through market analysis. Creative excitement can also sustain a writer through the very long process of writing. Books often take years to write, revise, submit, sell, and publish. Interest that begins and ends with a market trend might not survive that entire timeline or journey.

A writer who cares deeply about their material will typically be much  more willing to revise it extensively, solve difficult problems, and continue after rejection. The work might also help readers encounter something they haven’t seen before.

Hooray. Love that.

6. Risks of Following Just Your Instincts

Creative excitement doesn’t automatically lead to a good, great, or marketable book. That’s right. A highly individual approach can create challenges, not just opportunity:

• The genre might be unclear.
• The intended audience might be difficult to identify.
• The manuscript might break expectations without offering an equally satisfying experience.
• The premise might matter more to the author than it does to readers.
• The style might make the book unnecessarily difficult to access.
• Literary agents and publishers might struggle to position it.
• Booksellers might not know where to place it.
• The likely audience might be smaller.
• The writer might mistake unfamiliarity for originality.

Originality and quality aren’t the same. A book can be unusual but confusing, lacking emotion, repetitive, or poorly structured. Refusing to follow conventions doesn’t automatically make the writing courageous or important.

Writers should also distinguish between a purposeful or deliberate creative challenge and an avoidable stumbling block. An unusual narrator might deepen the story. A confusing narrator might simply create distance with readers. A nonlinear structure might create meaning. But it might also just be hiding the fact that the story lacks momentum.

Being different is good when the difference gives readers something worth having.

Following your instincts can be an excellent strategy. Those instincts should still benefit from craft, revision, feedback, and an understanding of the reader’s experience.

7. Combining the Familiar and the Distinctive

Many successful books combine recognizable elements with something fresh.

Examples include:

• A familiar genre with an unusual setting
• A traditional structure with a distinctive voice
• A recognizable character arc shaped by a less familiar life experience
• A popular subject approached through original research
• A conventional nonfiction promise delivered through a new framework
• A common premise told from an unexpected point of view
• An unusual story presented in highly accessible prose
• A familiar story presented in a more experimental form

Familiar elements help readers understand what the book they’re reading offers. Unique elements give them a reason to choose it. That doesn’t mean every book needs to calculate an exact ratio of conventional and original features. Some successful books lean more toward familiarity whereas others lean more toward experimentation. Both are legitimate. Just make sure you’re aware where your book meets expectations and where it departs from them.

You don’t have to be unique everywhere all the time.

A book’s most distinctive quality might be its premise, voice, setting, structure, humor, characters, research, emotional honesty, or worldview. Trying to innovate in every area can exhaust readers and writers. Trying to innovate nowhere can make the book unforgettable—but not in the way you want.

8. Major Creative Choices and Their Tradeoffs

The balance between trends and individuality appears in nearly every major book decision.

Genre

Choosing an established genre can provide a recognizable audience, clear expectations, and more straightforward positioning. Blending or crossing genres can create something fresh. It can also make the book harder to explain and reduce the number of obvious literary-agent or publishing matches.

Premise

A premise connected to a popular subject might attract immediate interest. A less familiar premise can stand out more strongly but require more or extra work to demonstrate its appeal.

Setting

A currently popular setting might feel immediately attractive but crowded. A rarely used setting can distinguish the book while requiring more context, research, or reader orientation.

Story Structure

A familiar structure can make a book satisfying and accessible. An unconventional structure can create surprise, deepen meaning, or reflect the story more authentically. It can also confuse readers when the execution isn’t strong enough.

The same broad tradeoff appears when choosing to be a plotter, pantser, or plantser. Structure can support creativity, and spontaneity can generate discoveries. Writers don’t need to choose one rigid method forever.

Point of View and Tense

Third-person past tense may feel natural and unobtrusive to many readers. First-person plural, second person, unusual tense choices, or frequent narrator changes may create a distinctive effect. They also require more control.

Characters

Familiar character types can help readers understand a story quickly. Characters who resist familiar categories can feel more original and lifelike, though they might be harder to summarize in a pitch.

Endings

A genre-satisfying ending can reward reader expectations. An ambiguous, disruptive, or unconventional ending might better serve the book’s themes while disappointing part of the audience. Each choice creates opportunities and consequences. A writer can accept those consequences deliberately instead of discovering them accidentally.

9. Small Writing Choices Matter Too

The same decisions occur at the sentence and paragraph level. Consider em dashes. A writer might use them because they suit the rhythm, interruptions, emphasis, or thought patterns of the prose. Another writer might reduce them because they appear too frequently or don’t suit the book’s voice.

A writer might also remove every em dash because someone online declared that authors should no longer use them. That last reason deserves a moment of your time. Em dashes are legitimate punctuation marks with recognized functions. Purdue OWL explains how dashes can indicate interruption or create emphasis. Their usefulness depends on context and execution—not whether they’re currently fashionable or unfashionable.

The same applies to:

• Sentence fragments
• Semicolons
• Short paragraphs
• Long paragraphs
• One-sentence chapters
• Dialogue tags
• Adverbs
• Italics
• Present tense
• Prologues
• Multiple points of view
• Chapter titles
• Footnotes
• Parentheses

Writers often turn preferences into rules. An editor might recommend using a device less because the writer overuses it. That’s different from saying the writer should never use the device. A popular technique isn’t always going to be automatically effective. An unpopular technique isn’t always automatically going to be wrong.

Style improves when choices serve the writing—not when every choice follows trends.

10. Fear Can Lead to Conformity or Rebellion

A decision can appear strategic while really being—known or unknown to the writer—driven primarily by fear.

Writers might remove unique or distinctive elements because they’re afraid of:

• Rejection
• Criticism
• Confusing readers
• Looking inexperienced
• Violating online writing advice
• Being difficult to categorize
• Appearing old-fashioned
• Appearing too experimental
• Being accused of copying a trend
• Missing a trend

Fear can push writers toward conformity or rebellion. Some writers try to follow every rule because standing out feels dangerous to them. Others reject every convention because seeming ordinary feels dangerous. Neither response is more authentic. An author can become just as controlled by trends through automatic opposition as through automatic imitation.

Automatic rebellion is still a form of following.

A popular technique might still be the best choice for your book. A familiar structure might be familiar because it works. A trend might align naturally or well with something you’ve cared about for years. Rejecting an approach just because it’s popular gives that trend too much control over your work. Make the choice based on the book, your goals, and the likely reader experience.

11. Decide What Success Means for Your Book

When I’m working with an author, I don’t view their decisions as right or wrong. I view them in order of priority. In other words, different definitions of success lead to different creative and publishing decisions. So what matters most is understanding your options and making decisions based on what’s most important to you.

For example, an author might prioritize:

• Reaching the largest possible audience
• Getting a traditional publishing deal
• Building a commercial series
• Generating significant income
• Developing a recognizable author brand
• Expressing something highly personal
• Creating literary or artistic innovation
• Serving a specific community
• Enjoying the writing process
• Leaving a meaningful record or legacy

Most writers care about multiple things, but they don’t always care about them equally.

A writer focused on maximizing commercial potential will be more likely to give trends, genre conventions, and reader expectations more importance. A writer focused mostly on experimentation might accept a smaller potential audience. A writer seeking both might create a conventional structure around highly unique content.

There’s no ideal goal for every writer.

Simply choose what’s best for you and your book, and make sure your actions match your goals. For example, an author might insist that reaching a large audience is the priority but refuse to identify a clear target market. Another author might say personal expression matters most but edit all the uniqueness out of the manuscript due to real or imagined genre conventions.

12. Make the Decision Book by Book

Beyond being true to what’s most important to you, keep in mind that writers don’t need to have the same goals for each book they writer.

The same author might write:

• A highly commercial novel followed by an experimental one
• A formula-driven mystery series and an unconventional standalone
• A practical nonfiction book designed for a broad audience and a personal memoir
• A familiar genre project to build readership and a more singular project later
• Different books under different names for different audiences

The best balance can vary based on:

• The project
• The audience
• The author’s goals
• Financial considerations
• Career stage
• Creative energy
• Publishing path
• Willingness to accept risk

Your choices can change as well. Writing a market-sensitive book doesn’t mean you’re inauthentic. Writing an unconventional book mean you can never write a commercial book. And you can shift or pivot while writing a book.

For example, you might begin with an unusual premise and later give it a more familiar or traditional structure. Or you might begin with a conventional structure and, while writing, develop a more distinctive voice. Revision can increase or reduce originality and marketability.

13. Position Your Book Without Getting Rid of Its Uniqueness

Some writers believe protecting their individuality means refusing to categorize or compare it. That just makes it harder for literary agents, publishers, booksellers, and readers to understand. The manuscript can be original and have a clear pitch.

For example:

• The structure might be experimental, but the book can still be described as literary historical fiction.
• The protagonist might be unusual, but the book can still be positioned as a commercial thriller.
• The nonfiction approach might be personal, but the book can still make a clear prescriptive promise.
• The prose might be distinctive, but the query can still identify an audience and relevant comparable titles.
• The book might cross boundaries, but one category can still be primary.

Uniqueness and clear positioning aren’t opposites.

Positioning doesn’t mean you need to pretend the book is more conventional than it is. It simply requires language that helps other people see its value. The goal isn’t to get rid of everything distinctive about your content and style. It’s to build a bridge between your book and your readers, and literary agents. A strong literary agent query letter should help agents understand what the book is, who it’s for, and why it’s appealing.

14. Questions to Ask Before Following—or Rejecting—a Trend

Before making major creative or positioning decisions, ask yourself:

• Does this choice genuinely excite me?
• Does it suit my natural strengths?
• Does it improve the reader’s experience?
• Is this a lasting convention or a passing fashion?
• Does the choice serve the book?
• Am I making the decision primarily because I’m afraid?
• Would I still want to write this if the trend disappeared?
• Can I sustain this approach for the entire manuscript?
• What do I gain from this choice?
• What might I lose?
• Will the book remain clear enough to position?
• Does the unusual element add meaning, pleasure, insight, or emotional power?
• Am I rejecting something useful simply because it’s popular?
• Is this the kind of creative or commercial risk I want to take?
• Which definition of success is guiding this decision?

You don’t need specific answers.

Just awareness.

Do You—Consciously

Doing you doesn’t require ignoring readers, the market, craft, feedback, or professional advice. It means deciding how much influence to give those things. You should look at trends, formulas, and genre conventions. And you should know what literary agents, publishers, and readers expect. Then you can best decide how those expectations can help or hurt your book based on what’s most important to you for your book.

Get Help Balancing Originality and Marketability

You don’t need to choose between making your book marketable and preserving what makes it yours. You also don’t need to make those types of important decisions alone. I can help you evaluate your concept, manuscript, genre, positioning, comparable titles, query materials, and literary-agent strategy—while identifying the qualities that give your work its greatest appeal.

As a former literary agent and author coach and consultant who has helped 450+ writers get offers from literary agents and/or traditional publishers, I can help you make conscious choices that give you and your book the best possible chance of succeeding.

Explore 1-on-1 author coaching and consulting.

About

This article, “Should Writers Follow Writing Trends—or Do Their Own Thing?” was written by a former literary agent turned author coach. Mark Malatesta is the creator of The Directory of Book Agents, host of Ask a Publishing Agent, and founder of Literary Agent Undercover and The Bestselling Author.

Mark has helped hundreds of authors get offers from literary agents and/or traditional publishers. Writers of all Book Genres have used our Book Agent Advice coaching/consulting to get Top Literary Agents at the Best Literary Agencies on our List of Literary Agents.

The Bestselling Author, LLC

Established in 2011, The Bestselling Author has helped 400+ authors get literary agents and/or traditional publishers. Writers who’ve worked with Literary Agent Undercover, a division of The Bestselling Author, have gotten six-figure book deals; been on the New York Times bestseller list; had their books adapted for TV, stage, and feature film; had their work licensed in 40+ countries; and sold many millions of books.

Notable authors include Nelson Johnson, author of Boardwalk Empire, which Martin Scorsese produced for HBO; Leslie Lehr, author of A Boob’s Life, which is currently being adapted for an HBO Max TV series by Salma Hayek; and Scott LeRette, author of The Unbreakable Boy, which was published by Thomas Nelson and is now a major motion picture by Lionsgate starring Patricia Heaton, Zachary Levi, and Amy Acker.

The founder of The Bestselling Author, Mark Malatesta, is a former literary agent, literary agency owner, AAR member, and Marketing & Licensing Manager for the gift and book publisher Blue Mountain Arts. He is now an author coach and consultant. Click here to see Mark Malatesta reviews.

About the Author

The founder of The Bestselling Author, Mark Malatesta, is a former literary agent, literary agency owner, AAR member, and Marketing & Licensing Manager for the gift and book publisher Blue Mountain Arts. Mark is now a highly regarded author coach and consultant, dedicated to helping writers obtain literary agents. Drawing on decades of industry experience, he works with writers across genres, offering personalized coaching to navigate the complexities of the publishing world.

Through The Bestselling Author, Mark provides practical tools, industry insights, and motivational support tailored to each writer’s needs to help them do so. In addition to coaching, Mark shares his expertise through speaking engagements and online resources. His dedication to empowering authors has made him a trusted mentor in the writing community, earning him a reputation as a knowledgeable and approachable guide for writers pursuing their dreams. Click here for Mark Malatesta reviews.