Pet Peeve-Good authors turned bad.

 There are various reasons. They might include:

(1) An author starts out full of energy and ideas,and they work just fine,and he/she builds a name. The author has a lot to say.After some years, he has run out of the things he really wanted to say,without repeating himself again and again,and he tries for books equal to early successful ones,but unless a new idea suddenly strikes,he is going downhill. You can't be world champion forever.

(2) He makes a splash, publishes his best stuff,and his publisher wants more....his agent/editor asks if maybe he has something from his early days that was rejected originally,and off they go  again. But YOU notice the difference.

(3) Often,though not exactly the "over the years" way you are meaning, an author will not get his first book published,but numbers two and three really take off....and then the publisher keenly publishes the first but unpublished book,which may well have been from the writer's "learning period",or an okay book but a totally different genre,which does not suit the tastes of his fans for his newer books.

(4) The publishers asks for more books.The author previously did one book in about three years or more,and now he's expected to  do at least one book a year and still keep the same quality level.That is probably difficult for  even a topnotch author,though there are exceptions.

(5) Same problem as number (4),but the author solves it by getting other people to write under his name.They write the book,meaning it's very different to what you expect,but his name is on the cover and the general outline is the same. Sometimes an author will team up and have both names on the cover.

(6) Sometimes the writer has gotten rich and successful and,in a sense,couldn't be bothered.He's now found so many other things to give him a full and happy lifestyle.

(7) Sadly,sometimes the author has  turned into a drunk or whatever.

(8) Sometimes it's just old age that comes to everyone. He still might be  very intelligent,but if,say,he was a thriller writer,can no longer  feel the empathy for his hero  going into highly dangerous sitiations  that he may have found exciting when he was a younger author.

(9) And maybe he has been asked by his publisher tio make the books more politically correct,cut down on the violence,cut out whatever,add more swearing and slang and sex or whatever.....and you,the loyal reader,finds the new books not so good,and the author would probably agree with you.

And there are  probably many other reasons.

The only James Patterson that I've read is the Nicholas Sparks-like "Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas."

Did you know Patterson was an ad-guy and came up with the "Toys R Us Kid" slogans? I just read that somewhere...

Good authors have been known to write "contract breakers" to get out from under the terms of an unfavorable contract.  The author may not want to write for her publisher any more because of unfavorable terms.  But she has to submit her newest work to the publisher because the option clause in the contract for her preceding book requires her to do so, and to accept the contract she is offered.

But ... her most recent book was a bestseller and she can get better terms from another publisher--if only she can get away from that option clause.  If the publisher rejects the novel, she's free.  Sometimes a publisher will put out the novel anyway, counting on the author's name to sell the book.  And so readers get a bad book.

I hear this often, but I've yet to find a single case where it's actually true. Professional writers do not get worse, and never, ever stop trying a shard a they can to produce the best book possible.  It's nonsense to think otherwise.  Sometimes readers simply stop liking a given writer, and then put this down to the books being bad. 

Bestselling writers don't get away with anything, and they can get dumped just as fast as new writers. 

The classics of the future are on the shelves right now.  That you don't like them doesn't mean they aren't there.  Shakespeare, Dickens, and a host of others classic writers received exactly the same criticism you're giving today's bestselling writers.

The simple fact is that writers do not continue raking in the money unless they also continue writing books that millions love to read.

As for really talented writers having trouble finding an agent, well, no, they don't.  Agents line up to fight over really talented writers.  So do publishers. A writer who can't find an agent or a publisher either lacks talent, or lacks any knowledge at all of the writing industry.

Just because you don't like the books in no way means they're any worse than any other book those writers have published.

I guarantee the future classics will come form some of the writers you think are the worst out there.

There's a simply way to tell whether a writer is going downhill, or just getting stale.  Check his current sales numbers.   If the numbers are still good, those books just don't meet your taste, but they're just as good as any other book that writer has ever written.

I think it has as much to do with the reader as it does the writer. Sometimes the writer might be producing so many books per year that he/she can't juggle them very well, and as a result the quality suffers, whether real or perceived. Other times, it may be that the reader is tired of a particular series, author, or set of characters and needs to move on or take a break. Maybe the reader is even tired of a certain type of story (i.e. high fantasy vs. contemporary fantasy) or genre.

For me personally, I know that I am tired of the Shannara books. I don't even bother to pick them up anymore. Sometimes an author just needs to know when to END a series already, instead of dragging it out forever. But that is my opinion, and not, apparently, the author's. 

Also, it may be that there were things happening in the author's life during the writing of the book that may have subtly influenced the work, and the reader happens to not like it. It's hard to say. There are so many factors at play.

And sometimes we just outgrow a writer, or our taste changes.  I can remember many books that I thought were wonderful when I was young, but don't like at all when I try to read them decades later.

That is true. Maybe the simple fact is that I've moved on from Shannara, and that's why the proliferation of new books doesn't interest me (as for why it irritates me.... I think I'm just getting crotchety as I age). It happens. My sister has outgrown Mercedes Lackey, but used to love her stuff.

Obviously, Brooks and Lackey are still selling well, or their books probably wouldn't be getting published.

One of the biggest disappoints in my entire reading life was when I tried to read book 1 of Roger Zelazny's Amber novels about five years ago.  I absolutely loved that book when I was in my twenties.  Thought it was one of the best I'd ever read. 

Thirty years later I could even get through chapter one.  It just read horribly.

I'm not the only Michael Connelly fan who has said it seems like he's "just mailing them in" lately. He's gone to a two-book a year schedule, and when compared to his early works, the last few seem to lack that energy and clerverness that he was noted for. The Drop even has irritating redundancies, like he was in too big a hurry to fully edit and "massage" certain passages for their best effect.

My guess, and it's an educated guess, is that he spent a great deal of time working and reworking his first few novels, but no longer does. Almost like he's become a pulp writer--penny a word and all that.

Writers do change. Some change for the better. Some change for the worse. It's absurd to say that they don't.

I think that everyone in this discussion have made good points. The only really issue, in my opinion, is that author's are just people. Talented to be sure, but humans subject to all of the failings and trappings that come with life.

For most authors, their first books are the stories which have haunted them personally. They are the stories that kept them awake at night thinking and developing. Those are the stories they were not going to let the public view until they were just right. If fate did its part, and the story(s) became popular and were read by many, then the business part of the equation sets in. Publisher's want more more more. This added pressure can either inspire or intimidate an author. Just like anyone, what happens in their life impacts their creativity, motivation and perspective. Authors are subject to great breakthroughs, great failures and burnout. They may also have ups and downs in their creativity and attentiveness to their writing.

In the end, there are no hard fast rules. Some may be very accurate in feeling that an author has lost something or changed how they write. Then again, other factors may change how we perceive a writer and our reading tastes may simply have changed. We could almost interchange the word "person" for "author" and the conversation would be just as valid.

Darin

Sequence77.com