Writing.Com General Discussion

Writing is a process, not a formula. If you develop stories using a formula, you're going to lose your audience by boring them to tears, because your stories will be predictable.

Things like structure, for example the Hero's Journey, are not formulae, they are a framework that suggests the kind of thing that should be happening at a specific point. This is entirely different from saying that a certain thing should be happening at that point.

There are well established authors out there who have sold millions of books, but all their stories are the same in different clothes. Read one trilogy and you've read them all. Even the characters are the same, albeit with new names.

The danger of a formula is that you only have one story which you tell again and again, and you'll lose your initial followers. Not a problem if all you want to do is make money, but you can be better than that. New stories are much more fun to write, and your audience will grow rather than have an equal gain/loss ratio.