The Lightlark Controversy

How BookTok Publishing demand writer to produce clickbait ‘art’. But, isn’t every writer's greatest achievement to be on the #1 New York BestSeller rack?

As I slide my Explore’s Reels, I was stopped by the lightning story of Miss Aster who has been writing since 12 and rejected by hundreds of publishers. The story was quite a resemblance to me, except for the part when I got hundreds of rejections and was able to hit 40 straight weeks on the NY Times BestSeller shelves.

As a non-native speaker, the first thing I did was to find the meaning of “Lightlark”. Google was not really responded to my question other than lots of articles regarding direct topics, which the novel. But, I discovered the meaning of “Lark” which is a bird known for its melodious singing. I presume the book is about someone wanting freedom (?)

Hmm, well here’s the query letter from Miss Aster: Lightlark is Hunger Games meets ACOTAR.

Bloated with curiosity, I began diving into more information regarding Miss Aster’s work. But, somehow it becomes a revelation of the controversial part about the writer herself dominating the book. So I wonder…

Oh, no, no.

I’m well aware that controversial topics could be my bucket of passive income (who know?). But, I’m not some Lark who happens on Miss Aster’s shoulder 24 hours. I don’t know her and I believe everyone has through a storm. You can freely go to different platforms to hear such gossip.

But, as a writer of a novel (Yes I’m projecting myself), this topic is more concerning and feels like a dystopian genre that happens to become more real.

What if I am not allowed to write a book as Tolkien began The Lord of the Rings because of his background as a scholar of European languages and cultures, taking his interests in philology, religion, Norse and Celtic mythology? OR a glimpse Idea on a delayed train to London King’s Cross that become 5 years of crafting rich world-building, Hogwarts by JK. Rowling.

With that premise, as I try to pursue my writing carrier, this time I have to think, how to write something that sells, massively. My perspective as a writer needs to change direction into a publishing commercial team. Finding the most traffic for book tropes popularity.

It’s not bad. It’s pragmatically realistic. But, deep down I was frightened to imagine myself creating a TikTok account, being a book influencer (firstly), pursuing perhaps a minimum of a hundred thousand followers, and a million viewers’ content to attract the publisher’s eye. Then, maybe they will offer me to write a book.

As I send my 100-page book copy to my friend who also writing an AU 18+ story that has attracted viewers, she told me my writing style was very stiff (after reading one page of the book). Then, she sends me a screenshot of her Twitter traffic, celebrating one thousand followers. And my friend suggested me to write the same tropes as she does.

I admitted my rigid writing style. I not trying to create a new world terminology, as I looked at ‘The Death of the Teen Dystopian Era’. How its main plot center on the revolutionary protagonist. And failed to comprehensively open discussion to tragedy within a gloomy world-building.

What if the alternative universe of the Hunger Games (Katniss’s era) book is about Marinda, a 44-year-old Panem citizen of District 10 who having through a hopeless situation? We know that eventually Katniss succeded but, as a character who has been eaten alive by the Snow’s extreme regime long before Katniss was born, Marinda happens to believe Katniss is a paid-political puppet.

Miranda is a common person who happened to live in a dystopian world, where choosing to live feels like a dreadful journey, but death is an expensive option.

Snow’s Regime offers you two ways to die: either you process the euthanasia program with a who-knows-when waiting list administration process, what if you suffocate, but the government asks you to wait for a whole year? Because IF you ended up doing your own termination, you’re a perpetrator of illegal action.

“Well, I’m somewhere in nothingness. Maybe you can take $25 from my bank account,”

“Hmm, no.”

The government will charge the perpetrator’s circle of reachable connections with continuous tax (Iook below infographic). Maybe it’s the families, friends, lovers, or even a stranger you meet twice. How much? 5% of your income, every month...for maybe ten or 20 years. It’s not just fine money, but a replacement of the perpetrator’s taxes to a living connection.

Alright, now let’s move on to the real issue here.

By having this explanation, I presume the dystopian genre was supposed to be a warning, but later it becomes a fantasy where the antagonist happened to be very cool, sexy, and muscular. They will kiss, passionately as my adrenaline rush would make my heartbeat stop. The dystopian world where the elitist lives with their shining bling-bling costumes and varieties of hair coloring feel like a plot that would look appealing in a motion picture.

I’m nothing against it, but teen dystopian becomes so much look-alike and seems like a glorification of toxic relationships. Maybe modernism has made each scent pages of wooden smoke, sometimes vanilla, and perhaps a memento of the reader’s home to a fountain of Benjamin Franklin’s portrait.

As for the writer, in this era of commercial tropes, let’s use one term, to sell fantasy. I begin to think to forget my book, specifically the writing I mentioned above because my dystopian world doesn’t seems likely to sell fantasy. Nothing but an endless tragedy took from Nietzsche and Kiergaard's philosophical pattern as my implicit way to say thank you (as I read them during the behemoth numbness of pain).

So now, perhaps realistically I have to start writing a book that fits with sales department. And this topic seems to be concerned Ursula K. Le Guin in the 2014 National Book Awards speech:

Yet I see sales departments given control over editorial. I see my own publishers, in a silly panic of ignorance and greed, charging public libraries for an e-book six or seven times more than they charge customers…Books aren’t just commodities; the profit motive is often in conflict with the aims of art. We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable — but then, so did the divine right of kings.

After all, maybe I must let my room of hope remain available. I believed this generation is among the most critical mind. As they said, “Don’t underestimate your audience”. As for writers, there’s always room for your story. We don’t know when or how, but why we should give up on something we’re passionate about. And mostly, for the publishing team don’t forget your history before the skyrocketing phenomena.

For the closure, here’s a substance from Ursula K. Le Guin:

Hard times are coming, when we’ll be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now, can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies to other ways of being, and even imagine real grounds for hope. We’ll need writers who can remember freedom — poets, visionaries — realists of a larger reality.

Right now, we need writers who know the difference between production of a market commodity and the practice of an art. Developing written material to suit sales strategies in order to maximise corporate profit and advertising revenue is not the same thing as responsible book publishing or authorship.