Feature and Follow Friday #8: Replace An Author

Feature and Follow Friday is hosted by fellow bloggers Parajunkee and Alison Can Read. Every Friday they feature one or two bloggers and pose a question for other participating bloggers to answer. It’s a chance to find some new blogs to visit, and gain some new followers in return.

Here’s this week’s question for participants: If you could take the place of one author which author would it be and what changes would you make in his/her writing style?
– Suggested by NJKinny’s World of Books & Stuff

Oh this is a fairly simple question for me. There’s a particular author I have been griping about for years: James Patterson. Now I get it. Publishing books is about selling books, aka making money. But since when did authors need to have dozens of ghost writers and co-authors do their freaking job for them? This is how the latest Patterson book makes it to your shelf:

Step One: Patterson writes an outline for the plot. He claims it’s 80 pages, but I’m calling bullshit on that. I’ve read many of his series/books over the years and it’s apparent whoever is writing the newer books has little to no direction on where to go.

Step Two: Patterson claims he is constantly reviewing and revising their work. Once again, there’s a bullshit flag on the play. You know how I know? Because John Sampson in the Alex Cross series suddenly became Caucasian after he was played by a Caucasian actor in the 2012 Alex Cross movie. Ironically, Alex’s foster daughter (who was killed off and magically pulled a daytime soap move to come back to life) also changed races. Oh yeah… and there’s the book where the main character’s name is Michael Bennett… but it’s not from his Michael Bennett series. Oops… guess the jig is up.

Step Three: New books magically appear at the end of a rainbow on your local bookstore’s shelves every couple of weeks and people gobble them up like a fat kid in a candy shop.

So what would I change? Honestly, this isn’t an insult to his ghost writers and co-authors, but I miss James Patterson’s books. The ones he actually wrote. He is fantastic at creating antagonists that really make each book interesting and thrilling and since he’s no longer writing his books, the bad guys are being recycled, as are all of his story lines. So yes, I want James Patterson to write his own books again. Because I’d rather have to wait a year for his next book and it be amazing, then see a dozen pop up that are okay or god awful.

I’m really hoping to have new Goodreads followers and e-mail subscriptions this week. Please comment below and I promise I will return the follow as soon as I can!

Click here to enter your blog’s link and view this week’s Linky list…