I think I’m in good company when I say this:
Social media — particularly Reels on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok — has become a basin for copycats. Not always, but often. Entire “successes” (or at least creator success on those platforms) are built almost entirely by hopping on trends.
I’m not necessarily saying it’s wrong or inherently bad.
And look, for what it’s worth, my hands aren’t clean.
I’ve fallen foul of this degeneracy one too many times in my earlier days in a bid to appease the algorithm gods.
But it always left me feeling…
ICKY.
Like I’m cheapening myself in some way. I’ve even gone as far as developing a term for it that’ll probably piss off a lot of these social media trend chasers:
Creative incest.
It usually goes something like this:
One person makes something original that goes viral. The algorithm then rewards them with more eyeballs and exposure, which then attracts the vultures, and thus, the shameless, incessant pecking begins.
They copy it almost beat-for-beat.
Same setting, same timing, same soundtrack (no originality whatsoever), and before you know it, your feed is dominated by carbon-copy content for weeks until they plug their umbilical cord into the next new hot thing, leaving the original to become forgotten and even resented.
That’s why I’ve come to be repulsed by trend chasers.
Like… you’re so devoid of an original bone in your body that you have to steal from someone who does and then subsequently kill the original idea in your quest for your undue attention.
😤
Even on the few times I ran with these copycats, I always added my twist.
I needed some differentiating factor; otherwise, I risked sounding, smelling, and looking like every other clown on the platform.
That same impulse also fuels my fiction.
The Divided Region opposes a lot of fantasy norms.
I’m not saying every fantasy book out there is a copy of the last (far from it), but many seem scared to break free from genre expectations and bring their own brisket to the party.
For me, that’s shorter books, fewer POVs, faster pacing, less time talking about nice-but-not-necessary details, and a zero-tolerance policy on “smart-assery” (aka fancy prose that serves only to stroke my own ego).
I also don’t feature dragons or “spicy” scenes.
And I most certainly don’t have elves shagging dwarves like some so-called “fantasy” books do.
In fact, I don’t even have elves and dwarves at all!
All of this to say:
I slay a lot of sacred cows while keeping the heart and soul of epic fantasy, the ruggedness of the world, and characters who are neither purely good nor bad.
It goes back to that quote I once heard:
“Write the book you want to read.”
Well, The Divided Region is just that.
And you can get it right here:
https://djjwatsonstore.com/products/TDR-Bundle
DJJW
P.S. I actually got a hell of a review yesterday (I’ll probably share it tomorrow if another musing doesn’t capture my fingertips).