Well, I can't intelligently comment as to market trends. I just hope the market remains open to darker visions--if or when--I can ever publish what I'm working on as it doesn't get much darker.
Hi! A fashion usually does not last beyond a decade, it has a boom and a decline. A trend is much longer in time and, contrary to fashions, it begins in a way that goes almost unnoticed, usually never hatching, but instead stays, matures and evolves.
A fashion is more associated with momentary enthusiasm, while a trend by itself is capable of generating an entire thematic corpus that unfolds in many ramifications.
That is the way they can be identified.
For example, IMO, something that is going to become a trend, at bird view, are certain things:
1. The fandom's response to the mainstream invasion.
In the same way that quality writers who usually do not write sci-fi have been interested in problems more typical of sci-fi, the response of fandom is already appearing in the form of sci-fi novels whose treatment in terms of form, characters, development of plots, arcs, etc., unlike the New Wave, which except for the exceptions indicated above, completely missed the shot, it is a lot, but by far more thoughtful, consistent and concerned with all those details that we only believed that people studying Literature should care. I mean, now we still care about shooting a blaster or wielding a mystical sword. But now we also want to show the reader the motivations behind an orc invasion or the separation of the Republic or the use of an ancient spell that will decide the salvation of a world.
2. The border is diluted.
Derived from the previous point, we should expect an increasing number of cases of sci-fi writers going across the river. Mr. Philip Roth, Mr. Michael Chabon, Mr. Houellebecq, etc., we found your novels excellent, but thank you, we already learned the lesson.
Because it turns out that
we are who have been playing with laser guns and magic swords all our lives.
We are the ones with the imagination. In fact, that is the great criticism that outside writers have always made of the fandom, the reason for an indulgent smile and a caress on the head as if we were pets. That we have a lot of imagination, but we don't know how to write. That we do not know how to develop a plot, or our characters, when at least they are not cardboard or maquets, are poorly planned.
Well, okay, we already learned. (I hope)
But, coupled with the above, something else is already happening:
3. The fandom expands.
And it evolves. It is no longer the closed fandom of the past where people looked you bad if you wrote a story that could not be clearly framed within sci-fi or fantasy. In the past, fandom was much more radical. You were one thing or the other. A mixture, nor dream it.
However, now we have, apart from cyberpunk and all its children (diesel, atomic, gaslight), flint fantasies, futuristic fantasies, dark or gothic space operas, medieval thrillers, etc. That makes it possible for Predator to go wandering into the far West, that the Lovecraft's cosmic horror suddenly appear as a portal in a trench from the Great War, or there are orcs manning spaceships.
And also now those stories are being written well, with a reasonable literary quality.
4. But the need for catharsis is eternal.
The human being grows in adversity. And although Joshua Jones's example of Oedipus is of absolute precision, the truth is that nobody liked it too. Oedipus, I mean. Don't shot me you guys. Somehow we accept that the MC sees them fall gray and black throughout the story. But we need a happy ending. Or at least moderately satisfactory. At least a tie.
The stories will tend to get darker and darker anyway, and we will often have strong criticism even against the MC, whose behavior may never be entirely honorable (but who, surrounded by so much wolf?). But we still need it to survive. Also, if the bad guy does not lose in the end, catharsis does not occur. We would demand that the money be returned to us.
5. The advent of video game developers like the new Hollywood.
I left it for the end. There is also an evolution worth considering, the treatments are more mature, there is a plot (there is plot, that is!), and in development capacity, the matter will even advance towards the people in their homes. I don't think it's a fashion. Because, when we will can all access the cloud, and we can feel and experience all the fantasies virtually, and I think that's five years from now at most, we are not going to be here discussing these issues anymore. We will be dreaming. All the time.
I dont know. I suppose it is a news in development.
