Brad Bird, Wall Street Analyst Apologizes For PredictingUP Would Fail

I think this is relevant to authors of fiction, especially when tackling or reinterpreting social, and political issue, among other things. If you don't know why or how something works, you're never being to crawl out from underneath it's shadow to stand on your own.

Look at they overly replicated, overhyped dystopia YA genre. It's a copy of a copy of a copy. Because Hunger Games worked, everyone ran out to replicate it's success, but few authors bothered to really learn WHY Hunger Games worked, or even bothered to research the origins of the genre in the first place. Same thing happened with Twilight and paranormal romance, and now Fifty Shades of Grey and BDSM erotica.

If you replicate a successful something, which usually was a replica of something else in the first place, repeatedly by the time it gets through the mass-market machine of the publishing industry it's flavorless mush. 

This isn't how books should be written, it especially isn't how an writer to recreate systems of oppression in their fantasy or science fiction. We've all seen Hunger Games, and Blade Runner. We know how those stories end, and why.

It's time to tell a new story, which means learning why the old ones worked in the first place. This is why critical reading is so important to being a writer. You need to understand and dismantle the tropes and cliches of the genre, in order to bring something new, and uniquely you to it. While still keeping the key ingredients of a resonant, and compelling story and characters.