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In the Writing Jungle

Suzi Goode

Writing in the Jungle of Genre

Writing and publishing go hand in hand. You cannot write effectively nor market your completed manuscript without firmly placing it in a specific genre.

Why is it important to know the genre for your story or novel when you are in the process of writing? If you know that particular genre, you are more likely to avoid what has been overdone before. This doesn't mean that you have to follow the formula slavishly but rather that you should come up with a fresh, original idea. Friendly aliens, such as ET are out when it comes to writing science fiction. If you're writing horror, you must know to avoid the clichés, such as vampires with Aids and picking up a stranger for the sole purpose of having sex and then killing said stranger.

It's essential to know what is happening in your genre. Read as much as you can and examine what other authors are doing. Familiarize yourself with what is being published now and what has been published in the past. Don't simply read the good novels but a few of the poorly-written ones too. Look for what makes a novel good or bad in your opinion. Was it the realistic characters which helped the novel succeed? Or the unusual setting? Or was the plot original and filled with suspense? If nothing else, get a firm grounding in the classics of the genre you have chosen to write in.

If you don't know your genre well enough, you will more than likely be placing yourself in the unhappy position of having your glaring mistakes pointed out to by your readers. This happened recently when a Regency romance hardcover was released. Despite the fact that the author was teaching about the Georgian era (1811-1820 in England), she made several glaring errors in depicting this time period. She not only lost readers for any future novels she may write, but also was publicly embarrassed by these errors. Don't make the fateful, and almost certainly lethal mistake, of assuming your reader is not well versed in your genre. Be accurate in your details, and rather than guessing or bluffing your way through, research the facts you need to know.

Most genres have reader expectations which you should be careful to adhere to. For example, a reader of a romance novel expects a man and woman to fall in love. A mystery reader will read in order to (vicariously) solve a murder along with an amateur sleuth or hard-boiled detective. This is the oft-spoken of 'formula'. It means making an implicit promise to the reader, and keeping it. If you write a romance, you make the promise that the hero and heroine will fall in love, encounter several obstacles which almost spell disaster to that love, and finally they make a commitment to each other. To write anything else, is to break this implicit promise and lose your reader.

Making an implicit promise also means enjoying the genre you are writing in. Don't waste your time writing westerns when you don't care to read them. This indifference will convey itself to the reader and he will quickly turn to another novel.

On the other hand, just because romance novels comprise forty-nine per cent of the market today, doesn't mean that you must write a romance or lace your current work-in-progress with heavy doses of love. Don't subvert your writing style for something marketable. Instead, stay within the genre you feel you are comfortable in and think up something different to do with it. Finding a genre which appeals to you and thinking up something which hasn't been done before, is a challenge but well worth it in terms of being happy and creative in your writing. It will be an added bonus when it comes to marketing your work. If you write passionately, chances are that you will find an editor who loves your work and will publish it.

So you are one of the lucky few who feel you are competent in a variety of genres. How do the preceding comments affect you? First, you must realize that readers rarely jump from one genre to another. A romance reader will usually only read romances while a reader of horror will only read horror. If you write both romance and horror, don't expect your readers to cross genres just to read what you have written. Establish yourself in one genre and you will gain a loyal following.

There are a few authors who have transcended the lines between one genre and another but they are few. Their success lies in writing outstandingly as they channel and shape their reader's expectations. Nora Roberts is an author of romance but she also writes romantic suspense under the name J.D. Robb. She is creating a loyal following with her romance novels and her romantic suspense, usually labeled in the library's mystery section.

In conclusion, experiment to find the genre you prefer to write in. Read widely in different genres, attempt to write (or at least outline) a story in that genre. You will have lost nothing in the attempt but instead will have enriched your writing and learned something new to improve your writing.

Next month, join me as I take a look at how genre affects the marketing of your manuscript.

Happy Writiing!