Tag Archives: genre

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I like everything so I write almost anything.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I know not only am I still finding my voice in my writing, but also what topics/genres I like to cover. With movie watching, I’m a jack-of-all-trades. My reading is a little like that too. It should stand to reason that my ideas are all over the place. I seem to stick to action in my books so far, but there is a contemporary romance that is itching to go (even if I have no clue how to keep a book moving forward without action). It makes me wonder, am I an oddball writing different genres and categories?

My first completed novel is what I call YA low fantasy. There is a little paranormal activity (mind powers, not ghosts) so I guess it could also be low paranormal. Whichever you want to call it, there is a little romance and a lot more monkey bites, near death experiences, and a quest to find the friend.  Second novel that is about 56k in at the moment has monsters, deaths, human hunting rednecks, and aliens. No clue what I’m labeling that one yet. Again, action with a hint of a romance.
But what of my other ideas? What of the other little gems I truly hope to someday write? A few of them have similar lines to the two above. A few of them don’t. The next one that really really wants to bug me as of late is a contemporary love story with a teeny tiny part alien. How many other writers veer all over the map with their writing choices? I see so many stay within a certain box for their stories. They write paranormal romance or fantasy and that is it. It’s what their fans know them for. It’s what fans look for in their writing. It scares me a little knowing I’m all over the place. Will this alienate potential readers? Am I shooting myself in the foot not sticking with one category or genre (did I mention monster, human hunters has a 19 year-old MC? Not exactly YA in content either)?

Maybe I’ll eventually stick to one thing and maybe I won’t. I know not every author has one given genre and that is all they write. Look at J. K. Rowling recently. Then again, she wasn’t sure how people would take to the mystery so she used a pen name. I do have a pen name at the ready, should I need it. Time will tell since I would need to get published first to even have this worry! One step at a time, but I like to think ahead. I’m a planner like that.

Overall, I know it will be the writing that does the talking for me, not the genre. I am aiming to make my writing its best and try to worry on the other stuff later. Still, I’m a worrier. It’s what I do. I ponder random crap at silly times. Goal 1: Finish editing Circus. Goal 2: Finish drafting Monsters, Rednecks, and Zombies, Oh My! (working title). Goal 3: Query Circus to agents. Goal 4: Um, write more stuff.  Past this list, I’m trying not to think too far ahead.

What about you? Do you write in one strict genre? Two? More? I’m curious how many other writers out there dabble. Who knows, maybe there’s more of us than the traditionalists!

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Genre or Wait, What is My Book?

If you’ve read some of my other blog posts, you will clearly see that I’m no authority on writing (or much else). I’m stumbling along as I go, writing whatever comes to mind about writing.

Today’s topic of confusion: Genre. Ah, that pesky little demon that can be as simple as romance or mystery to as complicated as Dystopian Paranormal Romance (ok, I made that one up, but I’ve seen some lengthy ones on occasion).

When writing my little circus story, I just wrote. I didn’t think about genre. I knew it was Young Adult (which surprised the heck out of me since I hadn’t written YA before) and that was about it. *Side Note: I know YA is a category before anyone hunts me down. If I ever accidentally call it a genre, I’m just being lazy. You know, like Kleenex being every facial tissue ever made? Sorta like that. Now back to the show*

With the first draftedidee draft done, I was excited and relieved. I had finished my first ever novel. I rested and celebrated. Then I hyperventilated as I thought about editing. I’d never edited something like this before. Papers for school would be edited as I wrote, but fiction is a different writing process in every way for me.

So being the good writer that I am, I did what anyone else would have done—-procrastinated by researching agents and query letters. It is here that I realized I had no clue what genre my novel fell into. It’s set in the here and now with a circus run by a man that forces people to perform for it so he can feed off of their energy and the patrons’. A whole lot of mind powers going on, but an otherwise mostly realistic world.

I began researching genre and what genres were out there. My poor little story didn’t seem to quite fit anything that I came upon. I’ve settled for low fantasy at the moment, but I can’t say I love that classification.

Have you ever done a search for genre? Eek, it’s scary and confusing. No wonder I’m still just as lost today as I was the first time I decided to christen my novel! I will list a small few of sites I found to list genres but with subgenres, the possibilities seem endless.

http://www.writing.com/main/list_items/type/genre

http://www.theguardian.com/books/list/booksgenres

http://www.ask.com/wiki/List_of_literary_genres

http://www.ask.com/wiki/Category:Novels_by_genre

So, do your homework and try to categorize as best as you can, but know that most of us are as lost as you if you don’t have an easily genrefied novel. Come as close as you can when you querying (or so I keep reading) and put most of that worry into making your book the best it possibly can be!

Happy writing.