 |
| Creative Commons licence. http://moon.com/2014/03/hiking-and-recreation-in-parque-nacional-torres-del-paine/ |
A little over a year ago, I wrote a post for the Guild of Dreams blog where
I wondered about how important it is for a writer to remain within a genre. Now
that I have just sent my third manuscript to an editor, I find myself wondering
about that again. Without asking anyone’s permission, I am re-examine that
issue.
When you start out writing fantasy — or romance, or science fiction, or
mystery, or any other category — do you have to stay within it? Is writing
something in another genre akin to crossing a border into a foreign territory?
For a novelist, is the genre a prison or a haven?
It looks like my career as a novelist is turning into an experiment to
measure that.
My experience in the fantasy genre
My first published full-length novel qualifies as epic fantasy. I prefer
the term “historical magic realism,” because The Bones of the
Earth has realistic, fictional characters alongside real, historical characters.
It’s set in a real time and place, and then adds fantastic or magical elements. But for most people, “fantasy” is the shorthand term.
My next novel, One Shade of Red, stepped way out of epic fantasy and history. It’s a comic, erotic parody of
Fifty Shades of Gray, and qualifies as romantic erotica. Or erotic
romance. NOT porn.
My third novel (to be published) is one I started over 10 years ago, a
memoir of my father-in-law’s experience as a draftee into the Soviet Red Army
during World War II. So far, I’m calling it Between
the Vise Jaws. But that may change.
Return to fantasy
With that done, I am now turning to a contemporary urban paranormal type
fantasy, Dark Clouds. I posted the first
chapter on this blog a couple of years ago.
Dark Clouds grew out of a pre-Hallowe’en writing challenge, the source
of which I cannot remember. But the challenge was to write the scariest opening
line I could, and in a humourous mood, I thought of “Matt always knew when his
mother was coming over.”
 |
Photo by Garry Knight via Flickr Creative Commons
And I took it from there, making Matt’s mother a witch, then the Queen
of all witches. Then I thought “what if Matt, the Witch Queen’s son, was immune
to all her spells?”
|
Once I finished writing the story, I thought it could be the beginning
of a novel, or at least a series of stories. So I thought I would call the
novel The Mandrake Ruse, in the style
of 60s-era spy stories like Man from U.N.C.L.E.
And I could write a bunch of novels about The Witch’s Son.
Now that I’ve been toying with the idea for a couple of years, I realize
that I have those titles mixed up, so when I do publish the book, it will be
called Dark Clouds, and the first chapter will be “The Mandrake Ruse.” It just
makes so much more sense.
Does genre-hopping hurt my credibility as an author?
A number of readers, and my family, too, have asked for a sequel to The
Bones of the Earth. And as you can see from the cover, it’s “Book One of the
Dark Age Trilogy.” I do have rough plot outlines for two more books about Javor
and his adventures in the seventh century, but I also have this burning desire
to write some other stories, first.
Had I a contract with a publishing company, my publisher, editor and/or
agent would gripe about this. “Readers who liked your first book want more of
the same!” I can hear one of them saying. “You’ve proven there’s an audience
for that story, and they’ll be disappointed if your next book is totally
different.”
I think every artist or creative person faces that dilemma: those who
liked your first work will come back expecting more in the same vein.
Delighting them with something new and completely different is a steeper hill
to climb — you’re working against the very expectations that you created.
On the other hand, I am a writer because there are stories that I want
to write, and my imagination doesn’t necessarily fit into categories defined by
someone else.
I don’t read in just one genre — why should write in just one genre?
The most commercially successful authors stay within the categories
they’re known for: John Grisham, Jodi Picoult, Tom Clancy, Dan Brown, Stephenie
Meyer … it’s a long, depressing list.
On the other hand, some of the best writers have written in more than one
genre, or have succeeded both artistically and commercially when they’ve gone
beyond the slot assigned to them at some point in their careers:
Ray Bradbury — known for science fiction, especially Fahrenheit
451 and The Martian Chronicles, Bradbury’s also celebrated for Dandelion
Wine, the story of a young boy’s “magical summer.”
Stephen King started with horror and is still best known for
It, The Shining and Carrie, but he has successfully transitioned into
science fiction, non-fiction and, it could be argued, literary fiction.
Guy Gavriel Kay began writing fantasy fiction
with The Fionavar Tapestry series, continued with his almost-historical
magic realism, and moved to historical fiction with Ysabel in 2007.
Margaret Atwood went the other way.
Established since the 60s as a main force in current literature, she surprised
the book world with the dystopian science-fiction The Handmaid’s Tale,
more recently Oryx and Crake — although she denies they’re science
fiction.
The big question
What will this do to future sales prospects? Will readers of The
Bones of the Earth who check my new publication be disappointed or
delighted by Between the Vise Jaws?
Will fans of One Shade of Red be totally turned off by a war
memoir?
Or will my hopes be realized: that writing in different genres will
spread my appeal to new audiences?
What do you think? Leave a comment!
