Multiple Genres
The romance revision is going well. I cleared 12K this week, officially 20% of the rewrite. I’ve written a couple of all new scenes, ransacked some old ones for usable information, and rewritten some that just needed wording beefed up. Looking ahead at the outline, about the next six or seven scenes are all new material, taking the place of the section I mentioned in a previous post (where the original scenes got Seriously???? scrawled in the margin!) I’m pretty pleased with the results thus far.
So, some may think I’m crazy entering three novels in three different genres into the Genesis contest this year. I may well be. I know the official wisdom is that it’s hard enough to make a go of writing in one genre, and that writing in several (unless you’re REALLY FAST, like PaperBackWriter) is a ridiculous concept. It confuses your readers (should one be lucky enough to ever get any, lol) and makes focusing your marketing difficult.
Well, that’s all true, but at this moment no one is beating down my door offering me any publishing deals, so I’m still experimenting and finding my voice. I love fantasy, but in the process of writing several speculative novels (and having a few more in the wings) I’m finding the types of it that I like to write–and won’t bother focusing any more on the ones that don’t call me as much. And while I don’t read a lot of romance or *women’s fiction*, I’ve met some I really enjoyed a lot. So I’m experimenting.
I guess this means that whichever genre door opens for me (if any) I’ll walk through. Maybe at that point I’ll try to juggle more than one, maybe I won’t. But for now it’s a moot point.
In post-modern literature I believe genre blending is acceptable.
Harry Potter for example, if I recall correctly, contains about 12 different genres all mixed together.
Ah, the thing is I’m writing in several distinct genres at the moment. My fantasies may include romance, but my romances don’t include fantasy. Well, you know what I mean!