Writers: Genre-ly Speaking
Writing. What is there to say about it other than stealing Nike’s slogan? Well, it certainly cannot all be captured in one brief blog post, and that’s good for me. For you? I don’t know. That’s why I have a Contact tab on the top fold of the site where I welcome all readers and writers and thinkers to propose their own questions they want addressed or their own blogs they want to share, perhaps a call and response where I respond to your blog and you respond to mine for building each other up. That’s what the writing community is all about, right?
So with that invitation thrown out there, how about I begin the meat of this post? Today, I find myself thinking a lot about the genre of my current WIP (Work In Progress for those of you new to the lingo). While “Outkast” is certainly a fantasy adventure, there is a lot more to it that takes much more precedence in my mind while writing. In fact, I think I am so focused on writing a female empowerment, sexual and gender identity (lgbt+), and coming-of-age story that I am losing the fantasy and adventure elements that started the whole thing. When asked by a mentor about what genre “Outkast” is, I could not provide an answer right away or briefly.
In my experience, when a writer starts writing, they’re not thinking about what genre they are writing. Oftentimes, at least for myself, writers are concerned with their characters, their plot, the stuff of stories that is right in your face. They figure that they will stumble upon a theme and that the genre will present itself subconsciously. This is where I have to switch from creative-writing brain to marketing brain (yes, I am that student who majors in fine arts but minors in business).
The first and most important thing I learned in every class for my minor is to always keep the customer in mind. Of course, for a writer, “customer” is better translated as “reader.” While what genre our book is tends to be pushed back in our minds, it is often, if not always, the deciding factor for someone to find your book. That’s why libraries and bookstores are organized by genre. People seek romance or sci-fi or mystery. Genre is the first thing that clues them into what they’re getting into when they see your book. So when they go to the historical fiction section and find a time travel novel that doesn’t have any actual historical reference, just a character named after a historical figure, that book is not getting bought.
You’re right, though. As writers, a lot of the time, we are not necessarily responsible for where our books get placed on shelves. However, our books have to be written clearly enough in order to be placed where they will sell. When I said that my WIP is fantasy, adventure, lgbt+, feminist, and coming-of-age, I am well aware that that is too many genres to slap on a label, or cover. As a writer, I might want to include all of these aspects and their respective themes, but I also need to decide one or two dominant genres. A confused reader is not an author’s friend, and a reader normally gets confused about the stuff authors never really decided on. In other words, a reader will have just as much difficulty identifying what kind of book they're reading as the author did when trying to identify what kind of book they were writing.
If you find yourself in the same position as me, cramming a plethora of genres into one book, the best thing you can do is take a moment, or many moments throughout the process, to reflect on what you have written and what you plan to write and draw connections between what genre naturally dominants what you are putting on the page, because that is the genre your story wants to be written in. This does not mean you have to eliminate the other genres you had in mind, but it might help you plan how to continue writing and how to revise.
Trust yourself. Trust the process. And do not be afraid to go off script. You wrote it, after all.
Good luck! And happy writing, no matter what point of the process you’re in.
