I hope this is an appropriate question for this thread ....

[Ashleen]

A member of my just-dissolved writing group refused to read any more of my sci-fi novel (hence the dissoltuon) claiming that it was really either horror or cyber-punk, and sickening! Part of the premise is that on the MC's home planet, wives' fatal accidents are more common than divorces. This, the offended reader said, makes every husband a serial killer, and that makes it a horror story, even though this fact is stated, and not graphically exampled, and is background information rather than the subject of the story. There are only two other bits of flesh-and-bone violence described at all. One is quick and confined to two half-sentences, and the other is a reference to being able to hear agonized cries and a quick comment about what might be happening in one line of conversation. I don't think this qualifies the novel as horror or cyber punk; it's not intended as either. I was surprised, and obviously flustered, by that interpretation. Any comments?


Ashleen

[Pthom]

Sounds to me as though you handle a touchy subject in a most appropriate manner, giving the reader just enough information to understand the situation in which the story takes place but without a massive info dump. Obviously, you were successful, since your reader felt there was more in your background info than is usually dissemenated in a SF novel.

As for whether the story is cyber-punk or horror must depend on other aspects of the story, no? But if that's the only complaint from your beta readers, I say keep on keeping on and finish the thing.

And maybe, tell us some more about it, too?

[TheIT]

Violence can occur in almost any genre (including romance). IMHO, it's the degree of detail in which it's depicted which might make a story considered horror.

I'm having a little trouble understanding this sentence:

This, the offended reader said, makes every husband a serial killer, and that makes it a horror story, even though this fact is stated, and not graphically exampled, and is background information rather than the subject of the story.

What fact does "this fact is stated, ..." refer to? The fact that the reader is correct in supposing all husbands in the story are killers, or the fact that wives' fatal accidents are common?

[MarkN]

If somebody built a wall around the sci-fi genre, they forgot to send me the memo. Write the novel first and let the theorists worry about where the boundaries of sci-fi belong. If it's a good story, the boundaries can be moved. If it's not a good story, the boundaries don't matter. ;)

[Vuligora]

Welcome. And hey, don't get down f they feel insulted. You p*ssed them off, and that's good...sort of.It depends. But you hit a subject the reader cares about and is so horrified by certain things they think it is horror! That is soooo cool! Every beta reader responds to certain ideas differently. When I read books, I like to yell at them when someone does somethimg stupid or the suspense is so great I have to rave about the situation. Your readers will all respond differently when the book is published, and it is up to them to decide how they feel about the work. This is only a few beta readers opinions, do what you think is best. It sounds like Sci -Fi to me.

[MarkN]

Yeah, that's what I'm trying to say too. :) The important thing is to make sure it's a good story, not that it fits someone else's preconceived ideas of what SF should be. As long as you're not grossly out-of-genre (i.e. writing a soap opera set in the antebellum South), you should be ok.

[Minister]

Horror is even harder to define than scifi, sometimes, since it can take place in the real world (modern or historical), or in a fantasy or scifi setting. It often has more to do with the mood of a piece than with specific descriptions of gore. Perhaps you created a mood that was dark enough that your Beta reader felt like it was horror. In any case, if you are writing a story set in any reasonably conceivable future, I'd say to keep on writing it as scifi, and if an agent or publisher wants to market it differently, then cross that bridge when you come to it. There's definitely a market for dark scifi.

[badducky]

Horror is easy to define.

Stephen King calls it "Dark Fantasy". He's sold more books in Horror than anyone else, so I'm willing to accept his definition.

Science-Fiction is just "Technology/Future Fantasy", isn't it?

So there's a little blurring, so what?

The definition that is more worrisome to me is what you call the dude from your (dissolved) writer's group. Instead of trying to define everything, dude should be trying to get published. Reminds me of why I walked out of graduate school. Bunch of people so busy doing everything but PRODUCING BOOKS AND PUBLISHING THEM!

(I still recall the gentleman who had been waiting tables for over twenty years because he "wanted to be a novelist"... but he just wasn't ready, yet. I'm in my twenties with multiple fiction/poetry pubs and a novel sold. If old dude had stopped whining, and started writing and editing his book, he might've actually gotten somewhere. But, in his case, another college writing professor is born.)

Sounds like no great loss with that dissolved group. I'd call him a whiner, not a writer.

[Ashleen]

I'm having a little trouble understanding this sentence:

This, the offended reader said, makes every husband a serial killer, and that makes it a horror story, even though this fact is stated, and not graphically exampled, and is background information rather than the subject of the story.

What fact does "this fact is stated, ..." refer to? The fact that the reader is correct in supposing all husbands in the story are killers, or the fact that wives' fatal accidents are common?

Sorry .... The fact that wives' fatal accidents are common is stated, but not emphasized or graphically described. One wife in particular (the mother of the MC) refers to surviving her fall from a cliff, and that's as graphic as it gets. (Beta Reader did get that far.) This wife's survival is important to the story, but the story does not center on wives' fatal accidents.


-- Ashleen

[Ashleen]

Horror is easy to define.

Stephen King calls it "Dark Fantasy". He's sold more books in Horror than anyone else, so I'm willing to accept his definition.

Science-Fiction is just "Technology/Future Fantasy", isn't it?

So there's a little blurring, so what?

The definition that is more worrisome to me is what you call the dude from your (dissolved) writer's group. Instead of trying to define everything, dude should be trying to get published. Reminds me of why I walked out of graduate school. Bunch of people so busy doing everything but PRODUCING BOOKS AND PUBLISHING THEM!

(I still recall the gentleman who had been waiting tables for over twenty years because he "wanted to be a novelist"... but he just wasn't ready, yet. I'm in my twenties with multiple fiction/poetry pubs and a novel sold. If old dude had stopped whining, and started writing and editing his book, he might've actually gotten somewhere. But, in his case, another college writing professor is born.)

Sounds like no great loss with that dissolved group. I'd call him a whiner, not a writer.

Well, thanks. I had been thinking of it as "light sci fi," because it's not deeply philosophical, or socially meaningful, it's just a story. Maybe I need to think of it as "just" a sci-fi/fantasy and never mind whether I think it's light or dark or heavy.

That I know of, "Dude" hasn't finished anything; most of it's non-fiction, and quite a lot of it in the survey-and-critique category. (The most original stuff, the group agreed, needs to be finished and merits publication.) "Dude" has an academic background and is working around/through some difficult medical problems, which account for some of the writing delay. "Dude" also has some neurotic concerns about offending others in the academic community, which the group did point out is an impossibility unless the work is published, and brought to the attention of the potential offendees.

I know a few artists who wait for inspiration. I say, get going and let inspiration catch up! ;-)

-- Ashleen

[TheIT]

Sorry .... The fact that wives' fatal accidents are common is stated, but not emphasized or graphically described. One wife in particular (the mother of the MC) refers to surviving her fall from a cliff, and that's as graphic as it gets. (Beta Reader did get that far.) This wife's survival is important to the story, but the story does not center on wives' fatal accidents.


-- Ashleen

Then it sounds to me like "Dude" jumped to a false conclusion without waiting for all the facts, i.e. reading the rest of the story. Write the story you want to tell and don't worry about what label it falls under. If it isn't a story "Dude" wants to read, so be it.

[zornhau]

:Headbang: The group sounds as if it was pish! If it had not dissolved, honour would have forced me to board my dragon-prowed longship and cross the ocean to personally smite the members. (I would have Dude's skull dipped in lead to serve as a spittoon.)

A writers group should be for discussing the craft. It's not a People's Committee for Judging the Literary and Political Merit of Books, it's a mutual aid club.

Reactions should be noted in a clinical way because they're useful information, rather than a judgement on the book. The issues should have been: Are Dude's reactions the one you sought in a reader? Did other people react the same way? Not: Will this offend people?

My group covers the most of the political spectrum, and handles genres from literary through nano-wibble SF, to blood-drenched sword and sorcery. Most of us are uncomfortable or bored by at least one other member's chosen genre - and that's one of our strengths, since readers not carried away by genre content tend to spot the plot holes and stylistic errors.

:guns:Personally, if I can upset the Peaceniks in the group, then I know my writing is on target....

[Wesley Smith]

I don't understand why a critiquing group would dissolve over trying to figure out the genre of a story. Unless it was both: A) a small group to begin with; and B) a group dedicated to sci-fi only, I can't understand why something like this would destroy it. That it did says that the group probably wasn't stable to begin with, and would have probably dissolved over something else soon anyway.

If old dude had stopped whining, and started writing and editing his book, he might've actually gotten somewhere. But, in his case, another college writing professor is born.)And this will get my nomination for Line of the Day.

[Crosshatcher]

Was "Frankenstein" Science Fiction or Horror? Was the movie "Event Horizon" Science Fiction or Horror? Were the movies "The Thing" or "Them" Science Fiction or Horror?

The lines blur here and I think the reader had another agenda other than questioning the genre.