The Genre Straitjacket...

I'm selling genre straitjackets out of the trunk of my car. I've got eight styles as of now: Fantasy, Sci-Fi, YA, Children's, Women's Fiction, Literary, Romance, Historical. Twenty dollars each. They also come in a range of brilliant colors. Sci-Fi has this starry night kind of print. Way chic.

Next month I'll be coming out with sub-genre chokers. Different styles include Urban Fantasy, Chick-Lit, Romantic Comedy, Fantasy YA, Historical Romance, etc. These are only ten dollars, so obviously, that's a great bargain.

Please place your orders via rep point. GENRE STRAITJACKETS AND MORE thanks you for your inevitable business.

Is this pigeon-holing by genre unique to novelists or do scriptwriters, short story writers, poets, etc. also have to deal with it? For NF, isn't it something you're supposed to work toward, becoming an expert in certain fields or niches, so you're someone that the editor will want to have write on that topic?

Before I started writing seriously, I imagined I'd write 'normal' commercial fiction with the odd fantasy/horror thrown in. It's worked out the other way around. My strongest stuff seems to be the fantasy and I'm OK with that. I wouldn't reject a straight idea just because I can't label it fantasy, but I still see myself now as a fantasy/horror writer.

JanDarby said:

What about Neil Gaiman deciding to write, say, a legal thriller with no urban fantasy elements? Or Stephen King writing a romance with no horror elements? Or Nora Roberts writing literary fiction?
JD

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Nora Roberts does write in two or more sub-genres of romance/women's fiction, using the name JD Robb for her romantic suspense. I think that was the idea of her publisher early on, and now her books are published with 'Nora Roberts writing as JD Robb' on the cover (now that she's a brand name!).

Nora Roberts does write in two or more sub-genres of romance/women's fiction, using the name JD Robb for her romantic suspense.

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But the thing is, they're both within her general "brand," romance, and I believe even the JD Robb ones are very character-driven, so it's not a major shift. She's not writing, say, a lit-fic, male coming-of-age story.

JD

Another example is Kazuo Ishiguro, who wrote The Remains of the Day and several other period pieces and then recently came out with a science fiction book, Never Let Me Go. I think at some point if you're famous enough you can write whatever you want. If Stephen King wanted to write a romance with no horror elements, it might not do as well--but I find it hard to believe that any publisher would turn him down, or that many of his fans wouldn't read it despite the different genre.

I too long to be another Isaac Asimov, with a book in every section of the bookstore. However, our agent brought home reality very quickly when she reminded us that if we published one book in each of a dozen genres/categories over the course of five years, we might have twelve books in the store, but we might as well have only ONE. Because that's all a single-genre reader will see. ONE mystery novel, ONE romance novel, ONE historical fiction, etc., etc.

The readers wouldn't know the others existed to go search them out, even if they liked the book in their hands. Of course, there's always the internet and searching the author's name, but you can't depend on a casual shopper in a physical store taking that time, nor tracking down an employee in a big-box chain store to ask, and then wait around while they search on the computer. If there are more books on the SAME shelf, they might just buy them. If not . . . not.

So, she suggested that we stick with ONE genre, so our books will be side-by-side-by-side until there's a raft of them. Once we've established our reader base, they'll follow us to the other shelves and we can write what we want.

The trouble with pen names--even at the Nora/J.D. level is that if you've established a name under one name, the new name won't bring in the same readership for a year or two. The publisher might well take a loss on that first book, and maybe even the second one. So, you'll give up a lot of the contract perks you've gained over the years under the one name. So, that might mean that you get a $20K advance under your multi-pubbed name, but only a $5K advance under the new one. Now, that really doesn't matter much in the scheme of things, because in reality--you can either get the money on the front end (advances) or on the back end (royalties.) But it does matter for the next book under the new pen name. Without concerted marketing to tie the two names together, you'll lose your established readership. And if you're going to go to the trouble to tie the names together, why bother in the first place?

So, I'm content to stay in my published genre for the time being. Of course, that doesn't mean I'm not WRITING in other genres. We'll just have a shelf of ready-to-go manuscripts when we hit the big time, and our agent will be happy to sell them to the highest bidder.

Just my .02

Barbarique said:

It is a constant source of amazement to me how so many folks willingly pigeonhole themselves as writers of only a certain genre, i.e. "YA writer", "SF", "Urban Fantasy", "Chick Lit", "Thriller", and so on and so forth. And I wonder, doesn't anyone ever try to write in multiple genres? It reminds me of the way doctors have narrowed their practices these days down to the point of being a "Left Forefinger Knuckle Abrasion" specialist who won't even touch a case of shingles. Now, I realize full well that I'm so old-fashioned as to almost qualify as a Luddite; still, I like to think of myself as simply a writer, not a generic one. My completed novel is a suspense story, my WIP is definitely Women's Fiction, and the one after that will very likely be something else because I don't want to write the same thing over and over.

Am I just a literary schizophrenic, or does anyone else suffer from these unseemly cross-genre urges??

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I write in a fair number of genres. Darned near all of them, at one time or another. But you probably can't write well in a genre unless you love reading that genre, and most writers need to stick with one genre until they prove they can sell.

Until and unless you learn how to write well enough to sell in one genre, trying to write in multiple genres is most likely to make success even harder to come by.

Skipping around before you get the hang of the first genre is just not considered very wise by most.

Barbarique said:

Absolutely true. I couldn't write a publishable YA or fantasy if my life depended on it.

Thankfully, it doesn't. (Whew!)

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So, you're not a YA or fantasy writer?

Just kidding.

I think that everyone has built-in limitations, just like everyone has built-in strengths. I don't think that genre writers are 'willing to pidgeonhole themselves,' but instead they've recognized a strength in their writing and are running with it.

In my opinion, what you do is an extension of who you are. Your strengths and weaknesses will be evident in everything that you do. So you should embrace your preferences in what you want to read and write. It doesn't matter if you write one genre or all of them. Anyone who says otherwise is just being silly.

Birol said:

Is this pigeon-holing by genre unique to novelists or do scriptwriters, short story writers, poets, etc. also have to deal with it? For NF, isn't it something you're supposed to work toward, becoming an expert in certain fields or niches, so you're someone that the editor will want to have write on that topic?

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I would say it is not unique to novelists, and I agree with your comment that you work toward becoming expert in a given field in NF and by doing so, you become the go-to person for that type of work.

I'm known in my little backwater as the movie guy because of my review column in the paper. I know darn well if I started in on a radically different type of column, say political op-ed, there'd be a whole lot of "wtf is he up to?" raised eyebrows from the readers of my current column.

I'd also have to go through the whole process of building up a readership for the new column, just like I did with the current one. And I wouldn't be surprised at all if the majority of readers of the one column wouldn't read the other.

Barbarique said:

Interesting observation.

I know less than zero about NF, but just off the top of my head I'd agree that the more expertise in any given field, the more cred, and the more reason to buy that book instead of another written by someone with a lesser track record.

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It's not just about books, though. Genre and credibility covers movies, plays, magazine articles, short stories....

ChunkyC said:

I'm known in my little backwater as the movie guy because of my review column in the paper. I know darn well if I started in on a radically different type of column, say political op-ed, there'd be a whole lot of "wtf is he up to?" raised eyebrows from the readers of my current column.

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Yeah. It's not that you can't have an expertise in multiple fields, but as Cathy said, success in one might not carry over to the other.

Sales

There's also the matter of sales. Unless yu have a name like Rowling or king, you need to keep your name out there in one genre to build a following. To accomplish this, you have to have a new novel within that genre coming out with some regularity.

Unless you're really and truly prolific, which many are, of course, trying to write in more than one genre can greatly limit sales because it's very difficult to build a loyal following.

Jamesaritchie said:

Unless you're really and truly prolific, which many are, of course, trying to write in more than one genre can greatly limit sales because it's very difficult to build a loyal following.

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Then there's fan expectations to consider as well, for those writers who have begun to establish a track record. Imagine Marilyn Manson (shudder): how happy would his die-hard fans be if he put out a jazz album?

It's not lemming like. It's human. It's about comfort zones. I don't search the internet for my favorite authors. I go to my favorite section of the bookstore and look on the shelves, where I happen to spy a book by an author I've read and enjoyed previously, so I pick it up, buy it, and read it. If I don't see a book by an author I've enjoyed previously, I search the shelves in my favorite section for something to read, rather than leaving that section to see if any author I've read and enjoyed previously has a book in any other part of the bookstore.

Now, that's not to say that if J.K. Rowling started writing something different and I heard about it that I, and a half million other people, wouldn't pick it up to see what it was like, but I'd have to hear about it first; I won't be searching all over the bookstore or internet just on the off chance that she's written something different.

I'm a genre reader, so yeah--I do follow the genre. I will ask a store employee for suggestions of new authors based on authors I like, but I seldom, if ever, look for a favorite author's books on a different genre shelf elsewhere in the store. If they're not on the shelf in alpha order, I figure it's all they've got out. But I don't shop on the internet, by and large. Not comfy giving out my credit card info to unknown companies, verisigned or not. Same with PayPal. But that's just me.

Credit

Cathy C said:

But I don't shop on the internet, by and large. Not comfy giving out my credit card info to unknown companies, verisigned or not. Same with PayPal. But that's just me.

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Don't know if it's an option for you, but I felt the same way about online shopping, so I asked the credit card company if they could give me a card with a very small limit, and that didn't allow overcharges.

They issued me a second card with a $200 limit. Not much of a risk there. Even in a worst case scenario, anyone getting this card's number can't hurt me very much. I can survive a $200 dollar hit, and the card is perfect for online book buying and the like.

Barbarique said:

Is it a given that followers are invariably loyal to the genre, rather than to the author? It seems so... lemming-like. I had no idea, because in my own case, if I decide I enjoy reading a certain writer, I'm perfectly happy to read whatever he/she offers. The genre is irrelevant. (Which said, I really hope Carl Hiaasen doesn't decide to write a western.)

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It's because a writer working in several genres can't usually write enough books to generate a loyal following. There's nothing lemming-like about liking to read one genre and not another. People don't group together and decide such things. They simply read what they like.

And why should anyone be loyal to the author? It's the books the author writes that draw loyalty, and if the book isn't in a genre a person likes reading, then why would he read it?

I love reading Stephen King novels, but, trust me, if he writes a chic lit, I ain't reading it.

Now, on a personal level, I love reading within most genres, but this simply isn't true of most readers. Most have no more than two genres they really enjoy reading. Most do go to pick up a book by their favorite writer, but they expect that book to be a horror novel, a mystery novel, a romance novel, etc., depending on the genre they love reading.

And even if readers do follow you, your own books will be competing against each other, which is why pseudonyms are so common with writers who have books out in more than one genre.

The thing is this: When you write in more than one genre, odds are you will have two groups of readers, with only a bit of overlap. So you need to be able to write enough books in each genre to build not one loyal following, but two.

If you're prolific enough, you can pull it off, but it's still better to avoid this until after you're successful in the first genre.

Barbarique said:

For me, doing so would reduce the joy of writing to mere mechanical drudgery...

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Why?

Not to pick a fight here, but your attitude towards genre just says hobby writer to me. That's not a bad thing, but it's a stage in every writer's life - experimentation. Some people never get past it. But until you do, I don't think a genre-jumping writer is really ready for publication.

I'm a pro artist and the same applies over in my world. Can I draw jet planes, horses, nudes, and landscapes? Yeah. Do I like drawing all them? Yeah. Can I sell effectively if I offer all of them on my site? Not half as well as if I specialize. And so I might draw those things for fun, but if I want to pay my bills, I narrow it down. A lot. So that when someone sees one of my pieces, they know it's me.

Before I got published, I wrote a zillion different genres, until I found one that was the most me. There was no way I would get published until I did that.

So if you want to genre hop, go for it. But I don't think you'll get paid for it until you tie some concrete blocks onto those hopping feet.

Just to jump in, I think that you can to a certain extent "genre hop" if you're writing predominantly literary fiction. Someone earlier on in the discussion cited Kazuo Ishiguro, whose last book 'Never Let Me Go' was essentially literary science fiction but whose previous works could be termed literary historical fiction. Unfortunately, I'm drawing a complete blank on other examples ... Faulkes maybe or someone like Margaret Atwood.

Originally Posted by Barbarique:
Is it a given that followers are invariably loyal to the genre, rather than to the author? It seems so... lemming-like. I had no idea, because in my own case, if I decide I enjoy reading a certain writer, I'm perfectly happy to read whatever he/she offers. The genre is irrelevant. (Which said, I really hope Carl Hiaasen doesn't decide to write a western.)

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I don't think that people do have a lemming-like devotion to genres. Almost every fantasy message board/on-line group I belong to will have some discussion as to a trend that people think sucks or things that they're seeing too much of and decry the lack of new subject matter - and I'm sure that the same is true in other genres. It all comes down to preference - I'm a fantasy fan so I'll gravitate to those shelves first, but that doesn't stop me taking a look in other areas to see if there's anything I think is interesting. In fact, personally I think it's more lemming-like to show a loyalty to an author who is obviously going (a) past his/her prime (naming absolutely no names) or (b) moving in a direction that I don't enjoy. If you're going to spend up to 8 quid on a paperback, then buy something that you think you're going to enjoy not because you've got everything else that writer's ever produced.

MM

Barbarique said:

Because the author has given the reader hours of enjoyment? That's how I see it, anyway. I'm tremendously grateful --and therefore loyal-- to Conroy, Wolfe, McCammon, Richard North Patterson, and Stephen King (despite Lisey's Story). I'll buy anything any of them write, of any genre.

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Although you may be loyal to authors, I assure you, some people are not. Me, for instance. I just go to the bookstore, browse the section of the bookstore I like which is YA, and buy ones that interest me. I have no favorite authors where I read all of their books. I have authors I've liked, some that I've read two or three books by (this is a big deal for me), but if I look at their new book and it doesn't interest me, I won't buy it.

Readers don't owe the author anything, in my opinion. Not gratitude. Not loyalty. Not gushing fan letters. The reader is reading something the author wrote, and it is, after all, the author's job and desire to write. It's not like most readers think that much about the author at all or think about how much work they put into it.

I think many of us writers look at this from our perspective. When we're published writers, we'll want people to be loyal to our books. We'll want people to buy our books no matter the genre. We want a dedicated fan base. However, what the writer wants isn't always what they get!

I guess you could call me more of a genre loyalist, because the YA section is really the only section I look at. That's probably due to the fact that I'm a teenager, but still... I rarely go into sections like Fantasy or Romance, and I only go in the adult fiction section on occasion. Even in the YA section, there are certain books I usually don't read like thriller, horror, science fiction, fantasy, or historical novels. Of course, there are exceptions, but normally, I don't read them because I'm not interested in them. So yes...I have a type of book that I read, YA Contemporaries, particularly fluffier, more romantic ones that are set in high schools. I have no shame in staying loyal to that type.

I should have been more specific. I didn't mean that you could write a single book -- even a ginormous hit -- and then be free to write whatever you liked. If your first book out of the gate is a hit, your publisher is going to want more of the same "kind" of book -- unless you write lit-fic. There's more wiggle room there, primarily because lit-fic tends not to have the across-the-board conventions of other genres (romances need a HEA, mysteries need a sleuth and crime solved, horror needs a monster of some sort -- and so on).

Actually, having a ginormous hit guarantees that the pressure to write something in the same genre will become equally as ginormous. The publisher invests a lot in an author, building the author's brand (name recognition) to get to that ginormous hit (in most circumstances). They expect an author who hits the NY Times at #50 with one book, to hit at #40 (or some number higher than 50) with the second book, and eventually to be in the top ten. They spend money to help that process along. They expect to reap some of the reward when the investment comes to fruition.

***

What about Neil Gaiman deciding to write, say, a legal thriller with no urban fantasy elements? Or Stephen King writing a romance with no horror elements? Or Nora Roberts writing literary fiction?

The publisher is going to resist it, and the readers are going to resist it.

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I'll give you publisher resistance, and some reader resistance, but that doesn't mean it can't be done. Any author who has an established track record of sales -- especially at the bestseller level -- can try something radically different if that's what they want. They may or may not be called upon to accept a smaller advance than for their proven genre (I've known authors in both situations). The publisher may or may not be enthusiastic about the change.

I've known authors who wrote in the same genre or set of sub-genres for years and became burned-out; in some cases, the writers tried and failed to write something different. In at least two cases I know of, the agents and publishers were wise enough to encourage the writers to "step" out of the genre rather than leap out, challenging the author with something different and yet providing enough of the elements the core audience enjoyed that there was at least a good chance that audience would follow. In both cases, that's what happened.

But it has to be done carefully, and all parties have to agree that making such a change is necessary and the risk worth taking.

Which is just another way of saying -- you need to know the market and know your own priorities. If your career plans include a living wage and a new book published every year or two, you're making it infinitely harder on yourself if you skip around genres. If your career plans include writing to entertain yourself and a small, stable number of other readers, that's a perfectly valid career plan, but it comes at a financial cost.

JD

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Very true. You increase your odds for success if you give the publisher enough books of a "kind" that packaging and marketing them can be part of a coherent publishing plan. Write something different every time, and at the very least your books are going to "move" around the bookstore so that readers who enjoyed your first book may never find the ones that come after it. (Yes, I know most of us would look up the author if we were interested, make that extra effort to find an author's work if his or her work spoke strongly to us -- but we are not typical readers.)

Try to remember that. Writers, aspiring or successful, are simply not typical readers. Publishers know this. It's one reason why there's a kind of sameness to romance, and mystery, and suspense or thriller, or horror covers. Why certain elements keep popping up on the same books.

Make it easy for the readers likely to be interested in your work to just FIND it on increasingly crowded shelves, and your chances of selling in decent numbers increase dramatically.

books

Barbarique said:

I'm afraid I don't know how much 8 quid is in $US, but I only buy used hardcovers for five dollars or less.

However, I can definitely state that I always (meaning 100% of the time) buy something that I think I'm going to enjoy... regardless of the genre. And yes, sometimes I'm disappointed, but very rarely.

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Seems to me that if you want to be a writer you should support other writers by buying new books.

Barbarique said:

I've no doubt this is so; but I am not interested in writing another novel in the same genre as the one I just completed. For me, doing so would reduce the joy of writing to mere mechanical drudgery... which I cannot tolerate. So I've no choice, really, but to gallivant off into untested genre waters, imprudent as that is.

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What are you going to do when you run out of genres?

Barbarique said:

I've no doubt this is so; but I am not interested in writing another novel in the same genre as the one I just completed. For me, doing so would reduce the joy of writing to mere mechanical drudgery... which I cannot tolerate. So I've no choice, really, but to gallivant off into untested genre waters, imprudent as that is.

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Have you discussed this with your agent? If so, I'm curious to see what he says. I know when Pocket recently bought my novel, they asked for "another book just like it, with the same characters". It's rare to get a 1-book deal, I believe, so most editors are looking for some sort of follow-up. My option clause says I have to give them first dibs on my next similar book, and I'm happy to do so.

But if you don't want to do something like that...how would you propose this to your agent or editor? If you've written a historical romance, and the next thing you want to send their way is zombie horror?

Just curious.