Tag Archives: authors

Thoughts on Book Genres

Posted on by Sherri
12

Over at Pimp My Novel, Eric recently did a multi-part analysis of book sales, broken down by genre.

He says science fiction is likely to be sold under another label, like fantasy or thriller. I think this is a good thing, because it shows that people still like it. The numbers on hard-core science fiction books are down, but I think that’s because it’s acceptable to have a little sci-fi in your mainstream now, or a science element in fantasy. We might stop classifying our sub-genres by subject matter, and start classifying them by writing style. This is probably already happening informally (like when they put in a blurb, “In the tradition of Stephen King” or whatever) but what if you walked into a bookstore and the signs over the shelves said, “Thoughtful,” or “Flowery” or “Hip” or “Wry”?

Or what if they started naming the sections after the big-name authors? I could read a book about knitting if I enjoyed the author’s voice, so I would go directly to the Stephen King section without worrying about a traditional genre. Realistically I know that wouldn’t work, because there are too many influential, distinct voices to have a section for every one, but you see where I’m going. The way we’ve classified our genres isn’t as cut and dried anymore. Look at Young Adult. It’s supposedly a genre unto itself, but YA can encompass anything at all, from vampires to drugs to cancer. Crossover is becoming the new norm.

Speaking of crossover, I have a book idea that melds fantasy and hard core science fiction, with a romantic element thrown in. Where would that go?

Branding myself a spiritual fantasist

Posted on by Sherri
20

Agent Chip MacGregor’s post today is about branding yourself as an author. Chip asked a branding consultant for a definition, and the consultant said, “In many ways, a brand is nothing more than a series of perceptions people have about you.” I’ve worked on branding myself as a blogger with my blossom theme, and I’ve unintentionally branded myself with content and voice, which works when everything you write is available for public consumption, i.e. a web log. Not so much for an unknown novelist.

I’ve always avoided branding myself for the common reasons: makes me feel self-aggrandizing; don’t have a product to push, so why bother; don’t really know how to categorize myself.

Those first two, I’ve got a handle on them. Everybody has areas where they excel, and I think I know mine; realizing I wouldn’t begrudge anyone else feeling good about their strengths sort of gave me permission to acknowledge mine. I still don’t have a product for sale to the public, but I do have a product for sale to publishers, and I’d like them to see how serious I am about the whole thing. In essence I’ve been branding myself to publishers this whole time, but not intentionally. I’d like to be intent about it.

So the first two, okay. The last one, how to categorize myself, is one every author struggles with at some point. For a long time I couldn’t see any similarity between the Ea’s Gift world and the Black Veil Angel world, nor the worlds of my short stories. However, I was focusing on story. When I thought about a connecting theme, it all opened up.

My protagonists don’t know what’s true and what’s a lie. They don’t know who to trust, especially themselves. There’s also some defining element of transformation in every protagonist. My characters are regular people who search for something more than themselves. A very spiritual thread.

Hey, this could be a new subgenre. Right now fantasy books dealing with spiritual themes are lumped in with the massive “fantasy” category. But I can see it now: Black Veil Angel takes the world by storm, and suddenly it’s a genre unto itself.

tee-hee

So how do you brand yourself?

Observations of a new editor

Posted on by Sherri
13

So I have this editing job. I haven’t decided yet if it’s a good idea to associate my writer persona with my editing persona, so I won’t be linking to or mentioning the company by name in this post. I’ve learned some things that would benefit my author friends, so I thought I’d share in a vague, generic way.

First of all, it’s not like a critique. In a critique you can say things like, “I can’t follow the action in this scene,” and then leave it up to the author to figure out why. That’s perfectly acceptable, because as the critic you’re doing the author a favor, and they’ll take what you have to offer. As an editor, I have to figure out exactly what confuses me about the action, and then say that. Saying it is the hard part. If I do my job right, the solution will be obvious to the author, even if I haven’t suggested a solution. Which ties in with my next point.

Editing is a balance of telling the author what to do and letting her decide how to do it. Except in the case of punctuation, where there is a right way and a wrong way, but even then if she feels strongly about leaving out a specific comma, that’s ultimately her decision. I have to be very careful about rewriting anything. If I can’t move around phrases she’s already used to fix it, I leave a suggested fix in a comment, then she can either take my advice as is, change it another way, or tell me to take a flying leap. Although the last one on that list might be counter-productive, since I’m an impartial observer (or at least as impartial as anyone can be), and I’m only here to make her look better. Which leads to…

The editor is there to correct mistakes, no doubt. But among some authors there’s this attitude of, “So I don’t know how to punctuate a sentence correctly, that’s what editors are for.” Let me take a moment to point out I’ve not yet edited an author with this attitude, but I’ve seen it around in the blogosphere. But let me tell you something, dear authors, this attitude is stupid. STUPID. If my harsh words pull one author away from this abyss, they will be worth it. Not only is it good to know your craft inside and out for your craft’s sake, but there’s a practical purpose for knowing the nuts and bolts, and then putting them into practice BEFORE sending it to your editor.

If I have your manuscript for 20 days, and I spend the full 20 helping you polish your words, you are going to have one tight, well-written book. A tight, well-written book will increase your reputation, generate better word-of-mouth, ergo selling more books and creating more fans. However, if I have to spend seven of those days correcting hundreds or even thousands of typos which could easily have been found before the ms came to me, then you are getting only 13 days of word polishing. We might only have time for plot and eliminating confusion, and very little time for word choices and flow.

So those are the observations I have so far. I’m sure I’ll have more as I go along, and maybe even change my mind about some of those up there. (Except for the last one. Since I basically called everyone who doesn’t agree with me an idiot I’ll have to stick by it. It’s true anyway.) I’m getting the education of a lifetime, being on this side of things.