Nathan Bransford - The Forums

Exactly what the subject says. Does defining a genre in which you write help or hurt you as a writer? This was partially inspired by the "What's Your Genre" thread that's going on right now, as I read through it and couldn't decide what my genre is.

My current WiP is literary fiction. I have another that is mainly a romance, but also has elements of fantasy and a heavy historical influence. It's not my main focus, so I'm not really worried about pinning a single genre to it.

When I read, I read almost every genre. I'm not picky, so long as it is well written.

Some established authors dapple in genres besides the ones for which they're most well known. The one author that comes to my mind is James Patterson. He's renowned for writing thrillers, but he also delves into fantasy with his Witch & Wizard series, and science fiction with his Maximum Ride series.

Do you guys think it helps or hurts you, ultimately, to define a genre in which you write? As most of us are attempting to become published, does it help or hurt us more to dapple than it would an established author? I'm inclined to think that it helps, but I want to open it up for discussion.

Meanwhile, I'm still stuck trying to figure out what exactly I should post in the "What's your Genre" thread.

I don't think having our genre defined really matters as much as others do. I mean, I write fantasy. The epic stuff. I love it. I can't help it. I'd write the same stuff the same way if I didn't have a defined genre.

I think a lot of it depends on whether you write what you want to write or you write for a specific market. If you're wanting to jump on a hot bandwagon (and I don't mean that in bad way, sometimes the bandwagon is a good place to be) then I think having a defined genre can help you keep in mind what you're supposed to be writing. Or like your example of writing what you're known for. Then it'd be helpful. That way you know "I'm writing a historical romance, these aliens had better move to another book" and things like that. But personally, I write what I want to write and what I like to read. I don't really think about the publishability (it's a word now!) of my novels because as much as I want to be published I'd rather write what's in my heart. If there's a market for it, wonderful. If not, then at least I'm writing books that I love. So specific genres don't matter much for me.

It is helpful, though, so that when people find out I write and go "ooh, what do you write?" I have a better answer than "well, it's kinda like LotR but with a little Harry Potter and some other magic stuff like trolls and goblins, but it's all made up." Epic fantasy sounds a lot cooler than me bumbling around for an answer.

I think it helps to define your genre, even if you are writing cross-genre.

First, all genres have minimum conventions. It's an exceedingly rare romance that can break the HEA rule, for instance. The only one I can think of only sort of broke it. In the end it turns out the leading man is really God and the story is much more about the solace of God's love than worldly romance. If we don't know our genre, we don't know if we're designing it with convention violations (and an added hurdle when it comes to trying to get the book published).

Second, when it comes to getting an agent (assuming we're talking about a book that is intented for traditional publication), we need to know what the genre(s) is to target the appropriate agent. Many of them specialize right down to the subgenre.

I've never seen a writer post a message saying, "Help! I know my genre! What do I do?"

I've seen plenty of messages saying, "Help I don't know what genre I've written! Who do I query? Who do I say is my target market?"

You should be able to name a genre for a specific work eventually, but while you are writing it, just write and try not to worry about that kind of thing. However, I don't think that you should define yourself as 'a mystery writer' or 'a fantasy writer.' You never know whether you will decide to do something different!

I don't have anything to back up my opinion, but I think you really need to define your genre at some point while you are writing.

In the bigger sense, you need to know what audience you are writing to. Let's say you are writing a science fiction historical romance, but you have no idea what your genre is because it contains a little of all three. The problem is, people who read science fiction are going to be looking for a heavy science fiction element. They are going to expect certain things that come along with reading in this genre, like accurate and believable science. Fans of historicals are going to want to know that you get history right where it is important. If your story takes place during WWII and you get big details wrong, you're going to be in trouble with the history audience. For your romance audience, if there is a thread of romance but the plot revolves heavily around the science fiction or the historical and not around the genre expectations of a romance novel, you'll lose your audience.

Most stories have elements of many genres within them. Your story may have a romance between the two main characters, but if the plot is about aliens controlling the events of WWII, it's probably not a romance novel. If your story is about a couple who meet and fall in love and struggle to stay together against all odds set during an alien invasion that triggers WWII, you've probably got a romance with sci-fi and historical elements. If the story is from the perspective of a British spy who gets dropped into a German city as aliens infiltrate the government and set things in motion for the worst of WWII, maybe you have a reimagined historical with sci-fi elements.

Most readers stick to their favorite genres and rarely venture outside their comfort zone unless it is with a book that has elements of the genres they love most. If a reader who wants a good romance ends up with a history lesson and aliens, they'll be disappointed in you. I believe you need to give something readers can expect to enjoy based on their own personal tastes.

And last, in a more practical sense, should you publish your book, booksellers are going to need to know where to shelve your book.

Great points, everyone. And Sommer, I love your science fiction historial romance. Or was it historical with a romance and sci-fi elements? The three variations were hilarious but very educational.

So let's say I'm writing a book. I don't have a genre in mind, I'm just writing. Maybe it's even my first book. It's kind of a generic fiction with a bit of romance in it, so then I say I'm writing a romance and start gearing it that way. Since I'm a pantser as I'm writing a knight shows up and steals the lady away to a castle. In Brooklyn. So now it's starting to look like an urban fantasy romance. If I already had the romance genre in mind, what should I do? Should I scrap the whole urban fantasy twist because I'm writing a romance?

I guess since I am a pantser and I've had things like that come up I'm really lax on defining my genres. (It's also been easy because every book I've written so far is epic fantasy.) How much should you stick to your defined genre, even if your book starts morphing into something outside of those conventions? If you really love where it's going, but you don't want to "switch genres" then what do you do?

Dios4vida, I'm sorry, but I just thought of how cool a historical romance with aliens would be.

I think per book it's good to define the genre, but don't put yourself in a box. It's like how on the doll forum I used to say I was only going to collect this or that, and that I would NEVER EVER have this or that doll. I once said I would NEVER OWN A VOLKS because I thought they were pretentious snobs.

I own four Volks Yo-SDs. Because I asked a question about how people got turned away for not having Volks dolls and being in a Volks store and it started the whole eltism conversation and the people were actually not snobs, but nice. Nice people that for all this time I had thought were prissy-britches because there had been one group going around shoving their attitude in people's faces.

What does this have to do with genre-typing? Never say never and don't put yourself in a box. If you say "I am a romance author" but you get the itch to science fiction...then you're not just a romance author, and your readers are confused because they were looking the whole time for that romance.

Me, I'm a storyteller. I write books. I've written stories for years, and I'm pretty much open to anything. I've always wrote some sort of fiction, usually fantasy, but I'm working on a Science Fiction now, which is totally not me, but I'm loving it.

I'm finding it's not that much different except I have more worlds to create, a lot more species, and it sparkles more. And I don't need any vampires for that! (I wonder how long until that joke gets old? Breaking Dawn in FIVE months! SQUEE!)

Everyone has some interesting comments on this, which is awesome.

I forgot to put this in the original post, but of course you need a firm (or firmer) idea of your genre when you query an agent. That's really the only way you'd ever be able to narrow down your search to anyone who might be interested in your book. What I struggle with, though, is that I have so many ideas, most of which are in totally different genres. There's a few that are litfic, a few that are scifi, a few that are historical...and I could go on.

I've never liked to put a genre label on myself -- I always just say I'm a writer, whenever someone asks. If they ask what I'm specifically working on at the moment, I generally just give them the genre of my most serious WiP, which is the only one I have squarely defined. Do you guys think that the best novels (and writers) transcend the label of a single genre, or is success within a single genre (your niche genre, for instance, whatever that is) not comparable to more widely spread success?

And I would read a historical romance with aliens in about a hot second. Someone should definitely write it.

Leonidas wrote:What I struggle with, though, is that I have so many ideas, most of which are in totally different genres. There's a few that are litfic, a few that are scifi, a few that are historical...and I could go on.

There are quite a few writers who write books in more than one genre, but they usually write them under different names so as not to confuse their audience into accidentally buying a book in a genre the reader doesn't like.

Leonidas wrote:Do you guys think that the best novels (and writers) transcend the label of a single genre, or is success within a single genre (your niche genre, for instance, whatever that is) not comparable to more widely spread success?

I don't think there's an easy answer for that. This came up at a recent workshop, and the instructor (Maass) went indepth into this over a whole day. It's not the same for all genres. In some, the key to "transcending genre" or appealing to a mainstream audience is going deep deep into the genre conventions, while in other genres it's about throwing out all conventions and transforming the genre aspects of the story into metaphors. It's important to ask yourself which one you want, a mainstream audience or a genre audience, and write accordingly. You might shoot for one and win both, but aiming for both doesn't seem to work very well.