Next endeavor

I’m still revising and still getting tired of the old project.

At one point I thought the thing was okay. It seems the more time I spend on it; the more doubts have about it. Been working on it coming up on two years and I’ve felt pretty good about. The endless tweaking and wrestling over fine points gets tiring.

That equates to less time for the new one. Ah, the next project. I’m close. I start too many things without wrapping up loose ends. I want to see the old one to finish. But I’ve got this other story that’s been stewing and I’m about ready to pull it off the back burner. Maybe I can close it out this month just in time for NaNoWriMo.

I love the act of writing. I’m coming to appreciate the value of time spent on developing, story mapping, or whatnot before fingers take to keyboard. I wrote one book and took it to WIFYR (on it’s second time) to discover it was vague and wandering. Had most of it worked out by the next conference, but that was only after figuring out the direction.

Direction good. A story still needs the freedom to wander and go to unintended places.

I’ve got an idea for the new project, a very rough idea of where it’s heading. The two main characters are in mind and a few events mapped out in my head. The genre is a tricky part. My favorite is historical fiction, a view not many share. There seems to be a disconnect with history and young readers. As the market speaks, so publishers go for other genres, fantasy, for example.

Yet historical can be like fantasy, minus the flying dragons and such. Real people, just like us, but in an other world. Setting becomes its own character.

Take A Game of Thrones, a riveting series by George R. R. Martin and a current fascination of my wife and I on TV. How different is its medieval-like setting from our earlier human existence? Martin’s main characters jockey for position as their drive for power drives the story. Lords and Ladies, noble houses, greed, deception, assassins, war: Game has it all. It could have been set in feudal Europe of the 1300s. It’s the same kind of stuff Shakespeare wrote. Minus the dragon eggs, of course. Historical fiction has its place.

That’s the next project, after The End on the old one.

Know Your Genre

What is genre?

What is genre?
It is literary technique, tone, content, length etc.
Fiction is the hardest genre to break into.

• Realism-Plausible story about people and events that could really happen. Romance, thriller, historical, sports all fit under realism.

• Fantasy-Fantastical elements in traditional or modern fantasy.
  • Traditional fantasy follows the quest. 
  • Modern fantasy has elements of magic in the human world. Horror and sci/fi are sub genres of modern fantasy.

Elements in Fiction:
Plot-Plot is the backbone of the story. In fiction plot is the action that grows out of conflict.
Conflict-is the obstacle, the problem
Initial Conflict-First event that starts the quest, the hook. Only needs one page (sometimes a chapter) to establish. It creates the next cause & effect (conflict) then moves the character to the next conflict. Initial conflict will predict the climax.
Exposition-Back story weaves through out the story.
Rising Action-Series of at least three conflicts
Climax-The most intense part of the story. Everything in the story moves the story to this point and the main character has an Epiphany to the resolution. Needs only one chapter.
Resolution-Is the outcome. Needs only one chapter

 

Non-fiction SELLS THE MOST

• Biography-needs more factual support.
• Autobiography-Bigger piece of time
• Memoirs-Small part of life
• General non-fiction (Dewey decimal)-Different stories from life in one book

Elements in Non-Fiction
All non-fiction needs:
Plot
Conflict
Hook
Exposition
Climax-lesson learned
Resolution-reader says “I can do that!”

What are the target audiences?
Picture book: 1-3 pages
Chapter book: Max 100 pages
Middle grade: 100-200 pages
Young Adult: 150-300 pages
Adult: 150-several hundred pages, 70,000-90,000 words max

Book Country's Genre Map

by Deren Hansen

I recently suggested that Genre is no more or less complicated than identifying your audience. Put another way, genre is a crude, pre-Internet way of approximating, "customers who liked this also liked these others."

The problem of categorization doesn't go away in the coming e-book utopia where we won't be limited by traditional bookstore shelving constraints. In fact, the always-on world of digital media multiplies the opportunities (or demands) to know what other books your is like.

So, how can you confidently determine the genre of the book without reading every other genre? The good folk at Book Country have produced an interactive genre map. (The example here is only an image.) Click on a genre to see a list of representative books.

One of the ways to use the map is as a guide for your reading. Once you've chosen which of the five general genre feels most like home, go through the sub-genres and make sure you've read at least one book in each list.

Still not sure where your book belongs because it's a thrilling romantic mystery set in a future where a technological society battles medievaloid magic users? Try the exhaustive, pair-wise comparison exercise: for each pair of genres, if you can only choose one, which genre best characterizes your book. Then tally up the winner for each pair. The genre with the highest score is your primary genre.

I should point out that the genres in this map are for adult fiction. Young Adult and Middle Grade books can be classified in similar terms, but were, until recently, all shelved together. Barnes & Noble now has different shelves for YA genres like paranormal. In other words, while genre boundaries aren't quite as strictly drawn in children's literature, you can't ignore the question.


Deren blogs at The Laws of Making.

Demystifying Genre

by Deren Hansen

In an early episode of The Appendix, a writing podcast, Robison Wells, Sarah Eden, and Marion Jensen discussed choosing a genre.

Marion Jensen said, "When you pick a genre, you've got to pick something  that you like. It's kind of like picking a career."

That's right, writers. No pressure. Just like the end of high school when well-meaning people like guidance counselors and parents say, "Now that you've spent your life listening to us tell you what to do, it's time for you to make a decision, oh and by the way, this decision will have life-long consequences."

Choosing the genre in which you'll write is a critical decision only if you succeed.

Why?

Because with each book you publish you create precedents and build expectations among your growing circle of readers. It's not that you can never try anything different, but imagine the hue and cry if J. K. Rowling decided she wanted to write gritty detective stories full of graphic sex and violence.

The advice about picking a genre is better understood in terms of setting up shop someplace where you're comfortable because you could be spending a lot of time there.

One of the reasons this seems like a big deal is because genre is to kind as veal is to beef. This is another in a long series of cases where we have two words in English with the same meaning, but the Latinate, or more specifically French, version sounds more sophisticated.

Repeat after me, "Genre means kind." It's nothing more or less complicated than deciding what kind of books your book ought to be shelved or grouped with.

And why does that matter?

Because you're hoping to take advantage of recommendation engines, whether human or automatic, that will suggest someone might like your book if they liked something similar.

Put another way, in terms of publishing being a market, genre is shorthand for your audience.

That's why you must decide on your genre: you must know your audience and their expectations.


Deren blogs daily at The Laws of Making.