Genre Bending

There are certain questions that make writers of all stripes both frustrated and frightened at the same time. What is it about your book that's so special? What distinguishes you from the rest of the crowd, either in the slush pile or on the store bookshelf? Is the market for your WIP over?

To my mind all of these questions are related, and boil down to the same word—genre. More specifically—your genre and how you've taken a small corner of it to claim as your own.

I recently had three separate but related online interactions that spawned this post. I'll tackle them each one at a time and draw them back together for the firework-inducing full-circle conclusion. Or at least a steepled-fingers-move from my reader and a thoughtful monosyllabic grunt.

Interaction #1—A Goodreads reviewer commented that Not a Drop to Drink sounds more like a post-apocalyptic Western than a dystopian, which is both astute of her and also very gratifying to me, as that's how I felt about it from the beginning.

Interaction #2—One of my Saturday Slash participants asked if they should change the genre for their query project from "dystopian" to "post-apocalyptic," as they were afraid that dystopian was "over." My response was that I didn't think it made a difference. Agents and readers know that the terms can (for the most part) be swapped for each other fairly easily. To my thinking it's no more different than calling chick-lit "women's literature." I told the Slash participant to go whichever way they liked, but it didn't matter. A rose by another name, and all that.

Interaction #3—Instead of re-hashing it I'm posting a screen-cap below of a Twitter exchange between myself, my fellow Friday the Thirteeners member Elsie Chapman, my critique partner R.C. Lewis and her fellow Hyperion author Tess Sharpe.

Tess's reaction to the simple re-phrasing of my genre spoke volumes to me. Even though she already felt like DRINK had a new angle for the dystopian genre, the idea of it being more akin to a neo-western than its dystopian brothers and sisters were the equivalent of "magic words" to her.

And this reaction had me re-thinking my answer to the Saturday Slash participant.

She's not the first person to mention to me they think the dystopian ship has quite sailed, left the harbor, and perhaps already sunk. And if this is the case I'm going to cry a lot when next fall comes around, and that would be a very bad thing. I am not fond of crying.

So what if I do start referring to DRINK as a neo-western? Will that appeal to more people? Will it lift the ever-present curse of it's-been-done?

Quite a few people in my Book Pregnant group of debut authors write what's referred to as Women's Literature. And they write it well. If their mss were marketed as Chick-Lit would they have died in their agent's inbox?

And what if my Slash volunteer chose the phrase "post-apocalyptic" to describe her ms instead of "dystopian?" Would the D-word close doors whereas "post-apoc" might leave room for a foot in the door?

I don't have the best answer to these questions, and I'm willing to bet that the answer changes depending on who you ask.

So what's your opinion?

Blogging with Honestly YA

I’ve ran across a lot of really awesome people, and culled an enormous amount of information from blogs. As I raided my brain – yes, I picture myself on the prow of a Viking ship, approaching my own gray matter – for more people I’d like to interview, it repeatedly offered up names of bloggers. And so, the third series; Bloggers of Awesome. Yeah, it’s the BOA.

This particular BOA is even more awesome because it's a BOA WoW! (We're Ohio Writers). Yeah, that's right. We grow 'em here.

So you run an excellent blog over at Honestly YA. What made you decide to take the approach you do on your blog?

Melissa: We agreed from the get-go that the way to make our blog stand out from the masses was to keep it personal. We share secrets with our readers—embarrassing, poignant, and sometimes hilarious experiences from our teen years. And we have a helluva lot of fun doing it!

Lorie: What Mel said.

Carey: Author Shelley Coriell deserves some serious credit for the honestly approach. When we were first talking about forming a grog, Shelley shared her marketing plan that focused on organic activities. It fit into our overall concept of rehashing our teen angst, not to sell books or ourselves, but because teen experiences connect YA readers.

I know a lot of aspiring writers who are intimidated by the idea of blogging. They want to, but they are worried it will cut into their (already precious) writing time.  Honestly YA is a group blog, do you find that helpful in balancing the time investment?

Melissa: Um, blogging every six weeks versus blogging every week? Yes, please! Group blogs are the way to go. You just have to find a combination that works.

Lorie: Absolutely! Blogging on a six person rotation is not only helpful from a time budgeting standpoint, but it’s also a great moral support. I was extremely leery about blogging, especially on personal topics, but being part of a great team makes it easier. 

Carey: If helps that try to have our rotation topics locked in 6-12 months in advance. With Blogger, I can write my posts and schedule them to publish at a later date. So hypothetically, I could spend 1 day to write and load a whole year’s worth of posts. Geez-I wish I was that organized! But I do try to draft 3 or 4 posts at a time…What’s 6 weeks times 4 posts??? ANYONE? Well, anyone except Lorie. We’re so not math girls.

*breaks down and asks hubby* ME: “What’s 6x4?” HUBBY: “24” ME: “What’s 24 in months?” HUBBY: “I don’t understand the question.” ME: “If I have 24 weeks, how many months is that?” Hubby begins a long explanation of why it’s not exactly a round number of months and how it depends on—I wonder what unicorns eat? Did my son pack sock for gym class tomorrow? —blah, blah, blah— Why are dust bunnies devouring that brain shaped eraser? Are they zombie dust bunnies?—hubby stops talking. ME: “So how many months was that?” HUBBY: “5 and a half.” Wow, that nearly half a year of posts!

Do any of you have personal blogs as well? Do you approach them differently than you do your group blog?

Melissa: Yes, my blog is called The Unrepentant Escapist. It’s where I promote my entire body of work (my adult romance in addition to YA). I don’t blog there regularly, but that’s where I run all my giveaways and link posts when I guest blog at other sites.  

Carey: Mine is My Own Brand of Madness and it’s geared toward my indie publishing experiences as a YA author. 

Do you think blogging is a helpful self-marketing tool?

Melissa: Eh…sometimes I think blogging helps. Other days, especially when nobody comments on a post, I wonder if we bloggers are just talking to ourselves. But you know what? It’s free, so why not partake? You never know who you’ll reach.

Lorie: I was skeptical at first, but yes, Honestly YA has given me an online presence that I couldn’t have achieved on my own. 

Carey: What they said. Our agent/editor interview series does get us a lot of attention. But we’re also always eager to read our blogmates takes on a topic—so if we’re the only ones talking, that’s okay.

Sometimes social media feels like a do-or-die. How do you approach Twitter or Facebook on days when you really don’t feel like you have much to say?

Melissa: It’s simple. On days when I don’t have much to say, I shut up. J

Lorie: I don’t say anything. J I post most days, but I don’t feel pressure to tweet or post on facebook every single day.

Carey: Ditto – I take a weekly, when I’ve something of quality to say, approach. J

What other websites / resources can you recommend for writers?

Melissa: I highly recommend the Absolute Write forums for everything from connecting with beta readers to learning the best query strategies.

Lorie: Storywonk.com has excellent online classes that are entertaining and informative. http://seekerville.blogspot.com/ is a blog I’ve followed for years and it continues to be a source of inspiration for me. 

Carey: I’m a fan of Literary Rambles. And I visit the Purdue Online Writing Lab or OWL on a daily basis. 

Any words of inspiration for aspiring writers?

Melissa: Don’t get so bogged down with building an online presence that you neglect your writing. You can’t tweet your way into a book deal.

Lorie: The keys for me are discipline and determination.

Write every day, even if you have dishes piled in the sink or laundry to do, make it a priority to write at least one paragraph every single day. You’ll find that some days creating a single sentence is painful. Do it anyway. Most of the time once you start writing you won’t want to stop and you’ll end up writing much more than a paragraph.

I can’t stress determination enough. Don’t let rejection break you, stare it in the face and keep walking. Keep reading, writing, and perfecting your skills. In short, don’t ever give up.

Carey: One great project will net you more than a dozen mediocre ones. Don’t rush to submit/indie publish your early drafts or first manuscripts. Hide them under your bed and keep writing. Leverage your writing community to perfect your craft and ensure your manuscripts shine. Once you reach mastery, you can dust off the early stuff and rework it into something brilliant.

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Bios: Check us out on Honestly YA 

Lorie Langdon A few years ago, I left my management job with a Fortune 500 company to satisfy the voices in my head. Now a full-time author and stay-at-home mom, I spend my summers editing poolside while dodging automatic water-gun fire, and the rest of the year tucked into my cozy office, Havanese puppy by my side, working to translate my effusive imagination into the written word. My work is represented by the fabulous Nicole Resciniti of the Seymour Agency. You can find me on Twitter and Facebook and Goodreads and Pinterest

Melissa Landers is the author of ALIENATED, a seriously foreign exchange coming in February 2014 from Disney Hyperion. You can learn more about her on www.melissa-landers.com, and she’d love for you to add ALIENATED to your Goodreads bookshelf! 

Carey Corp’s debut novel for teens, The Halo Chronicles: The Guardian, earned her national recognition as 2010 Golden Heart finalist for best young adult fiction. It is available in print and eBook. For more information, visit her at careycorp.com.

Interview with C.J. Flood

I'm lucky (or cunning) enough to have lured yet another successful writer over to my blog for an SAT - Successful Author Talk. SAT authors have conquered the query, slain the synopsis and attained the pinnacle of published. How'd they do it? Let's ask 'em!

Today's guest for the SAT (Successful Author Talk) is fellow Lucky 13er CJ Flood, author of INFINITE SKY, a family story about betrayal and loyalty, and love. When a family of travellers move into Iris Dancy's overgrown paddock overnight, her dad looks set to finally lose it. Gypsies are parasites he says, but Iris is intrigued. As her dad plans to evict the travelling family, Iris makes friends with their teenage son. Trick Deran is a bare knuckle boxer who says he’s done with fighting, but is he telling the truth?

Are you a Planner or Pantster?

I am a pantser, with big splashes of planning. I tend to write and write until I get completely stuck/confused/lost and then I start drawing up colourful character arcs and trying to discover that mysterious Big Theme. Doing the character arcs is fun. Each character gets their own colour, and I draw a line with all of the things that happen to them, pyschological and physical, then I try to weave all the character arcs together in interesting/dramatic ways. You should definitely try it!

How long does it typically take you to write a novel, start to finish?

Having only completed one, I will say, with total confidence and no need for maths, it takes three years. But, that was not writing full time. I’m hoping to complete my second book in half that time. (Wish me luck!)

Do you work on one project at a time, or are you a multi tasker?

I have aspirations to be a multi tasker, but I seem to work best on one thing at a time. Certainly one thing is absolutely prioritised anyway. I’m not very good at multi tasking in every day life – I struggle to hold a conversation while cooking for instance – so this might be one dream I never achieve.

Did you have to overcome any fears that first time you sat down to write?

Not really. I have always written so it felt completely natural. Reading my own stuff in public has been the biggest obstacle for me. When I started out I would get such a whack of adrenalin that I couldn’t remember what had happened afterwards, let alone remember to breath and pause in the right places as I read! I am so glad those days are over. It’s actually one of my biggest achievements, that I can stand up in front of people nowadays and talk and read and appear – hopefully – to be a normally socialised human being!

How many trunked books (if any) did you have before you were agented?

I started two books, at least. Plus the Famous Five rip offs I use to write in the school holidays. I finished none though.

Have you ever quit on an ms, and how did you know it was time?

I quit on the ones I mentioned above because they were rubbish! I bored myself! It took me a long time to realise that you need to actually have a story to tell – whether that pivots around a simple change in a person’s outlook or a series of magnificently plotty events doesn’t matter.

Less easy was giving up on my first idea for my second book. When I started writing it (under contract) I did a lot of flailing around. I went a long way with my initial idea before I settled on something quite different. But all of the flailing brought something to the new idea: characters, events, scenes and places. None of it was wasted. (Except about 40,000 words…)

I knew it was time to give up because I didn’t know enough about what I was writing about. I felt lost, and not in that good, half magic way that is key to writing.

Who is your agent and how did you get that "Yes!" out of them? 

My agent is Catherine Clarke at Felicity Bryan Associates. I met her at a meeting organised by my university. (I did an MA at the University of East Anglia, and they have great industry contacts.) She reps some of my favourite authors, including Meg Rosoff and David Almond (though I hadn’t read him back then), and so we had a chat about them. I wasn’t ready to send anything – I couldn’t even talk coherently about my book at that point! – but we stayed in touch, and when my manuscript was ready I sent it to her. She loved it and offered representation, so the agent-hunt was all quite quick for me. There were more complications along the way, and it’s all a bit longwinded, but if you want to know anymore, I wrote this story up in much more detail recently on my blog.

What's something you learned from the process that surprised you?

Publishing takes a loooong time. There’s lots of waiting. Be prepared to work on lots of other things in the gaps between the many stages of getting a book out there.

How much of your own marketing do you? 

I have a blog and I blog as one of the Lucky 13s and I’m on Twittertoo. I also have an author Facebook page! 

Saying all that though, I am not that confident/comfortable with marketing. Like most writers, I dream of the old (no doubt fictional) days when you just tap tap taperood at your desk and the pound coins and acclaim came looking for you. That’s not to say I don’t enjoy meeting all the lovely people I meet social networking (the Lucky 13s have been an absolute godsend).

I think the whole marketing thing will make more sense to me when I actually have a book people can buy.

When do you build your platform? After an agent? Or should you be working before?

Personally, I would say focus on the writing first. If you want to be a good writer, that is.

Do you think social media helps build your readership?

I don’t know yet. I suspect not if I am anything to go by, which I have to assume I am. I only follow authors online that I’ve already read. I only really buy books by new authors after I’ve read reviews or interviews or heard a prize shortlist/longlist or because they are referenced in a book or on personal recommendations. I have never yet bought a book after discovering the author via social media. Maybe that’s just because of my expendable income though! I want to buy people’s books all the time!