In my ongoing Read Play Edit Rehabilitation Program, let me introduce my friend Christa Allan, writing about the importance of identifying your genre in a post repurposed from her own blog.
Finding Your Genre: An Epiphany
If you’re not from New Orleans and you find yourself plopped in the Big Easy one day, it’s likely one of the first questions you’ll hear is “Where did you go to school?”
Here’s a “quirk alert” that will navigate you through this disarmingly simple question. If you answer with the name of a college or city or state, we’ll know you’re definitely someone who lives outside the greater New Orleans area.
When locals ask that question of one another, we respond with the name of our high school. You may have attended Harvard, been selected as a Rhodes Scholar, or graduated from the University of Paris-Sorbonne. To us, those distinctions provide little, if any, information about the real you.
But a high school? Say a name and we’ll know if it’s public, private, religious, the demographics of the neighborhood in which you were raised, where you shopped and ate, your friends … For the most part, our high schools defined us and were reference points for those who didn’t know us well. And there were anomalies, like the kids awarded scholarships to private schools or the ones who transferred to schools whose football teams won championships.
So finishing my first novel and being asked about genre was as disarming as a tourist being asked about school.
Having taught high school English for over twenty years by that time, I knew the literary definition of genre. (So did my students … at least the ones who passed their literary terms definition test.). But telling an agent I wrote fiction was like telling a local I attended a college in Florida.
Researching fiction genres only complicated the process of defining my writing for agents/editors. Did you know there are over twenty-seven different fiction genres? Neither did I until I tripped across the list on Agent Query.
When I started writing for publication, my first idea was to write a romance novel. Girl meets boy, they hate each other, then they like each other. Five pages in, and I was done. My husband suggested I write a mystery. I couldn’t even figure out who the killer was, so surely that wasn’t going to work either. The impetus to write Walking on Broken Glass emerged after sharing with a coworker that I’d been a recovering alcoholic for more than twenty years. Her surprise that an average teacher-mommy-wife who led an otherwise regular life was ever an alcoholic became my epiphany.
Essentially, the genre revealed itself to me rather than being the catalyst for my writing. My novels are, primarily, women’s fiction. I like Susan Meissner’s definition from an article she wrote for this same column: “In the end, what distinguishes women’s fiction is its focus on relationships, its thematic, character-driven pull, and its courage to risk a poignant or unconventional ending” (CFOM).
Some have described my novels as edgy, but my goal or purpose for writing has never been to sensationalize or shock. Others have said they’re issue-driven. I see issues as being in the passenger’s—not the driver’s—seat in terms of focus and characters. We all have issues; it’s the degree to which we allow them to direct the course of our lives that makes us who we are or become.
But writing women’s fiction isn’t any more a limiting definition than discovering the Baptist minister’s kids attended the local public (not private) school. Women’s fiction can include romantic elements and still, as Meissner said, “entertain, enlighten or empower.”
What fuels my passion to write women’s fiction is my conviction that alcoholism, drug, sex, or food addiction, lifestyles are all the big elephants in the room we don’t talk about. We all know they exist, of course, because they’re stepping on our toes and squeezing the life out of many of us.
Don’t let the name of a genre limit your characterization or plot. You’ll find they’ll stretch to accommodate your passions too.
Christa Allan is a true Southern woman who knows any cook worth her gumbo always starts with a roux. Her books include Threads of Hope, Walking on Broken Glass, The Edge of Grace, and Love Finds You in New Orleans. Christa is the mother of five, grandmother of three, and a recently retired high school English teacher. She and her husband, Ken, live in New Orleans in a home older than their combined ages. You can find her on Twitter and at her website.
Tweet: When I finished my first novel, I was asked what genre it was. Umm …
Tweet: Don’t let the name of a genre limit your characterization or plot—or passion.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the brands, products, or services that I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”