Too good to be true?

By PD Martin

Before I get into today’s post, I wanted to say Happy Thanksgiving to all our North American readers. I know you may be expecting a Thanksgiving-themed post but guess who got Thanksgiving…the Aussie! So I’ve gone with a regular post :) Now, on to ‘Too good to be true’…

While I’ve never been one of those writers who paces for hours to come up with one sentence or spends six months planning out every detail of a book before I start writing, I’ve still always thought of writing as hard work. It is hard work.  

Sure, there’s the fun stuff…writing in your pyjamas, the long commute from bedroom to study, tax-deductible trips to various destinations for research and/or promotion (although you have to be able to afford the flights in the first place), not to mention sitting in a café and writing. And sometimes cake does need to be involved! I don’t think anyone can argue that the above perks of the job are cool…way cool.  But it’s still bum on chair, thinking, creating and writing. And while it’s tempting to get up and procrastinate every time the flow stops, it’s not something I do.

In a post some time ago, I mentioned that I was working on a new book that’s not crime fiction. It’s not even a thriller or remotely related to my past work. I’m still getting my head around what I’d call it, but I think ‘mainstream fiction/drama’ is pretty accurate. The book is about relationships and how people deal with different traumas. I’m also entering another new world, using multiple viewpoints. And some of my subject matter is tense and issues-based…controversial, I guess.

I started writing this book at the beginning of the year, and then it was on hold for months as I took corporate gigs to pay the bills. I started on the project again in October and soon found myself zooming through it. My writing week is often very fragmented as I fit it in around being a full-time mother (to a pre-schooler) and freelance writing gigs. But I’d find I’d have an hour to write…and write 1,000 words. And every Saturday I have four hours to write while my daughter is in classes. The last two Saturdays, I’ve written 5,000 words during each of those four-hour blocks. Two productive sessions, to say the least. 

So, a couple of weeks ago I found myself asking the inevitable question. Is this too good to be true? Can writing really be this ‘easy’? Am I writing dribble that I won’t be able to edit into shape? I’m a write first, edit later kind of girl, so that’s fine. But will my bare bones be barer than usual? Or is it because the subject matter is close to my heart? One of the characters is experiencing something that I went through about eight years ago and I’m finding it easy to tap into that character and the others too for that matter.

I know Gar wrote a post two weeks ago with pretty much the polar opposite sentiment of this one, and I think that highlights the different working processes of writers. But then I’m still left with the question: Too good to be true?

This feeling is compounded by the fact that I came to this project after six months off my own writing altogether, then writing a thriller that I found incredibly hard-going. The writing didn’t seem to come naturally to me and I wasn’t sure if it was the idea/characters or the fact I’d had six months off fiction writing. This new project certainly provides a stark contrast to writing the thriller.

 So now I’m torn between two polar opposites.

1. I’m writing what I’m “meant” to write. (Although this sounds a little cliché or dramatic…or something.) The flow and ‘ease’ is just an indication of that.
2. It’s too good to be true.

Obviously the proof will be in the pudding. I’m now 70,000 words into the first draft, so the end is nigh and soon the major, major editing will start. Then I’ll have a better idea of how bare the bare bones are.

In the meantime, I wanted to throw this out to the Rati. Does good writing HAVE to be a hard slog? And if it flows incredibly easy, is that too good to be true?  

Switching teams

By P.D. Martin

When you talk to agents or publishers about switching genres it's usually met with jaws dropping, heads shaking and anything from mild disapproval to screams of "No!"

So why is it that switching genres can produce such a strong reaction? You'd think you were announcing to your family that you were switching teams. (If you're a Seinfeld fan you'll be following my analogy, but if you're a little lost, here's the missing piece of the puzzle: the characters in Seinfeld used to talk about people "batting for the other team", which meant they were gay rather than heterosexual. And, as you've probably guessed, switching teams means changing sexual orientation.) So….

Why does something as seemingly small and insignificant as switching genres produce a jaw-dropping reaction? I mean, it's just a genre, right? A story is a story. Right? Well, it's actually more complex than that.

At this point, I should come clean. I'm a chronic genre switcher. (Although you wouldn't know it by looking at my published novels - on the surface I appear to be a mystery novelist firmly entrenched in the police procedural/forensic thriller zone.) However, I DO believe a story is a story and I often get story ideas for a range of genres. For example, before getting published I wrote two children's fantasy novels (which remain unpublished). Then for my third book I was deciding between three different ideas, all in different genres! I had one crime fiction, one action/espionage thriller and one mainstream women's fiction. In the end, as you may have guessed, I chose the crime fiction story and wrote what became my first published novel, Body Count.

 

But the other novels and ideas have stayed with me, as well as new ideas. Another example…I'm a bit of a closet vampire fiction fan (I know, big confession) and after I'd written three Sophie books I wanted to write a vampire fiction book. But my agent convinced me to stay focused on crime, and Sophie. Why upset the apple cart?

What about my first two children's books? People often assume it would be easy to get them published now that I'm a published author. To a certain extent the first books an author writes tend to be learning experiences, a way for them to refine their craft. Having said that, I still believe in one of my children's books; I believe the writing is good enough. Problem is, it's a different genre. Publishers and agents think of an author's name as a brand. Promote the brand and keep the brand 'strong' by ensuring the author's name is synonymous with a certain type of book. 'P.D. Martin' is crime fiction/mysteries/thrillers. And obviously I wouldn't want to bring out a children's novel under the same name anyway because I definitely wouldn't want 8-12 year olds who enjoyed my fantasy novels to pick up one of my crime books!

So why not publish under a different name? It's all about time and focus. After all, if you go and write a romance novel or a children's fantasy series, that's going to take time away from the mysteries, right? Basically, your agent and publisher(s) try to convince you to focus on writing in your current genre and at least one book a year. It seems that's the magical formula in publishing. Of course, genre hopping can be more easily done if you can write two books a year - then you'd still be bringing out one book a year in each series.

I've scrapped the children's fantasy novels, at least for now. But I still want/wanted to do something different. After five Sophie novels and one ebook novella, I went back to my action thriller idea and I've just finished writing that book.  While it is very different to my Sophie Anderson series, crime fiction and action thrillers aren't SO different that my new one couldn't be a 'P.D. Martin book'. At least, I think it's okay.

Of course, there are authors who have successfully crossed the divide. One that comes to mind is Nora Roberts. She started off with straight romance novels and then moved on to romantic suspense, writing as J.D. Robb. Although, interestingly, the books bear both of her names, with the byline "Nora Roberts writing as J.D. Robb". I also noticed from Wikipedia that she'd always wanted to write romantic suspense but was persuaded by her agent to stay focused on romance until she built a following. In fact, it was over 10 years before she finally got her wish to write romantic suspense and it was partly in response to her prolific output.

Scottish author Val McDermid also has a series she writes under V.L. McDermid. However, the rationale is not genre-based because all her books are mysteries. Rather, her V.L. books feature a lesbian protagonist (batting for the other team), while her Val books are considered more 'mainstream'.

Murderati's own Tess Gerritsen is another example of an author who successfully switched genres. She started with romantic thrillers and then moved to medical thrillers, then crime thrillers. Interestingly, she HAS written all her novels using the same name and said when she changed from romantic thrillers to medical thrillers she considered releasing them under a different name but ultimately decided against it. Tess sees advantages and disadvantages. When she switched genres, she felt that she’d built up an audience and didn't want to lose them. However, she says the romance novels continue to annoy her purist thriller readers. "But in the long run, I think it's been good for sales," Tess said.

Another author who's shifted genres but all within the same 'brand'/same name is Philippa Gregory. Probably most well known for historical fiction she's also written thrillers and her Amazon bio describes her as the pioneer of "fictional biography". The Other Boleyn Girl is a well-known example.

I guess these genre-switchers are good news for me…especially given the book I've just started working on is best described as a "mainstream women's fiction". I know, something different again! (Please don't shake your head at me.)

Unfortunately my agent passed away late last year and I'm currently on the hunt for a new agent. This means I don't have anyone to berate me for switching genres or to warn me against it. A new found freedom? But will querying with an action thriller and a work in progress of a women's fiction make it harder for me to find a new agent? Only time will tell. And maybe I should be on the lookout for an agent who's also open to children's fantasy - just to really get their jaws dropping and heads shaking. Come on, people...I'm switching genres, not teams

So do you like your authors to keep their genres straight up? And the writers out there...are you closet genre-switchers like me?

unfinished books...

by Toni McGee Causey

Have you ever started a book that everyone glowed about and you just could not get through it? Maybe it hit the NYT list, maybe it got starred reviews from everyone and God, but it made you roll your eyes by page five and by page twenty-five, if you made it that far, you wanted to spot check the rest of the readership for actual brain waves? Maybe--and I know every one of you has known this one--maybe it was considered a classic, a masterpiece, and you secretly hated it. 

Welcome to the weirdest aspect of the entertainment world: guilt for not enjoying the material.

I don't know of any other art form or entertainment where the participants feel actual guilt for not "getting" the material or enjoying it as happens with books and reading, and I think that's significant, culturally. How are we creating readers, if we browbeat them into thinking that every book needs to satisfy some internal English critic or create an essay on themes and comparative merits? What does that mindset say about how well books and reading are marketed to the general public? 

Maybe there are other concerns that create frustration -- dollars spent, time spent, but those issues create aggravation, not guilt. It's the guilt that stumps me. (Not that I haven't felt it--but that I've allowed myself to feel it.)

I started thinking about this during the week after hearing Julia Keller's NPR piece on the unfinished book, where callers talked about why leaving a book unfinished bothered them so much. Some people admitted to trying to read some "great" work for years, before finally giving up. 

One woman (and I'm paraphrasing) explained that she felt particular guilt about books because when she couldn't get all of the way through it, it sat there on her shelf, mocking her. If it had been a TV show, she could have just turned the channel or if it had been a movie, she could have left and never worried about it again, but the book sat there, on her shelf, evidence of her failure. And my first thought when I heard this was, "Why not give the book away?" 

Why do we feel the need to turn reading into some sort of gauntlet, the literary equivalent of the Navy SEALs Hell Week? 

Why is it not okay to recognize that where we are in our lives influences what we want to spend our time doing? reading? That mood and crises play as much a role in what we're able to comprehend as our education? And where is it taught that if it's fun, it must not be good for us, and therefore, isn't of value? When did reading become the equivalent of taking medicine?

Sometimes, a work just doesn't speak to us. And that's okay. Sometimes, we're in the wrong mood, and nothing that work could do, nothing that it had done well for others, would work for us. The work didn't change between all of those accolades and our read. But most of the time, instead of saying to ourselves, "This isn't what I'm in the mood for," or "This isn't working for me," we instead feel like we've failed. That somehow, we aren't smart enough (or current enough, or well read enough) to make the connections that obviously everyone else made, so what's wrong with us? And that's where the guilt starts.

This issue goes deeper than just the "literary vs. genre" wars that crop up every now and again. It goes all the way back to middle and high-school, where we often teach reading with the enthusiasm of a sadist--they are going to learn what "good" literature is, dammit, whether they can stomach it or not. And in the process of being absolutely determined to show young readers what "good" literature is, we manage to turn millions of them off reading forever, because they cannot relate. They don't "get" it, or they are simply bored, and they don't have enough points of reference in their lives to realize that literature encompasses an extremely wide-ranging cornucopia of choices. 

In one of the talks that I give to grade schoolers, I ask them to name their favorite TV shows or their favorite movies. We usually write down the list and when we have a nice collection, I point out that someone wrote those stories. Then we move on to favorite books, and for every one they name in a genre, I try to name two or three others that have something in common, that I think the kids will love. They're almost always in shock, that there are these worlds out there. (Except, of course, for the one or two bookworms in the room, who are finally the ones who are cool, because they read.)

Now, I am all for great literature being taught, and all for vastly different types of stories, from genre to whatever it is that we call literary nowadays (which, frankly, is a misnomer--because many genre books can also be literary--these terms are not mutually exclusive). I'm glad to see that many reading programs in schools include current popular books, Caldecott or other winners, but I wonder if we aren't also missing a huge opportunity when we don't include things like favorite popular books in the different genres? I have bought at least ten copies of Ender's Game, for example, and given it to boys over the years and every single one of them not only loved it, but started reading other books afterward, when they hadn't been readers before.

I think one of the reasons the Kindle and now the Sony and the iPad are going to continue gaining in popularity is that people don't feel judged for what they're reading, because no one can see. Many people don't want to be judged, don't want to be taken as frivolous, or seen reading something less "important" than a great literary classic.  

So I wonder, how has the publishing industry and marketing of books failed to erase this perception of reading? Is there a solution? (Or is the solution in process--the upswing of popular YA literature?) Is there anything that could be done to show how much fun reading can be? And finally, fess up -- what book did you start and not finish? (Are you glad you didn't? Or do you plan to try again?) Or was there a book you were forced to read (for school) and as much as you anticipated loathing it, ended up loving it? [I have way more questions than answers today! I'm hoping our backblogger 'Rati will chime in on why these things bother you.]

For me, the "put it down, feeing guilty for it" book it was Follet's PILLARS OF THE EARTH. I had heard such rave RAVE reviews, I bought it without reading any sample; I barely started it, and my eyes just kept wandering off the page. I just could not hook into the story, as much as I admired the quality of the writing. I suspect I was just not in the mood for it at the time, so I will try again, later. Eventually.

Nothing New Under the Sun?

And if I put my fingers here, and if I say
"I love you, dear"
And if I play the same three chords,
Will you just yawn and say...

It's all been done
It's all been done
It's all been done before   

-Barenaked Ladies

Tropes are storytelling devices and conventions that a writer can reasonably rely on as being present in the audience members' minds and expectations.

-Tvtropes.org

By J.D. Rhoades

After the recent discussions here and here about genre and the reader's expectations, I started thinking about...well, about the genres within genres within genres. I'm talking about going  beyond the hardboiled/cozy/thriller/procedural/etc divides and considering recurring patterns of character and story (sometimes known as "tropes") that you see in crime fiction.

A few examples:

The Wunza Story: As in "One's a [blank] and One's a [blank]," The Wunza story puts two often dissimilar people together and lets that tension play out against the bigger story. It's a central pattern in romantic suspense: "Wunza beautiful, dedicated detective with the Nashville PD, Wunza handsome, brilliant FBI agent." Crank up the differences a few notches and you get more humor in the mix: "Wunza a small town Southern girl who's always getting into wacky scrapes, Wunza a dark and mysterious bad-ass who may or may not be a bad guy." Make both characters the same sex and you have a Buddy Story: "Wunza ex-military doctor recovering from wounds suffered in Afghanistan, Wunza a brilliant cocaine addict who plays the violin."

(For a hilarious "Wunza" generator, go to http://www.theyfightcrime.org/)

Advantages: the above-described romantic tension, opportunities for fun dialogue.

Disadvantages: for romantic Wunzas, what do you do once they've done it? Or in the alternative, how long can you realistically keep them from doing it before the reader gets impatient? In the Buddy Wunza: how long before people start snickering that they're gay (not that there's anything wrong with that...)

The Merry Band: A whole bunch of wunzas fighting crime (police procedural) or committing it (the caper story). Think CSI, NCIS, or the Dortmunder stories.

Advantages: lots of room for intra-team conflict and/or romance; even more opportunities for snappy dialogue; enjoyable to watch as it all comes together.

Disadvantages: easy to lose track of where everybody is and who's doing what with whom.

The Shane Story: Mysterious stranger rides into town, finds bad things going on, sets them right using his fists and/or his gun, then rides away. He probably, but not inevitably, beds the beautiful damsel in distress along the way. Think:  Jack Reacher, Travis McGee.

Advantages: mythic, archetypal, or at least way larger than life character; great opportunity for cool badass action scenes.

Disadvantages: easy to make the character too invincible; suspension of belief can get more and more difficult; you've got to disentangle the loner hero from the love interest at the end, so he can bed the next damsel down the road. That can get a little contrived ("everyone who sleeps with the Captain dies!"), not to mention off-putting to some readers.

The Brooding Knight: A tough loner like in the Shane story, but often more tormented and reflective than a Shane. Said torment possibly comes from a traumatic experience in the past, or possibly by an ideal of justice that they cling to despite being repeatedly and grievously disappointed. May drink a lot. Think Harry Bosch, Phillip Marlowe, Jack Keller.

Many of the same advantages as the Shane story in regards to the kicking of asses; writer can (carefully) slip a little of his or her own worldview into the narrative; soulful characters can be attractive, especially to the female reader.

Disadvantages: Jesus, dude, get over yourself already.

The Smartest Guy/Girl in the Room: Also similar to the Shane story, in that the protagonist, usually an outsider, has to set things right where they've gone wrong, but by using his or her far-superior wits rather than physical force. Think:  Nero Wolfe, Hercule Poirot.

Advantages: some people really love puzzles and love pitting their wits against the SGITR.

Disadvantages: The SGITR can be kind of a dick; danger of making the clever solution so clever as to be absurd; misdirection of the reader is required to keep them interested. In short, the SGITR story is one of the hardest to pull off, because the writer has to be as smart as the SGITR.

Many stories combine tropes. For instance, A SGITR story is often paired with a Wunza story. The other half of the Wunza can be an exposition dump, that is, a person to whom the SGITR has to explain things to, thus informing the reader (Dr. Watson). In the alternative, they can be a foil to soften the SGITR's obnoxious know-it-all-ism (Archie Goodwin). In contrast, Inspector Rebus is a Brooding Knight with his own Merry Band.

Now, as for the overarching advantages and disadvantages of  tropes:

Advantage: It's easy to describe, pitch, and market stories based around familiar tropes.

Disadvantage: It's easy for trope to become cliche.

While researching this post, I looked up a site my son had often quoted to me:  tvtropes.org. And I have to tell you, friends, it got plumb discouraging. The site's huge, and clicking though all the links, especially the ones involving crime fiction,  makes you wonder if  pretty much every "original" idea you ever thought you had  has already been done by someone else. You may begin to wonder if the Dragon,  Big Bad or Magnificent Bastard  in your WIP isn't a Wall Banger because you have a scene in which they kick the dog.

Well, maybe. But then again, maybe not. After all, tropes can be tools. It's all in how they're used. If they're used in a lazy or uncreative way, if you're just phoning it in, then sure, you've got the possibility of the dreaded Dethroning Moment of Suck. Done right, (as in the examples above from our own 'Rati) you may be looking at a Crowning Moment of Awesome.

Which, at long last, leads us to our discussion question, our teaching moment,  of the day:

Readers: What are some of your favorite tropes? Your least favorite? Who uses them in ways that work? Writers: how do you get out of the trap that turns trope into cliche?

Neither This nor That . . . or Both This and That

By Allison Brennan

Genre is important. So important that publishers market to genre expectations and authors write to genre expectations. Not because they are selling out, but because they want people to know--in a moment--what type of story they're getting. If it's a mystery, there needs to be a crime or puzzle to be solved. If it's a thriller, there needs to be a fast, page-turning pace and high stakes. If it's a suspense, there needs to be high, page-turning tension. If it's a romance, there needs to be a happily ever after. If it's a paranormal, there needs to be fantastical elements--be them grounded in the "real world" like Kay Hooper's psychic FBI series or urban fantasy like Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake vampire huntress or true fantasy like Tolkein's Lord of the Rings.

Genre blending is popular with both authors and readers because we like to take common, accessible story elements and twist them a bit to make something just a little bit different. Romantic suspense is a blended genre that has become it's own separate genre from which other genres can be blended.

In romantic suspense (or romantic thrillers--same thing, just romantic thrillers, IMO, focuses more on the thrill than the romance and romantic suspense tends to be more romance driven. But that's just my personal definition.) Anyway, my knee-jerk definition of romantic suspense is, "A thriller with a hero and a heroine who both live and are together at the end of the book." But the truth is, there is a broad range of romantic thrillers, with very light on the suspense (my very good and talented friend Roxanne St. Claire writes the incredible Bullet Catchers series which has a suspense subplot, but the romance--with hot guys--take center stage) to very light on the romance (such as one of my all-time favorites--even before she gave me a quote for my FBI Trilogy--Lisa Gardner who writes thrillers with relationship subplots, such as her Quincy/Rainey series or Kim/Mac.) Some authors are very well balanced, such as the incomparable Linda Howard.

With the wide range of romantic thrillers, it's no surprise that those of us who are writing them start incorporating other elements.

JD Robb's futuristic romantic suspense novels, her IN DEATH series, is one of the strongest out there. Set in 2059, she has a compelling mystery, strong characters, and a constantly developing and growing relationship between the richest man in the universe (Roarke) and New York City's top cop (Eve Dallas.) I remember Kay Hooper as one of the first to write a back-to-back-to-back trilogy, in 2002 I believe, with her SHADOW books, introducing psychic FBI agents. Real life crimes solved by real life FBI agents--who had a six sense. It added an interesting twist on an established genre.

In 2003, before I sold, I had sent out a bunch of queries for what ended up being my debut novel, and while I was waiting for responses, I came up with an idea I really loved. While it was still vague in my head, I wrote a few chapters. What if an evil coven releases the seven deadly sins into the world? What if the seven deadly sins were demons? Who could stop them? How?

I ended up selling my romantic suspense, and I put the seven deadly sins series on the back burner. Partly because I knew, in my heart, that I didn't have the skill to write the story I could picture in my head. Nor did I have the discipline to write it. This isn't to say that romantic suspense is easy or formulaic, but there is a comfort in writing genre fiction. I KNOW that my hero and heroine are going to live. I KNOW that the crime is going to be solved. I may not know anything else about the story, but the two musts of the genre keep me focused toward the goal. And I'll admit it's really fun to throw lots of danger in the mix and figure out how on earth these characters are going to survive.

Twelve romantic thrillers later, and I am on the verge of completing the first of my Seven Deadly Sins series. ORIGINAL SIN will be released on January 26, 2010. I'm excited and scared to death at the same time.

Genre is like comfort food. You always go back to it because it makes you feel good. It's there when you need it, it's satisfying, it's rich and full and thoroughly delicious. You know what to expect. This is good.

As Alex said yesterday (and no, we didn't plan to blog on similar topics!):

The challenge of genre is delivering something unique and compelling within a proscribed form.

Now, I happen to be grateful for a proscribed form, because it gives a shape to a story from the very beginning, and let's face it, when you first embark on a project, story is a vast and amorphous mass, or maybe that's mess. Any signposts in that chaos are lifesaving.

Amen. This is why I love forensics. When I get stuck in a book, I focus on the evidence. What do my characters know? What is my villain doing? What does the evidence show? It's a signpost that keeps me focused on the GOAL which is solving the crime in (hopefully) a "unique and compelling" way.

In all fiction, but paranormal in particular, worldbuilding is crucial. One definition:

Worldbuilding is the process of constructing an imaginary world, usually associated with a fictional universe.

Okay, I see that . . . but is the world completely imaginary? According to the continuing article it is, including:

It describes a key role in the task of a fantasy writer: that of developing an imaginary setting that is coherent and possesses a history, geography, ecology, and so forth. The process usually involves the creation of maps, listing the back-story of the world and the people of the world, amongst other features.

This is where I diverge. Worldbuilding does not necessarily mean a completely new world. What if we like the one we have? I do. I don't have to create a map, for example, or an entire history. There's enough in our own several thousands of years that will do nicely. I'll just pick and choose what I want, and then adhere to those rules.

So I'm worldbuilding . . . but I'm not.

I created a fictitious town in Central California between San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara. I call it Santa Louisa and it's home of the Lost Mission of California, or Santa Louisa de Los Padres Mission, which was "lost" because it was built too far off the mission trail. 

I've always been fascinated by a noble group of people who band together for the common good, battling evil to protect the many from violent death. Isn't that what crime fiction is all about, anyway? Cops, prosecutors, and others battling personal demons while saving innocent people from violence, solving a crime, and catching the bad guy.

Really, my seven deadly sins series is the same thing. Just not cops, and their battling inhuman evil, not only human evil (though they battle that, too.)

And in worldbuilding, according to several articles, you have to answer a bunch of questions about your world and the people who populate it. Hmm, that sounds a bit too much like plotting, so I skipped it.

But as I wrote the first book, I needed some basic rules. I couldn't just make them up as I went. (okay, okay, I admit it. I made it all up as I went. That's what revisions are for, to clean up the messy beginning.) I grounded everything in the real world. I have a sheriff as a main character, for example, who investigates the crimes as any cop would. But she knows there's something supernatural at work as well. Her theory and focus is that if she can stop the HUMANS responsible for summoning demons, she can beat them. She's grounded in law and order; right and wrong. 

The hardest part of creating this world (read: writing the book) was figuring out the rules the villains had to follow. I couldn't have magicians ala Harry Potter flying around on broomsticks, but in truth, the occult is essentially the practice of magic--controlling physical and supernatural forces.

When in doubt, I fall back to research books. Over the last two years I've lined my shelves with a wide-variety of religious and supernatural and occult books. In my crime novels, I get inside the head of the villains; I had to do it with the coven as well. And I learned a tremendous amount of information about what true witches--magicians--aspire to. It's not about making a deal with the devil--in fact, one author commented that it was the weak magicians who resorted to pacts with demons--it was about amassing enough power and knowledge to gain control over supernatural forces.

That gave me exactly what I needed. Real-life beliefs and mythology (for lack of a better world) that I could build into a fictional occult group. They have immense power because they have honed their skills, but there are physical and emotional limits to their power. This isn't Samantha Stevens twitching her nose, or the Charmed sisters casting spells.

As I finish up book one, I noticed something about how I wrote it. When I got stuck, I fell back into my comfort zone: forensics. The investigation. Trying to figure out how someone died when there is no physical evidence. When I didn't know where the story was going, I went over to the sheriff, my comfort character, to see what she was doing. She's the cop, the real-world foundation. Once, she was interviewing a suspect in his best friend's murder. Oh, an interrogation! I can write that.

And his answers gave my the big break I needed for my characters to figure out what was going on. Wow. I love it when a story comes together.

All this is leading me back to one of Alex's main points: that genre provides a signpost in chaos. And I so needed to hear that right now.

Toni and I have often talked about what happens when you write a book that doesn't fit neatly into the mold. Toni's BOBBIE FAYE series (book two: GIRLS JUST WANNA HAVE GUNS is out as of last week!) doesn't neatly fit the mold of thriller or romantic suspense--it's sort of an combo. And when you already have one established "blended" genre (romantic suspense) it's hard to tack on another genre to "re-blend."

But the book is incredible. One of the most fun series I have ever read. But when you blend too many genres, you sometimes get stuck in the middle of the Dead Zone--also known as the "general fiction" aisle. These are where the out-of-genre books go to (usually) die. At least, commercially die because most commercial readers browse the genre sections first.

I have written twelve romantic thrillers. They are in the romance section of the bookstore. (And there's a reason for that, some good, some not-so-good, but that's a blog for another day.) I'm happy in romance. I have a happily ever after in all my books and the bad guy ALWAYS gets what's coming to him. (If I killed off the heroine and the bad guy sometimes got away, I'd be in suspense, but I'd be depressed and wouldn't write anymore, so that's that.) But it's true that my books tend to lean a little heavier on the suspense side.

Now add on another tag: paranormal. My series is a paranormal romantic suspense.

But there's no genre tag for that.

Which really screws me.

My base is in romantic suspense. Thus, my book is listed as a "paranormal romance." Which really doesn't fit. There IS a romance, but it's a multi-book relationship arc. And there is paranormal, but it's grounded in real-world mythology and physics. For example, one plot point in either book two or three (I'm not that far yet!) is the reality that in America, witchcraft isn't illegal and summoning demons from hell isn't illegal, so if you kill a witch who summons a demon from hell, and you get caught, you're going to stand trial for murder.

I feel like I'm in genre limbo. I'm not trying to write outside of genre, because I love genre fiction. 97% of my fiction shelves are genre. But I'm neither "paranormal romance" or "supernatural thriller"--I'm both. I'm a "supernatural romantic thriller" . . . but there's no code for that in the system.

Sometimes, the system needs fixing. Because creative people can and will mix and match genre to entertain readers. It's what we do.

So, I was thinking about some of my favorite "paranormal" stories. THE MATRIX and RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK; SUPERNATURAL and FRINGE; and THE STAND by Stephen King. They all have one thing in common: real, ordinary (or extraordinary) people in the real world with a paranormal twist.

Hmm, is it any surprise that's what I'm writing now?

Do you like the supernatural? What are some of your favorite paranormal movies, tv shows, books? Comment and you get a two-fer . . . two books for the price of one comment. Bawahaha -- you'll get CHARMED AND DANGEROUS by Toni McGee Causey (Bobbie Faye book one) and SUDDEN DEATH by me (FBI Trilogy book one.) 

And a winner! The winner of last week's contest hosted by Toni and open to everyone who commented on the "Dear Summer" entry is Marisa. She did not register an email with us, so Marisa, please contact Toni at toni [dot] causey [at]gmail.com. Thanks for playing!