Seasonal Genres

Over at Byzantium's Shores, Jaquandor made an observation about his tendency to read certain genres at certain times of the year. For him, it's sci-fi and horror during the warmer months and fantasy when it gets cooler. Though my genres and seasons align differently than his, I thought I was the only one who did that.

It started with horror and Autumn. I've always loved Halloween, so to prepare for it I've always read and watched horror in October. But as my collection and interest in the genre grew, I had to expand into September and even into August some. August however doesn't feel like horror time to me though, because I've come to associate the genre with that nip in the air while walking around for Tricks or Treats. And since I'm usually not quite done with the genre come November 1st, I've started letting it creep that way instead of into August.

This year, I've also added some mystery to my Autumn reading and watching, especially murder mysteries. As the seasons turn toward death, it seems as appropriate as horror. I used to think of mystery as summer reading, but it's really not. The kinds of mysteries I like are more thoughtful than thrilling.

There's an easy transition from horror to fantasy. Fantasy that's set in our world is just horror (or the kind of horror I like) without the threat of death. Both deal with the intrusion of the supernatural into the mundane. So as Autumn gives way to Winter, I find it easy to transition into fantasy and from there to space pulp, which is really just fantasy with technology instead of magic. I don't do hard science fiction.

The Summer months are for excitement and adventure stories. It's appropriate in the season of blockbuster movies and beach reading. My summer starts in May when the snow's finally off the ground for good in Minnesota.

 I don't read "romance novels," but I do like dramas and comedies with a strong romantic angle and I tend to gravitate towards those during February. Spring also seems like a good time to cleanse the genre palate with some general drama, comedy, and non-fiction. I've never been able to do that exclusively for three months though; I'm always sneaking in genre stuff at the same time.

I'm curious to know if any of you do something similar. Do you tend to gravitate towards certain genres at particular times of the year?

Quote of the Week: "People put the books where they want"

Another Neil Gaiman quote this week. Am I in a rut or is he just that awesome? (Hint: I'm not in a rut.)

I don't worry about it. I don't think about it. It's not something I feel I need to bother with. People put the books where they want to put them, but the books don't change … From where I stand, worrying about how something you are writing is going to be received critically while you're writing it is a whole lot of wasted worrying: there's nothing you can do about it anyway. Why not worry about making what you're writing the best thing that it can be, which is something you can do something about?

--Neil Gaiman, on deciding what genre you're writing

To Read: From Hell to Midnight

I've thought for a long time that "Western" is a term that applies better to a setting than a bona fide genre*. Genres come with all kinds of rules and tropes that tend to trap authors into writing the same kinds of stories over and over again. That's why a movie like Rustlers' Rhapsody (which I highly recommend, by the way) works so well. It's making fun of the tropes.

When you ignore the rules and just treat it as a setting, you move past all the cookie-cutter Westerns and end up with movies like Unforgiven. And books like From Hell to Midnight, which is a comedy in cowboy gear. According to Bookgasm, it's not a parody; it's just funny. And it includes "a protagonist who wears jodhpurs, a red polka-dot bow tie and a pith helmet." Sounds good to me.

*Incidentally, I think the same holds true to "Fantasy" and -- for me, anyway -- "Science Fiction." I'd be much more interested in Fantasy novels if they quit being about epic quests and tried telling some other kinds of stories. And I've realized in the last couple of years that I'm not at all interested in the speculative aspects of Science Fiction, but just want to read lots of different kinds of stories that just so happen to have robots, spaceships, laser guns, and aliens in them.

My genre (or "I need stuff to read")

Speaking of marketing, Lit Agent X has a great post on the subject as it relates to prose. The whole thing is worth reading, but this bit especially stood out to me: "Knowing where your book fits into the marketplace is very important. Good writers are readers. For fiction, you should read as much as you can in your own genre."

Which got me thinking about what my genre really is. For the last few years I've been of the opinion that genre doesn't matter; that I should just write the story I want and let the marketing people figure out how to label it. The problem with that view is that it's extremist. If I don't figure out how to attract an agent or sell my book to a publisher, there won't be any marketing people to put labels on it. A more balanced approach -- and I'm a huge fan of balance -- is to be aware of the kind of people who'd be interested in my book, but not to the point that I feel constricted by a bunch of creativity-stifling genre "rules".

To that end, Lit Agent X has a follow up post to the above in which she says, "You should know where your book fits into the marketplace. I'll believe you if you name two or three books that truly would be on the same shelf as yours. I won't believe you if you compare your book to Catcher in the Rye, 1984, and Harry Potter. Comparing your work to bestsellers or classics that don't have much in common with yours won't serve you.

"But if you list three recently published authors/books and I know them all or I can quickly look them up, then I get a better sense of where your book fits and I know you're savvy enough to see your book as a product on a shelf sitting next to similar products."

The problem is: I don't know any recently published authors or books who's stuff my work-in-progress might sit next to on a shelf. Tobias Buckell maybe? But not really. Le Corsaire has a fantasy element to it, but it's very much set in a version of our world, rather than a completely fantastic one.

I haven't exhaustively researched this to know if they are or aren't, but if no one's currently writing anything remotely like my book, does that make me avant-garde or just really, really out-of-touch? Some superficial similarities between my book and the Pirates of the Caribbean movies make me suspect that it's the latter. Considering how popular the Pirates movies are, why is no one publishing books about pirates and supernatural creatures? It can't be that they're too derivative, because though the artiste in me rebels against that label, the publishing industry certainly wouldn't. I mean, look at all the Harry Potter and DaVinci Code look-a-likes and tell me that publishers are afraid of cashing in on a hot fad.

Here's something else that tells me how out-of-touch I am. Lit Agent X says that "good writers are readers." And I am a reader. But I'm reading old Conan novels and re-reading Burroughs and Robin Hood. Those are fun, but they're not teaching me anything about the current marketplace. I need new stuff to read. Hell, maybe there is a whole pirate-fantasy sub-genre that I don't know about because I've been too focused on the classics. I don't want to be the literary equivalent of the guy who quit listening to any music released after Boston's last album.

So, that's my mission for this week. I'm going to start surfing and searching Barnes & Noble for new stuff to read that looks like it might be in my genre. And if there's really nothing out there, I need to rethink whether Le Corsaire is a marketable first novel. 'Cause Lord knows I've got other ideas.

Link du Jour: Rick Remender

You guys know how much I dig the pirates right? Well, even I have to draw the line someplace and I was pretty convinced when I first heard about the Sea of Red comics series that "vampire pirates" was going to be the place. (I would also be willing to draw it at "ninja pirates," just in case you're wondering.) Still, there was something about the design of Sea of Red, with its parchment-like paper and unique mixture of red and black ink. It was too pretty not to give a closer look, and I'm glad I did because I learned that writer Rick Remender has the same attitude towards genre that I do: ignore it.

Remender took a silly high-concept and made it work because he concentrated on telling an interesting story about sympathetic characters. Rather than being locked in by the restrictions of its genres, Sea of Red quickly became a book in which anything could happen.

Remender's follow up book, Strange Girl, about a teenager stuck in the demon-infested, post-Rapture world, did the same thing. It's a post-apocalyptic horror/adventure story with healthy doses of drama, comedy, intrigue, and theological exploration.

Next, Remender came up with Fear Agent, a series dedicated to putting the sexy back into scifi, another cause that I can absolutely get behind. And Fear Agent's focus on action and adventure proved that Remender was just the right guy to write Dynamite Entertainment's comic based on the classic version of Battlestar Galactica.

Remender's a great example of a writer who obviously loves genre, but doesn't feel trapped by it.