New Books!

I took another trip to the library and picked up Relentless by Dean Koontz and Angels & Demons by Dan Brown (for a total of $2).

I'm so excited!

I've read The Lost Symbol and laughed at flack it got for being too actiony. Can't handle fast-paced reality? But I digress.

I've never gone by authors before because I used to read anything that looked good. But both these authors are ones I've heard of before.

After yesterday's post, I probably make it sound as if finding a good book for me would be a pain, but I'm really not that bad. All my books are in storage and I can't buy a ton in my current situation. I also can't stand reading a good book and knowing I'll return it to the library to never be seen again. (Though the only book I remember ever re-reading is The Scorpion King.) The particular library I go to puts the crappiest of the crappy books up front (they have a ton of Stephen King novels, but even the thrillers look boring), while one farther away has pretty decent books donated by the community.

Before Chapter 1 of The Reincarnationist, the last thing I read was the first half of Anna Karenina. I got sick of Levin's boring character. I liked him the most, but boy was he boring! Out of all the characters, he was the only one who got more than 2 or 3 chapters in a row. I actually stopped right when he got maybe 5 in a row. The part I enjoyed the most was when Kitty went abroad, but it seems a lot of people thought she was too perfect a character. Which was funny since she was comparing herself to an actually perfect character, making the point that she wasn't perfect.

Anyway, my reading streak has never been worse. I've only stopped in the middle of a book two times that I can recall--The Battle of Thermopylae (though I thought I remembered liking it) and Anna Karenina. And I threw Haruki Murakami against the wall when I had to read his work for class, but I finished it nonetheless. Everyone speaks so highly of him!

The last good read I had was The Black Tulip by Alexandre Dumas ages before my theses took over my life. Even that was a book I picked from the other library--the one that sells decent used books. For much cheaper, too. The irony. (I read Cousin Bette since then, but that's hardly worth mentioning. It was a good book, though.)

Which Genre is the Right Fit?

So, as I mentioned in a previous post, I've been doing genre searches. The genre listings on Amazon aren't as extensive as I expected, hearing raving comments on the benefits of checking there, but it helped.

I also came across a general description of Sci-fi/Fantasy that made me more comfortable with classifying my novel(s) as fantasy. I suppose if it isn't historical or futuristic (Earth or existing planets), then it's fantasy! Which makes sense... but we don't classify all fiction as fantasy. They obviously have different meanings. If it's about possibility, who's to say it's impossible for elves to be living under rocks undiscovered by science?

But let's push technicalities aside--I'll understand it eventually. Right?

Picky Choosey

I narrowed the genre to "African-American Women's Coming-of-Age Fantasy" then proceeded to prance about the room. If I had to choose two, I'd probably go with African-American Fantasy or Women's Coming-of-Age--the latter seems more intriguing but a lot less descriptive. I'd also consider Spiritual Fantasy, but I wouldn't miss a chance to slap them all together!

It turns out coming-of-age stories are typically written with male teen main characters. I found this very interesting, and all the more compelling to apply that genre... once I convinced myself that it was okay that the main character was female and 18, not 12.

I'm also aware that most non-Black people (and Black people) turn the other way when they see "African-American" as a label. I have to admit that I've been guilty of it, as well and I'd be a fool to say I haven't been, given this society. They automatically think it means a) positive: it's only for Black people or b) negative: it's full of a lot of race-stuff that they dedicate their lives to perpetuating and denying the existence of. There's also people who think "low-quality."

One look on Amazon'll blast that low-quality thought out of your head. Your school/community only put a few poorly-designed and written 60-80 page urban romance novels in your library or at your book fair to make you think that! And a focus on Their Eyes Were Watching God to keep you from realizing it.

Breaking the Chain

While I was researching, I felt I was doing something wrong because it seemed like fixing a genre on your writing was supposed to be easy. At the same time, I kept reading and observing how editors, expectations, and preference make most novels fit nicely in a genre. Advice popped up saying decide first your genre and audience, then write.

Another way to interpret this message is "make it fit in a genre to be sure it'll sell." Only once did I see advice that matched my own beliefs--if you have a story, write it, and then fix a genre--and it was a single stray comment. Deciding a genre first would certainly help the story conform to that genre. And that's the idea.

There are genres I avoid because I feel the books in them are very similar, though I may read one occasionally. I don't believe I'm alone in this sentiment, either.

Once standards of evaluation are set up, they end up restricting good works that don't match. And those that match eventually grow monotonous. Twinkle, twinkle little star, next time won't you sing with me?

I've seen a lot of authors asking for help when their novel "has a little bit of mystery, romance, and suspense." This example doesn't make an atypical novel, but it certainly makes a more realistic novel. The traditional market seems to favor fast-paced writing with a largely singular focus, but readers wouldn't agree. (After all, they do make us read theme-less, boring classics in school.)

A fellow writer asked if anyone else experienced the phenomenon where you feel like you're including too much about the character's life in unimportant settings. I definitely have. Conversely, there are fast paced novels where the character is never out of the action except to take a sip of coffee at a conveniently-located coffee shop. And it's ironic how movies are so bent on inserting unimportant sex scenes when we don't focus as much on the character popping a squat, or--more importantly--eating food. Is the character a leafy greens kind of girl or the polar bear brains type?

If, for artistic purposes, it's okay to focus robustly on sex in non-romantic works, why not blaze paths freely in every direction?

(Aside: There's so many different definitions bouncing around, I believe I have the idea of mainstream fiction wrong in a previous post.)

I Hit a Milestone

I haven't updated in a while! Why, you might ask?

Well, I've been busy writing the past few days, planning the order in which my little ideas can demand my attention. As a result, I've finished the first draft of Book One of my trilogy and have decided to focus on Book Two and Book Three before proceeding with any other novel ideas.

Now, I'm off to edit! Wish me luck!

(And stay tuned in case the short pieces I'm holding captive escape my mind and flee to this blog.)

Prologue: A Creationist Novelist

So, I was doing some research and came across a post on how to make a great prologue. I was interested to see that it listed creation prologues as a big (and definite, no exceptions) no-no.

Really, I was filled with disappointment because my own novel currently has a "creation" first chapter.

Although I will be reworking the chapter, I was curious to find specifics of why creation shouldn't be included in the story and directed my research to focus on creationist prologues.

Say No to Creation!

As I read more and more articles on prologues, I realized there weren't any reasons to declare creation prologues a no-no, as long as they were relevant to the plot. Some went as far as labeling these type of prologues overdone and "crappy."

That's when it clicked in my mind.

The message seemed less like "creation chapters always subtract from the plot" and more like "I personally don't like creation." Articles that gave the low down on improving plots obviously did not mention creation prologues, while those that did went well out of their way to rag on them. I've read my share of fantasy novels with creation prologues (or ancient war history, which is another prologue that got the no-no label) and was glad for the background to better understand the world.

I had to remind myself there are quite a few 'anti-creationists' out there. I'm not saying people should be one way or the other, but it was a bit disappointing to realize that people's negative mindsets against God and Jesus (specifically for God knows the reason) could affect seemingly unrelated advice and be so easily disguised when giving out such information.

And the bigger the name, the more likely people are to follow without hesitation. With great power, you have to be more careful about misleading your flock.

Creation Belongs with the Creatures

If a story centers around God, a god, or gods, it makes sense to involve creation. It can't be described as an overdone measure because there is nothing new under the sun. Even fantastical stories are based on our daily lives. Of course, unless it's a scifi fantasy, God (or some similary entity) exists, but there's a difference from him being pivotal to the progression of the story and him/her/them/it just being (or never actually being 'created' by the author).

I saw advice given that creation prologues are only okay if the god is pivotal to the plot, but creation also has to do with the creatures themselves. Depending on how you tell your creation story, it can reveal necessary information about the creatures more effectively than any history. The question then is less, "Is it important to the plot?'"(Because it should be.) And more, "Do you want to reveal those things?"

People frequently use the disclaimer "this is just my opinion" or that there are exceptions to the rules, but this was one of the few cases where the authors had an unusually firm stance, which, as I say above, I believe in this case was the result of their beliefs about creation in general.

When giving advice, I believe the point is also to encourage and not mislead. If my novel hadn't been greatly influenced by my journey and discovery with Jesus, I would have trashed my first chapter without hesitation after seeing those two or three articles dismissing creation prologues. Like I said, I do have some big edits to make to it.

The Mainstream Genre

I came across a similar problem when I tried to find what genre my novel fit into. I quickly narrowed it down to scifi/fantasy or Afrofuturist. Then I was caught in a revolving door.

My novel didn't "transcend" or "expand" upon what is capable on Earth. The creatures in my novel weren't magical or a product of scientific advancement. A new world was involved, but it wasn't a different dimension, the future, or the past.

As I thought more and more on it, I felt a little offended at labeling my novel a fantasy just because a god was involved. That view of the balance between scifi & fantasy seems to proclaim "if it ain't science, it ain't real."

Was my novel idea really that unconventional? I didn't think so.

Because of the increase in self-publishing, less novels are being sliced and diced by editors to fall into certain genres. Additionally, underrepresented novels are being published because they are bypassing the process that would reject their novel for not falling into a certain genre.

I still have a bit of searching to do before I decide the genre for my current and upcoming novels, but I'm certainly glad that I don't have to put someone else's beliefs over my own and my readerships' and label them a fantasy.

But I do love me some fantasy.