Happy New Year
By: MikeJan 4, 2012
The holidays, as usual, have been a dizzying whirl of social activities, food, and gifts. We got a chance to visit with family and friends, and our jeans are fitting more snugly than they did just a couple months ago. With the crazy season behind us, it's time to turn our attention to the coming year.
Patty ventured back out to the office trailer, which has been abandoned for several weeks. It needs a good scrubbing; the tiny office was never intended to be lived in for months. We got about half of it cleaned up, and Patty decided that she needed to start writing. So, surrounded by the detritus of our refugee status, among the scattered books and possibly-important mail, she has been crafting a new novel.
Her inspiration for the current scene came from Thanksgiving holiday. No, not from the chaos and drama of the traditional family feast, but from what follows the actual holiday. . . Black Friday.
Is it just me, or does that name sound like something from a bad fantasy novel? "Beware the ides of March, and venture thee not from thy hearth upon Black Friday." (My apologies to Shakespeare) Hokey. . . but indubitably sound advice.
So this year one of our dear friends, Ann, decided she wanted to "Do Black Friday". Patty, either innocent or masochistic, agreed to accompany her. Being of sound mind, I declined. The two of them left for town, cackling like madwomen, just before midnight. They returned with the fruits of their shopping long after the sun had risen. For the next week everyone was regaled with stories of what happened in the intervening hours: The terrified employee tasked with opening the doors at Target to admit throngs of shoppers. The crazy ladies sprinting for the dress racks at some boutique I'd never heard of. The tidal surges of humanity hoping to get a cheap X-box at Walmart. My resolve to avoid Black Friday grew stronger with each retelling. In fact, I would prefer to be off planet during the next one, just for safety.
As the girls showed off their loot, I struggled to define my feelings. I was embarrassed, a little disgusted, and morbidly fascinated. I felt the same way after paying to see a bullfight in South America. They'd hold up an item (like some dish towels in an ugly holiday plaid), and tell the story. "These were originally $2.79, but there were three of them in a bin for fifty percent off, and I got all three. There was another woman eying one of them, but I grabbed it before she could shove her way past the old lady in a wheelchair!"
It's the worst of American consumerism mixed with a bit of the Roman gladiator spirit. Our total expenses were just over a hundred dollars in purchases, a full tank of gas, a few snacks and a breakfast out on the town. Not to mention a full day of lost productivity due to lost sleep. We saved something like seventy dollars by buying a bunch of junk we didn't need.
The most baffling part, to me, is that this is considered (despite all evidence) a great victory. It reminds me of guys discussing hunting season. They buy a hundred dollar permit, a six-hundred dollar gun, and spend a few hundred in gas and food to use up half their yearly vacation in a an attempt to shoot a deer with maybe seventy-five pounds of usable meat. And those that succeed call it a victory, and tell the story of the hunt for years, and are envied by all who hear the tale. Hail the conquering hero!
And so it came to pass that each trinket and useless holiday-themed knick-knack was hoisted up, and the tales were told. And we we who had stayed behind felt ashamed, and held our manhood cheap, and dared not discuss the merits of the purchase. And thus (I am told) was Black Friday, and so shall it ever be, when victory goes to the fleet, and the bargain to those who endure.
Books in Niches called Genre
By: MikeJan 8, 2012
A reader recently commented that there was something curious on the books page here at Hurog. You see, Masques and Wolvesbane deal with a dark, brooding enigmatic hero who happens to change into a wolf. Oh, and a plucky heroine who also changes shape, and there's lots of little flirtatious looks and glances, and true love makes an appearance. Genre? Fantasy.
On the same page, we find Mercy and Adam. The shape-changing sweethearts with a nose for trouble, living in the major metropolis of Finley (population 2000). Genre? Urban Fantasy. Anna and Charles, the lycanthrope lovers, actually share the same world. Their books, however, are considered Paranormal Romance. What's going on here?
Welcome to curious and highly mutable world of genre fiction. There are doubtless hundreds or thousands of postings about genre, and it's a perennial topic for convention panels. Authors complain endlessly that their latest masterpiece was miscategorized. I've heard some authors claiming that their work transcends genre. Thinking about it, I'm not convinced that's a desirable outcome.
The fiction universe is vast. Things that really happened (or at least probably happened) are classified as "non fiction". But all of the strange, wondrous and surprising things that never happened are classified as fiction. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that, mathematically, for every thing that did happen there must be many more that didn't (and a good many of those will be a good deal more interesting than whatever happened instead). So, ipso facto, the fiction universe is far larger than the non-fiction one.
Readers, however, have preferences. They don't want to wander aimlessly in an uncharted, chaotic maelstrom of fiction; they want to read stories that scratch their particular itch. So the vastness is divided, like with like, forming islands and continents of similar material, and among the divisions maps are drawn. There's the small continent called fantasy, which has geographically distinct regions like high, epic, humorous, heroic and time-travel. There's horror, which used to be a small, isolated island, but recent eruptions have created dark urban fantasy, and a host of still-forming monster-infested islands around it.
But wait a minute, who divides this stuff up? Who decides what goes where,and more importantly, who should we blame? That's where things get muddy, and the answer is that virtually everybody has something to do with it. The bookstores break fiction into various sections to help their readers find what they want. The publishers try to nudge books into appropriate market segments (sometimes overtly, and somtimes very subtly through cover art and colors). Readers ultimately drive the whole process by their selective purchases.
If a bunch of readers suddenly decide that they want to read fiction about a world where Victorian mores and technology are combined with space travel, the industry will attempt to satisfy that need. More books with those elements may be purchased, covers altered to more openly advertise this fact. Finally, stories combining those elements will be shelved together to make sure that the intrepid reader buys all of them. As reader's tastes change, or popular authors branch off in slightly new directions, the categories and their contents also shift.
So, years ago some talented authors like Laurell K. Hamilton, Charlaine Harris, and Jim Butcher popularized books with paranormal elements in modern urban settings. Readership grew, and bookstores started shelving "Urban Fantasy" separately. Of course, authors like Charles de Lint, Tim Powers and Emma Bull had been writing urban fantasy years before it became popular enough to get it's own section in the bookstore.
In those relatively early days, most urban fantasy was loosely modeled after the potboiler detective novel. There was always a hot love interest, but the stories were mostly mysteries, usually with a generous heaping of dead bodies and some elements borrowed straight from horror. However, several authors soon launched similar stories where the love interest was the major focus. Alas, readers who prefer plot-driven mysteries don't always enjoy character driven romances. No problem. Bam! The love stories got labeled "paranormal romance" and readers could find their particular passion again.
However, things change over time. Urban fantasy has branched and broadened. It's not just werewolves and vampires any more, and the plot certainly doesn't have to be a mystery. Paranormal romance, on the other hand, has ventured much closer to erotica than it's early iterations.
So, when a reader asked why we classified the Alpha and Omega novels as paranormal romance, I took the question to Patty. She said, "But those aren't paranormal romance, they're urban fantasy." I pointed out the series descriptions that she helped write, and she said, "Oh, those are really old. Now they'd be considered urban fantasy." I told her I'd make the necessary changes <grin>.
Genre's aren't rigid definitions. They're fluffy and imprecise and mutable. It's got nothing to do with quality or rarity, and everything to do with helping the readers find stories they enjoy. And, as an author, if you really have managed to write a book that defies grenre classification, your book is on the genre equivalent of Gilligan's Island. That book will either attract enough readers to start a whole new genre, or exist in virtual isolation, largely overlooked by readers.
Authors Behaving Hysterically
By: MikeJan 16, 2012
Over the past several years, authors have been repeatedly admonished to promote themselves. This started as good advice. Over a few years it gradually became dogma, and eventually some sort of pseudo-religious obligation. This summer we were at a very nice convention (and I won't tell you which one, hah!) and attending the obligatory, but always interesting, panel on author promotion. There were the usual chestnuts of "blog daily, twitter several times a day, don't forget to re-tweet and engage the reader, and make sure you promote your work on at least twenty (but not more than thirty) percent of your posts. Heads were nodding, notes were diligently taken.
I sat in the audience feeling much like an unrepentant sinner in church. My thoughts running something like this: "That's probably good advice, and we're not doing it."
"Should we repent? We have a Twitter account . . ."
"It doesn't matter, I just can't do that. It's not who I am."
"Stop your sniveling and suck it up, cupcake. This is business. What do you think you get not-paid for? If those books don't sell, Patty won't be the only one eating grubs and twigs!"
"Better grubs and twigs than learning to, ugh, re-tweet the posts of popular posters."
"Pathetic whiner!"
"Despotic Tyrant!"
Yes, I might have schizophrenic tendencies, but I agree with both of me. In the front, the speakers were talking about the importance of free giveaways, and the opportunities presented by offering outtakes, bonus scenes, and exclusive on-line stories for your readers. And then it happened, a single hand was raised and a hesitant neophyte addressed the panel. His concern was that, with a day job, a wife and two children he wasn't sure he could do all of this and still find time to write.
My ears pricked, and I raised my head from the posture of contrition. This man had dared voice what I have privately held true, that authors should spend most of their workday crafting stories. After all, wrestling with viewpoint, characters, pacing, dialog, plot and setting is challenging enough without single-handedly wrestling the internet into submission as your personal marketing machine. I breathed a hopeful breath . . .and heard the panelists chanting "Shun the unbeliever. Shun the unbeliever. Shun! Shun!" or something vaguely along those lines.
Still, I have wondered how dedicated authors find time to actually do all the things the author promotion religion demands suggestions recommend. Today, Patty and I found the answers. Meljean Brook is a tremendously talented author. Over the past several days, her blog has contained an absolutely charming series entitled, Diary of an Author, which explains exactly how this marketing should be accomplished! Meljean is my Obi-Wan Kenobi, and I see clearly now.