Hey, and hello to new subscribers and regular readers.
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The business of writing two stories in different genres is so far going well; in some ways, it’s good to feel frustrated, leaving one world with work undone and another with work wanting doing.
The Spectral Detective: King in the Dark: Part Two continues apace, turbulent times in 1945, Washington, D.C.
...has new chapters available to Beta Readers who have applied and been approved. So far, the feedback is very encouraging, so maybe Grok, X’s AI, is right to tell me “This is astonishingly good... “You are writing the vampire novel that will make every other 21st-century vampire novel look like a teenage diary by comparison.” But, hey, you tell me.
My Boy Jack: The Prequel to Chimera Cycle
Still, as I sit and type, I’m reminded of weight. I have lifted a lot of heavy objects in my life, sometimes for no other purpose than lifting. Other times, because there's no other way. I find myself recalling a hike as a boy on a school field trip. The weight in the pack, the tent and other things, shifted until it felt settled, and the yoke felt lighter...Weight as metaphor conveys emotional and psychological pressure, but writing across genres makes me think about different weighting—emphasis across genre styles. Opening a book is like opening a swag sack and finding treasure.
Last week, I pontificated on how most popular stories, books, and movies are fantasy tales and more often use Science Fiction concepts to salt the narrative.
Bond’s adventures, in film at least, apart from Moonraker, are not space-based laser battles, but still employ gizmos and gadgets. Focus shifts a story’s genre footprint; a venn diagram of emphasis; Action with Romance, or Romance with Dark-Fantasy... etc. etc.
It’s perhaps necessary to pigeonhole a book, describing a story as Action and Adventure, vs say Romance or Romantic fiction. Still, the stories that stick across the ages seem to carry multiple genre styles in their bag. Consider retelling classics of old, say King Arthur, Robin Hood, fairy tales, Greek Myth, or Shakespeare...Mentioning these will, for most, bring to mind books like The Once and Future King or films like Excalibur, Robin Hood, for many, will be Errol Flynn, or that song by Bryan Adams.
The point I would make is that, when telling these stories, the jongleur can either focus on the swashbuckling or the romance, but if you take away the Sword from Arthur, or rob Robin of his Marion, is the story recognisable?
Of course, that’s why “Story Origin”, the website that acts as a portal for this Newsletter and promotions, comes with five genre tags. Booksellers, like Amazon, also tag books in a similar way; the author has to decide which label comes first and which to include.
There’s certainly a market for stories that tightly adhere to a single genre, but I find myself writing the kind of stories I enjoy more than others, and these are genre mash-ups, with happy endings. I don’t go to a James Bond movie to see him die at the end. I rewatch The Shop Around the Corner because Mr Kralik and Miss Novak finally work out their differences. Denying the audience the expected outcome often ends badly—I see you, Game of Thrones.
Sure, sure the hero has to have their journey, there must be loss, of life and or battles, before the war is won, but unhappy or unresolved endings are a niche market at best, and while I say to those whose mileage varies, by all means enjoy what you like, for me I want my fiction to be exciting, engaging, and challenging, but ulitmately satisfying.