Are You Trying to Write a Book in Each Genre?

I’ve heard this question more than once when potential buyers approach my display tables at book fairs and see books ranging from one on Shakespeare to novels about mass killers.  My answer is no: I simply have an unruly muse.  Different kinds of stories attract me and demand to be told.  Thus far my books fall into such categories as southern Gothic as such as Faulkner’s and Robert Penn Warren’s novels do, comic fantasy, such as my Kentucky Colonel series, HELL IS WHERE THE HEART IS, and MURSKIN DURKIN, although final one has more comic sci-fi in it than fantasy. The Colonel novels are more light-hearted, but I have come to think of HELL IS as a comical satire in the spirit of Ben Jonson’s plays. MADONNA is a horror novel with a religious subtext; PLAYER GODS is a sense is an attempt to create a book-long nightmare that, I suppose, defies genre.  I have probably omitted a form or two I’ve written in, but sticking to one type is not how my mind functions.  The standard advice to beginning writers is to stick to one genre and attempt to build up a group of readers centered upon one character.  (I’m not so sure this advice is still valid). A friend of mine consulted an agent and said that she was interested in writing both science fiction and Christian women’s fiction. The agent told her to choose one. She chose Christian women’s fiction, but I have noticed that she is venturing into sci-fi. Despite my wide range of novels, I do believe them united by seeing myself as what I call a serious writer.  I’ll explain about that idea tomorrow.