It’s been a harrowing week. That is partly why I only blogged once. I’m busy with a story for an anthology and the deadline is looming and life, as always, is doing its level best to interfere with that.
In any case, I’ve been quoted in an article on Venture Galleries where I give my opinion on genre and labelling stories. As always, my opinion stems from my own experience and from what I read from other authors.
I understand that categories are needed for readers to find the kind of books they want. It’s important that clarity exist. You don’t want to confuse potential readers. But when it comes to writing your story, labels and genre shouldn’t matter until the story is told. In that sense story is king. After that, for purposes of clarity, comes genre classification and proper labelling.
Please check out the article. I almost sound knowledgeable.
Woelf
Woelf Dietrich 
I agree. We shouldn’t think to genres until we start marketing our novel… which means when the novel it’s finished 😉
Though I do think giving some serious thought to how to present the story is important, and I think it should make sense. I read a lot of authors saying, my story is a bit of everything, not easy to qualify. Sure, even when this is true, I don’t think you’re doing a good service to yourself. If as an author I understand the feeling that your story is difficult to label, as a reader I wouldn’t read a story that ‘is a bit of everything’ and the author themselves don’t seem to be able to say what kind of story it is.
So, yes, I think we shouldn’t think about genres when we write, but once we’re done, we should definitely give a good thought to it.
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Agreed. When we say story is king we say that when we write the story it’s all about the story. You write the thing until it is finished. Then you decide where it should fit. Then you find an appropriate category, even if you have to create a subcategory. But labels and genre shouldn’t dictate how you write a story. Your story–the finished product–should dictate the genre or label. And that is fine. Once the book is finished you can decide what kind of reader would like it, what kind of segment would be interested in reading your story. No matter what you put in your story, there will always be a category for it.
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