The danger in defying genre in fiction
You are free to write whatever you want to write, but if you want to achieve any semblance of financial success, you have to create something your audience actually wants to read.
Welcome to the Heirs of the Mazzaroth Substack! If this is your first time here, I hope you know how excited I am that you are joining this community. And even those of you who are old-timers, I’m so honored that you’ve decided to follow me from Patreon over here to Substack.
I’ve been working on Substack since the end of 2021, and I really enjoy it. It’s been a successful platform for me and my devotions, so I’m really excited to bring my fiction here.
But I don’t just want to bring my fiction. I want to bring my fiction techniques. I’ve been coaching and editing and teaching fiction writing (specifically speculative fiction) for about ten years, and I realized that maybe I could be a blessing to people by sharing what I’ve learned about writing science fiction and fantasy from a biblical worldview (yes, it’s a thing). And there’s no better way to do that than to use my own examples, because after 20 years pursuing an author career I have made just about every mistake possible!
I’m going to talk about the biggest one right now: I created my own fiction genre and expected people would read it simply because I wrote it.
News Flash: That is false information.
Obviously, you are free to create your own fiction genre. Nothing is stopping you from doing that. You can do whatever you want, write whatever you want, however you want. It’s up to you. But if you want to achieve any level of financial or monetary success in your writing, you have to work within established norms in the industry. At least, until you earn a name that people recognize. Once you have a following, the rules change a little. But until you get there, you have to operate within the tried-and-true boundaries of the industry.
When I first started out writing, I despised tropes. I hated the formulaic storylines that were so predictable and overdone. Part of me still does, but the art of storytelling is being able to put a fresh twist on an old story. After all, there’s nothing new under the sun. There are no new stories; just unique individual authors who are telling them.
But I was determined to do things my own way. I had a concept for a superhero series similar in scope to Marvel Comics (this far predated the Marvel Cinematic Universe). Later in life after I realized my error, I tried to find a genre where it would fit, but it doesn’t really exist. My series has elements of many genres, but overall it defies categorization. Big mistake.
The best genre I can use to summarize it is Epic Contemporary Portal Fantasy. Maybe Epic Urban Fantasy. Except, it really has much more of a focus on science fiction than it does on fantasy. But I don’t even know how to fit that into a compound genre. Maybe I should just call it The Kitchen Sink Genre, because it has a little bit of everything in it.
It’s superheroes. It’s alternate dimensions. It’s elemental samurai armors. It’s energy-based life forms and Centaurs and pointy-eared aliens and people with wings. It’s worldbuilding on the scale of Wheel of Time or Kingkiller Chronicles, but it’s set in modern-ish day America (mostly). It’s dragon-riding, princess superheroes who live in Kansas. It’s found-family themes with samurai-armor-wielding dudes in San Francisco. It’s a socially awkward quasi-Jedi who grew up with walking, talking fox people in another dimension.
I created this massive storyworld when I was nine years old. It was where I went to play and have fun and learn about the world and the people in it. I had no idea that my imaginary stories were actually teaching me how to cope and survive in the real world, but more on that later.
I wrote the first book when I was 11. I had finished more than 30 of them before I went to college. Yes, 30. Full-length novels. Of course, those versions will never see the light of day. But I kept writing, and I kept working, and I kept dreaming.
I had big dreams. And big dreams are good, but even the biggest, most glorious dream will come crashing down if you can’t sustain it. And I had to learn the hard way the value of believing in myself and in what I’ve been called to do in my life. I had to believe it more than anyone else, and I still do.
But, now, I’m a lot older and a little wiser (I hope), and I have come to understand why we need tropes and stock characters and character arcs and all the other little craft details of novel writing. They may be formulaic, but the formula is a starting place.
No one is going to read anything you’ve written just because you wrote it. It doesn’t matter how hard you’ve worked. It doesn’t matter how relevant you say it is. If what you’ve written has no immediate meaning or “so what” aspect for your readers, they won’t read it.
It’s not personal. They just don’t have time.
So the onus is on us, the authors, to make our work inescapable. So compelling, so riveting, that a reader can’t stop reading. And we have to make our blurbs magnetic. We have to invest real money in our covers to catch attention and signal that we are willing to be professional. And we have to be open and honest and loud about how our story will benefit our audience.
So that’s what I’m trying here. This section of my ALL THE STORIES Substack is going to be my great experiment in 2025. I have theories about how to market this beast. I have ideas and concepts, but I’m in a season of life where my time and capacity is severely limited. And since I’m on Substack anyway, I thought maybe I would start sharing about my journey and how I wrote and published more than 20 books in 10 years.
So stick around. Feel free to ask questions. I’m always happy to tell you more than I know. These craft and industry posts will be freely available, but my intent is to begin sharing chapters from my current works in progress.
Today, there are currently five books in the Heirs of the Mazzaroth series available (technically six, but I’ll explain more about that in another post). I’ll post links below if you’re interested.
Check back every Wednesday (hopefully earlier than this, apologies!) for more writing craft and industry content about my lessons learned. And maybe some dragon-riding-princess-snarky-samurai-socially-awkward-sort-of-Jedi action stories.
See you next week!
Amy
Reena Ellis and the Pink Panda Problem (October 2024)
Barb Taylor and the Russian Dolls (May 2024)
Karl Goodson and the Food Truck Fiasco (July 2022)
Ronnie Akkard and the Brotherhood of Blades (March 2020)
Yay! Love your boldness, friend.