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What genre is my novel, then? Looking for conventions

Crime scene yellow tape with Do Not Cross written [image courtesy of freepiks.com]
Maybe you're one of those lucky guys who are really, really into one kind of book and know instinctively how to write your own version. You can say, "I love romance" or love mystery, love fantasy. And you can write one.

If you're lucky in that way, you may have been writing for ages from the heart, and you've got a novel on the go that's looking like it's got shape.

I mean it's got the right CONVENTIONS and they're in an order that works.

Conventions! What are they? 

So, basic basic: if you're writing a crime novel there's some must-haves.  A criminal for a start. And plot points: well, a crime is discovered - some goodie must find out what the heck is going on before the clock runs out... clue, clue, false clue - reveal (baddie is caught).  If it doesn't have those things, it's just not a crime novel.

Love story - you know what the conventions are: two people meet - they split up or are split up - they get back either for ever and for good or for a weepy Romeo-and-Juliet demise.

If you were given a love story to read and it didn't have that stuff, then you'd throw it down. It's not a love story. 

So far so obvious, eh? 

Except your reader doesn't ever want something that's exactly the same. She wants something "same but different." Innovative, delightful. Different settings. A quirk or twist. Or maybe something that seems to be the complete opposite. But she still wants those story conventions.

If there's no lovers' meeting - break up - get together - pattern, then you're not writing a love story. 

Fine, you're a creative - you're writing something too wild and innovative to be pinned down.... 

Except, one day someone will ask - 'your book, why should I read it?' - and you'll have to say first what it IS LIKE and then what makes it DIFFERENT.  

How it's different is maybe trickier and is like the chocolate topping on the ice-cream. Give yourself a break though, make the first bit easy. If you've got Pride and Prejudice on your lap then you've got a love story. Doesn't matter how much ELSE it is, how much of it is different. It will appeal to those who like love stories. Those who don't, forget it.

The cool bit is that every kind of story follows conventions like these. All the big conventions will be there in one form or another. The best books do innovations on the conventions. But they all have them. Beginning. Middle. End.

Never forget, the reader isn't reading because they love you - unless it's your mum. The readers is reading because she feels deeply satisfied by twists on her favourite conventions. And every single book either follows the conventions or innovates around them with such brilliance they're remembered forever.

If a reader today likes broken dialogue and crazy weird word patterns, or philosophical ramblings then - there you go, that's their convention. Give it to them or you're not writing the genre of kooky neo-modernism.

If your readers like a first kiss or a murder, nothing wrong with that - but why yours instead of the billions out there.

It's all in the CONVENTIONS. They've got to be there. But yours need to be special. Think hard about how you'll use them. 

So, .... next thing, what exactly might those conventions be in other kinds of story?


Background photo created by kjpargeter - www.freepik.com


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The Virgin Paige

My novel, how I got into writing and how writing got into me: Find out more about the first book on Amazon:

The Virgin Paige: My 12 Months a Troll



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