Genre

How to elbow your way around.

A paradox:

The most successful writers follow genre conventions quite closely.

The most unsuccessful writers follow genre conventions quite closely.

If you think about that really hard, you'll find out that it's quite true. You can pick out the examples you want in the genre you choose.

But I suppose this this is the reason why this paradox occurs:

The successful writers MAKE and MASTER the genre.

The unsuccessful writers COPY AND DESTROY the genre.

Harry Potter is awesome. But every young adult fantasy book after Harry Potter is compared to it in some way, especially by people who think young adult fantasy IS Harry Potter.

No one can write in the same genre as Harry Potter again. Because it is the sort of book that MAKES a genre. And once a genre is made, you can't ever follow the conventions quite the same way.

Thus, to be a successful, in my opinion (which is useless since I'm not successful), you have to form your own genre or at least a sub-genre.

But you also have to do this completely unaware of what you are doing. You can't go: I'm going to form this genre. Because chances are, you're just copying and destroying the genre before it's begun. It just has to happen spontaneously.

To master genre conventions, you have to write as if you are blissfully unaware of them. So that when people read your book, they aren't thinking, "This follows a Harry Potter genre." Instead, they are thinking, "This is a good book." Because they aren't noticing the conventions at all, because the book was written as if it was unaware of them.

Confusing? I think so. But the more I right, the more I realize that I have to be true to MYSELF and not true to some sort of genre. I can't care if the book will sell or if it fits in with an audience or whatever--because then I start limiting myself and what I'm capable of. I have to be creative on my own, write what I want to write regardless of genre and conventions.

Because, if I follow all the conventions, I'm cliched. And if I don't follow any of the conventions, my book probably won't make a lot of sense or have the tension and familiarity it needs.

So I have to make a balance. And that balance is found by being true to the story first and never sticking that story into a genre at all. Because as soon as I stick it into a genre, I'm copying and destroying instead of making and mastering.