DeAnna Knippling's Blog, page 75

The Heavy Lifting We Do for Story, or Reminiscing about Dragonlance

So everyone has a few books, movies–stories–from childhood that don’t bear examination.  My childhood went on longer than most in that respect (and is still going on), and so I’m going to use the first Dragonlance series as my example here, which I didn’t read until early college.  I was an English major, and was being thoroughly trained to think I should have known better.

Than to read them, than to like them.

I ate them up in huge gulps.

Recently I went back to reread them.  It was a hard thing, because they didn’t catch me up and pull me in the way they used to.  They were no longer perfect books.  I saw them in a harsher light than I ever had back in college, under the thumbs of people who were trying to instill a love of complexity and richness in words in me.

They still had something, though.

Character–they still had character.  And plot.   That great big arc of plot.  I reread them and enjoyed them and cursed them for trying to tell an eight-book story in three books (they later went back and filled in more than eight books in side trilogies–which I never read).  They stuck with me in a way that other, supposedly better books never did.  The Dragonlance books had something that stayed with me, year after year, change after change.

They were still good books.  I remembered almost everything in them, twenty years later.  I remember them better than I remember most of the people I met in college, and most of the things I did.  And that is saying something: more real than real.

But the person who had made them into perfect books was me.

I filled in the gaps.  I wanted so hard to believe that I repaired all flaws, added all omissions, and elevated what was slapdash.  I didn’t just suspend disbelief but roll up my sleeves and get to work.  They left me a lot of heavy lifting to do, and I did it with a will.

The more I learn as a writer, the more tolerant I become of problems in books.  Some things are still hard to swallow.  I still feel a clench in the gut when I pick up something I know well, and it falls apart upon examination, when I realize just how much of what made that book wonderful was my imagination smoothing over the gaps in what a writer actually put on the page.  But I forgive most of it.

There is something there that lasts beyond my analysis, beyond any conscious judgement of plot or character or description or pace.

Story.

I’m a writer.  And I’ve loved reading as far back as I can remember.  I spend a lot of time just listening to people, figuring out how to push their buttons so they will open up and tell me stories.

But what is story?

I’ve been familiar with story all these years, and yet when I try to look straight at it–the better I get at writing, the more I realize that I can’t see it that way.

Story is when you can relive a book twenty years later.  Story is when you quote movies in a conversation.  Story is when a falsehood comes up in conversation and you burst out laughing because you read a book that skewered that particular lie so thoroughly that you’ll never be taken in by it again.  Story is something that lives in you after the book or movie or whatever is gone.

I believe is story.  Fanfic is story (like Looney Toons parodying Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath).  Wanting to escape your real world and live there is story.  Story is a t-shirt, a meme on the Internet.

Not plot, not something you can get at consciously.  Something for which you will do whatever heavy lifting is necessary.

Where am I even getting with this?

Maybe, as kids, we were wiser than we knew.  I’m comfortable with that statement.  Or: Writing classes didn’t teach me much about story.  Literature classes, okay, some of them did, but not the writing classes.  Also a comfortable statement.  How about, “When working on writing a good book, maybe there’s more to it than you can really analyze.”  Also okay.

But–there’s also this uncomfortable feeling that goes with this.

Story rides in your subconscious first.

This means I may never be able to consciously control a story.  It’s so deep that I can’t get at it.   Maybe I can dig out my channels so that story can flow out unimpeded, but all the analysis in the world won’t give me story.  Faith might give me a good story.  Practice.  But not analysis.

I don’t like that.

And yet – some writers find out how to do it consistently.  Some writers have a book or two that you remember.  One series maybe.  But some writers do it over and over and over.  They have hits and misses – and yet.  Story in every one of them.

I don’t know, maybe I’m wrong.  But it feels like those are the ones who also don’t leave a lot of heavy lifting for the reader, either.  Well-crafted books don’t necessarily make for a good story, and a good story doesn’t necessarily have to reside inside a well-crafted book…but for consistency, it seems like having both is the way to go.

New Kids’ Novella: Guinea Pig Apocalypse

You can get Guinea Pig Apocalypse at these online retailers, with more to come: Amazon, Kobo, Smashwords.  B&N had issues when I went to post the story so it’s running late, should be up tomorrow.  Amazon’s alllllmost there.  I can feel it.

Pleeeeaase keep in mind that this is middle-grade fiction, ages 9-13 or so, and read this before giving to kids younger than that.  Some Guinea pigs die, and the word “poop” is used a goodly amount.

Guinea Pig Apocalypse

by De Kenyon

Galileo’s mad-scientist parents have done it again: invented something that got completely out of control.  This time, it’s a matter replicator in their basement.  And a squirrel army out to get rid of the humans.  And lots…and LOTS of Guinea pigs out of sewage.  Yuck!

Now it’s up to Galileo and his friend, the giant Guinea pig Max, to stop the pigs from being mind-controlled by the squirrels and taking over the world!

 

On Grimdark: or popup subgenres on the greater froth of story

Grimdark:  what is it?  I had no idea until recently, other than it pisses off authors who are labeled with it.  So I looked it up.  This turned out to be a bad idea, because it’s a bigger subject than I should probably get into at six-thirty in the morning on a school day with a cheesecake to drop off.  But let me sum up.

The term grimdark is based on a tagline from the Warhammer 40K franchise:  ”In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war.”  Huh.  Very cool. My googled sources (and let me note that you cannot AVG a search term, so get off my @#$%^&* browser, you piece of @#$% sneakware) say that the term “grimdark” is often used to mock that which it describes.  Apparently it started out as a description for fanfic, and seems to be used now on everything from My Little Pony to Emo.  Mark Lawrence, whose Prince of Thrones and King of Thrones books I just finished recently (and loved) and who is getting called one of the fathers/founders/major writers of grimdark fiction, seems to be rolling his eyes about the label.  I also see it being used as a critical term, as in “Grimdark = sexist.”

The thing that interests me is watching a subgenre forming.

I’m in the middle of this one.   I wasn’t in the middle of Steampunk.  Sorry, folks, but it turns out I just don’t give a damn about Steampunk.  It’s interesting, I like the clothes, I like the setting, but the stories themselves don’t fill any great longing in me.  I’d rather watch from the outskirts drinking my tea and trying to figure out what, other than aesthetics, it means when you stick clockwork on something and spraypaint it copper, than get down in the overly mannered mosh pit, thanks.  But I’ve always liked grim, dark stories; they do fill some great longing in me, no matter what genre I find them in.

So I finished King of Thrones last night and looked the sequel up on Amazon:  it’s not coming out until August 6.  I’m hungry for more.  Now what?

Scroll down to “Customers who bought this item also bought.”

Get enough author recommendations that cross-reference each other in Library Space, and you get a subgenre.  There’s a craving for a particular emotion, a particular type of experience–stories crystallize around it until it’s a subgenre.  If that need stays the same, the subgenre becomes more and more solid, like layers of a pearl coalescing around the irritant of that initial craving.   If the need changes, drifts into other areas, or is just too free-floating to coalesce for long, the subgenre dissolves, leaving a few framents in history, like splatterpunk.  I think “grimdark” is more of the latter type, a flash in the pan, an upwelling of aspects of horror and noir in high/epic fantasy, possibly in reaction against things like The Wheel of Time series, possibly in reaction toward Game of Thrones, that will soon move on.

Personally, I think I like grimdark, or what I think of as grimdark, because, as far as I can tell, the stories are about corrupt, calcified worlds falling to pieces and becoming subject to change–and I can really get behind that right about now.  After a generation of mostly “Good guys vs. bad guys, you can tell the difference because, um, good guys!  Yay yay yay!” I’m about ready for a change.  Plus, I grew up in the 80s, and we pretty much knew that we were going to get blown up by nukes while we huddled uselessly under desks.  This grimdark stuff just feels familiar.

Give me the Invader Zims, the Frankensteins, the Hordes, the Clockwork Oranges, the Thomas Covenants, the Red Harvests, the Dark Towers, the Heathers, the Long Price Quartets, the Bukowskis, the bad fighting the worse.  It’s not pretty, but at least it doesn’t pretend to be nice.  I want to see more characters who aren’t young white males taking a stand and being just as nasty as anyone else, but really, I’ll read this grimdark stuff anyway, because what I relate to is that sense that the established order isn’t all it’s cracked up to be–it’s just a heirarchy, and heirarchy means bullies, and we’re all part of it, so that means the bullies are us.

 

Indie Authors: to review or not to review?

If I collected all the reviews I’ve written over the years, I would probably have enough to make a novel.

But when I don’t record what I read somehow, I pick up books that I’ve read before from the library or the bookstore or whatever.  I do.  I seriously do, especially series books and nonfiction.

If I did nothing but write fiction all day, I’d have more books and stories out, and I’d be a better writer.

But if I didn’t connect to anyone–I’d be too lonely and depressed to write.

If I never wrote another review, I’d never have to worry about alienating a reader with something I’ve written, for example, if I didn’t care for their favorite author’s latest book as much as they did.  And I’d never have to cope with the Blog Comments from Hell.

But if I didn’t give props to the people who inspire me, that’s just sad.  And if I had to live in fear of what I say all the time, I might as well quit writing now.

—

I’ve been back and forth on the subject of writing reviews lately:  should I or shouldn’t I?  I went a while without writing them after going to a workshop where I saw–in person I saw–an editor judge someone based on something that the editor had specifically been told they couldn’t judge writers on.  It was terrifying.  Suddenly all I could think was, “What if someone judges me for something I blog about?  What if someone judges me based on a review?  Oh crap, Facebook.” And so on.

So I mostly quit blogging, quit writing reviews.  Stopped doing a lot of things on Facebook that might, someday, get held against me.

In the case of Facebook, I feel like I’m doing the right thing, because the kind of posts that I started holding back on were the kind that made me mad when other people posted the same type.  Facebook is different than blogging–not by much, but enough.  When you post, your entries show up in other people’s feeds, and a lot of time, just skimming through Facebook entries, you can easily get dragged down by negativity and hate and resentment and repetition.  And more repetition.  And more…

Blogs?  They’re different because you have to go to a blog on purpose.  The entries have titles: a hint as to what you’re getting into.   You can get surprised, but you have a choice to get surprised.  In Facebook, you can get dragged down into despair from a thousand directions without having to make more than one click.  Twitter, too.

And book reviews?  You have to go looking for them, most of the time.  You have to want to know.

That’s not to say reviews and blogs don’t need some gentleness.  They do.  Blogs and reviews need to be generous, I think.  And short, because novels are otherwise not getting written.  Short stories.  This blog is easily a flash fiction–about 500 words.

But I didn’t get into this writing business in order to not express myself.  There’s wisdom…and then there’s life.   Now that I know a little more of the cost of being out in the world, I’ll do it differently.  But I still want to be there.

 

Call for Participants: Wild-Ass Novel Project

Writer Friends in COS/DEN area: I want to try something weird, a collaborative novel project using a particular technique. The specifics (like genre) will vary on who/how many/where the people are who want to jump in. I want to run this something like a writer group, where we meet for a couple of hours and write: like, 1/2hr kibitiz, an alarm goes off, and we speed-write for an hour or so, the alarm goes off, and done.

I want this to be a NON STRESS project, a fun/learning project. There will be no critiquing. When we’re done we can decide what, if anything, to do with it. This is just to get writing and look at plotting.

OWNers and people taking the DWS online workshops: This is the novel-in-a-weekend project, just not in a weekend.

Drop me a line if you’re interested, and I’ll get a conversation started somewhere convenient.

New Dark Fantasy Short Story: Red Meat Riding Hood

You can get it at these places, with more to come: Amazon, B&N, Kobo, Apple, Smashwords.

Red Meat Riding Hood

by DeAnna Knippling

Once upon a time…in some very strange woods indeed.

Once upon a time in a forest so far away as to be entirely unlike the forests that you get around here, a little girl realized that it was time to grow up and go out into the world, despite the best intentions of everyone around her.

And so she set off in search of Grandmother’s house, for Grandmother was known as entirely strange sort of person who had left the path—all paths—behind.

She took a basket that looked like an egg and felt like an egg but was really the shellacked pages of books, from which the words had escaped or been elided, containing an umbrella that would keep off the rain of other people’s dreams, and a persimmon that was a cure for all doubt, and set off from the words that anyone could know…

A surreal retelling of a young woman’s journey through an unknown and unknowable forest.

 

Results for the “Done” Short Story Contest

Congratulations to everyone who entered the contest!  Here were the rules, which I put up at the Pikes Peak Writers’ Conference:

Do you have what it takes to write a perfect short story?  Me either.  So we’re not going for “Great.” We’re going for “Done.”

Rules:

Your character is an insecure traveler who is obsessed with obtaining something in particular.  You get to pick what they’re obsessed about.
An ancient ruin in the middle of a forest.  Any place, any time, doesn’t have to be our world.
Your character is about to get married to the wrong person (whether they know it or not).
Story AND PROOF OF SUBMISSION must be emailed to dknippling@gmail.com by midnight Wednesday, April 24

Prizes:

$50 Amazon Gift Card for first story received.
Two $25 Amazon Gift Cards drawn from all stories received by deadline.
No other judging will be performed.  Goofy?  Serious?  Planet destroyed by aliens, the end?  All we care about is done!

The point of all this?

To help motivate people to write, finish what they write, and submit what they write (look up Heinlein’s Rules sometime).
To take perfection out of the equation and just have fun!

Here are the results:

We had 10 entries.  Yay!  Each entrant had a one-in-ten chance of winning.   But wait…

Of the 10 entries, in the end, five didn’t give proof that they submitted the story to a market.  Upon rereading the directions, I allowed that it might have been easy to overlook that requirement, so I emailed all the people who didn’t send proof to let them know…and still ended up with five who didn’t get back to me.

Which mean that each entrant had a one-in-five chance of winning.  But wait…

Of the five remaining entries, two were received past the deadline.

Which mean that each entrant had a one-in-three chance of winning.  But wait…

There are three prizes.

So!  Everyone who followed directions…gets an Amazon gift card out of this.  I’ll reveal names in a minute.

Other items of interest:

Wordcount ranged from 705 to 5700 words.
Genres submitted: SF, Fantasy, Adventure (Mainstream or, mmm, maybe Thriller on that one), Modern fairytale (fantasy), Western Romance, Romance, Fantasy, Pulp Adventure (Mainstream or Mystery/Crime, depending on how the writer was feeling about markets that day), Magic Realism (Mainstream or Fantasy), and Mainstream Fiction (that could easily slide into Mystery/Crime with a few edits).

Two of the stories used the same-ish setting (Mexico), but in commmpletely different ways.

What did we learn out of this?

ME: Write clearer directions.  WRITERS:  If submission guidelines aren’t clear–ask.  And follow up on feedback ASAP!
ME: Specify standard manuscript format.  WRITERS:  Always submit your work in standard manuscript format unless specifically instructed otherwise.  I prefer Times New Roman subs, but hey, Courier’s cool.  Do not show up at your writer-job-interview wearing bunny slippers.  Sadly: LOTS of bunny slippers here.
ME: You have to draw the line somewhere.  WRITERS:  Deadline, deadline, deadline.
ME:  People were a lot more positive about this than I expected.  However, a lot of people I remember saying “Oh, what a cool idea” didn’t send anything.  A couple of people told me that they started but didn’t finish (extra props to them…but no $).  WRITERS:  No, you can’t chase down every opportunity that comes your way, but you should be chasing down as many as you can.  Repeatedly.  Because often if you follow the directions…you win.

Where the stories any good?  Ahhh, that wasn’t part of the contest, was it?  But let me say – they were stories, no better or worse than what I see come through the slush pile.

Great job to everyone who participated!  Keep working on professionalism…you’re already ahead of the people who didn’t turn anything in.  As for the people who didn’t submit:  You can’t win if you don’t play.  Rejection isn’t losing, it’s just a busted lottery ticket

Winners!

First in – John K. Patterson ($50 gift card).
In by deadline – Dori McCraw ($25 gift card).
In by deadline – AmyBeth Inverness ($25 gift card).

Thanks all, and we’ll have to do this again sometime

 

 

4-Hour Short Story…go!

Right, at the last minute I decided to not submit to my own contest, but to just write for it using the same parameters.  I’m itching to write something fun and fast today, and I don’t have a lot of time.  We’ll see how it goes.

Anyway, here’s my steps:

1) Pick genre (and market).  I’m planning to submit to Neverland’s Library: 9:37 a.m.

Neverland’s Library will be an anthology focusing on the rediscovery of the fantastic; magic, dragons, the supernatural, etc. We are looking for stories which highlight finding that which was once thought lost, incorporating fantastical and/or fictitious elements. We will not restrict how the story is told. All styles, settings, and tones are welcome.

2) Wrote log line and blogged.  9:57 a.m.

An insecure school teacher obsessed with finding a fiction blade, Flamestriker, from one of her favorite novels, flees her wedding to go to a lost temple in southern Mexico to find it.  But when she finds it, will she be strong enough to keep it from murdering her handsome tour guide…or her archaeologist fiance?

Updates:

Opening done, 275 words.  10:21.

First try/fail cycle done, 803 words.  10:49.  Hungry, time to make some ramen.

Second try/fail cycle done, 1726 words.   11:50, with 20-minute break for lunch.  I went sliiightly overboard on this section, almost 1000 words.

Third try/fail cycle done, 2152 words.  12:12.  Poor, poor Elaine.

Climax done, 3054 words.  1:09.  Galadriel goes into the West.

Validation done, 3400 words. 1:21.

Ugh, editing.  The joy of writing is collapsed like a souffle poked by the brutal fork of analysis.

Time to quote myself:

The temple itself isn’t terribly large.  Once past the intimidating exterior and the baleful glares of monkeys stuffing their faces with cockroaches and mangoes, sunning themselves, and picking bugs out of each others’ fur in the dawn light, it is cool inside, and deliciously free of bugs, although admittedly the ammonia from the bat guano burnt my nose and lungs severely, to the point of coughing a few thin trickles of blood.  The stones are rather plain and free of carving, except for the first few dozen feet of the entrance hall.  For all I know, the twisted, grotesque carvings could mean, “Abandon all hope ye who enter here” or “Twelve bedrooms, two baths, no insects!!! If you love bats, call Nahuatl Chimalli, 555-9973.”

Done editing.  3652 words.

Sent to Neverland’s Library and reported on Duotrope.com.  2:04.

Total time: about four hours.  That is, about four hours and 20 minutes, less 20 minutes for lunch.  (I also took another 10 minute break in there while I was working out the ending and did dishes.  Cleaning things helps put my thoughts in order.)

Final note:

Successfully ignoring the voice in my head–shouting–”You suck you suck you suck!!!!”  That is, I hear it, but now that I’ve clicked “Send” it’s too late for it to do anything about it!  Now off to do the editing and 1001 other things I’m already behind on.  But I feel pretty good anyway.

Character, Setting, Problem

What tools do we need as writers?  How are they different from the tools we needed and learned as readers?

There is a difference.

For example, readers learn that well-rounded characters are interesting, but how do you write a well-rounded character, if you don’t have an innate sense of what a well-rounded character is?  Readers learn how to recognize one when they see one.  But that, alone, doesn’t make you a writer of well-rounded characters, or of any character at all.  What if you’ve read plenty of examples of well-rounded characters, and your characters still fall flat?

I”m trying to reconstruct what the writer tools are.  I’m at that point, I guess.

Today: my current guesses as to character, setting, and problem.  I’m using the Algis Budrys seven-point plot outline, for reasons I won’t get into here.

A character
in a setting
with a problem
which the character tries to solve
only to experience unexpected failure
followed by either victory or defeat, leaving a need for
validation.

Character

I ended up with three traits to make a character:

An attitude
A role in society
A background

A character is a fictional person with an attitude, role in society, and background.  I think this is a good starting point for discussion, because by combining these three elements, you can end up with interesting characters to write about.

A rude waitress from 1950s Alabama
A disdainful Viscount from 1810 Yorkshire
A dreamy-eyed cook from ancient Egypt

This should at least tell you whether you have the right name, clothes, and dialogue for the character when you start writing. You can always round out the character by making them have two conflicting elements, like “A rude but tender-hearted Asian waitress from 1950s Alabama,” or “A disdainful Viscount with a flair for engineering from 1810 Yorkshire,” or “A dreamy-eyed, pinch-fisted Greek cook from ancient Egypt.”

Setting

With setting, I narrowed it down to three (but possibly four, depending on the story) elements.  You can really go nuts (and should, if that’s what you like) on working out historical fact, or rules for how things operate, or maps, or how people dress, or whether a certain word fits in the time period (my favorite), or any other of a thousand different things.  But here’s my guess at the basics.

A place
A time
An opinion
(Optional) How far from reality it is.

A setting is a place and time, as framed by an opinion, possibly also by how far away from reality it is.  The characters have to have an opinion on the setting, even if it’s just to take the place for granted.  But there’s also room for opinions like, “I like it when magic has as much structure as technology does,” or “Sometimes the people who try to save the environment do more harm than good,” or “I’m a [insert political orientation here] and you should be, too.”

Surreal 1950s suburban landscape
Politically charged, magical ancient China
Dystopian post-industrial future
A careless day in Regency England

I think here that there is no limit to the complexity you can add, but if you want to make a “well-rounded” setting, I’d go for complexity of opinion.  ”Surreal but comforting 1950s suburban landscape.”  ”Politically charged, nostalgic, magical ancient China.”  ”Dystopian yet hopeful post-industrial future.”  ”A careless but tragic day in Regency England…the day Queen Charlotte died.”

Problem

I found breaking down problems trickier than the other two.  I’m not sure I’m there yet.

A situation
That compels the character into action
But there’s a caveat

I’m going to say a “problem” could be an opportunity, as long as there are issues in chasing the opportunity.  Indiana Jones doesn’t have to go looking for that idol, does he?  But it’s not easy.  The thing that compels the character into action is some part of their character. If you like, the situation is the external goal, the thing that compels the character is their internal motivation, and the caveat is the conflict.  Without the caveat, a situation can be resolved by a sufficiently competent character (I treat incompetence as a caveat).

X can’t resist the challenge (compel) of a tomb containing a priceless antiquity (situation), but it’s guarded by countless traps (caveat).
A bad day at the subway (sit) that makes X snap (comp) when X can’t afford to lose focus on an assassination job (cav).
An unbearable (comp) injustice happens to X’s worst enemy (sit) when any attempt to help him will cause a war (cav).

Saying that a problem is goal, motivation, and conflict doesn’t do it for me.  It doesn’t build stories for me; it only helps me analyze.  Thus, this.

Shake it all about

An unbearable injustice happens to a rude waitress from a surreal,1950s suburban Alabama’s worst enemy, and any attempt to help him will cause a war between diners.
A dreamy-eyed cook, brought to a dystopian post-industrial future from ancient Egypt in a failed time-travel experiment, has a bad day at the subway that makes her snap when she can’t afford to lose focus on an assassination job.
A disdainful Viscount from 1810 Yorkshire sets off on a careless day in Regency England because he can’t resist the challenge of a tomb containing a priceless antiquity, but it’s guarded by countless traps: marriageable women and their domineering aunts.

Sticking these things together: on the first one, I tried to stick together two things that matched and one that didn’t, and patched the holes to make sense (I liked this one the best).  The second one, I stuck together three things that didn’t match and patched things together as little as possible (it feels like a Phil K Dick story to me, actually, too much of a muchness).  The third one, I stuck together three things that matched (it sounds so plausible that I have no interest in writing it, but I wouldn’t mind reading it).

There are still a number of ways for each potential story to go; I doubt that any two writers would handle them the same.  But they are story ideas, so I think I’m getting close

More on Genre: “What Should I Write?”

Last week I did a post called “When you promise genre, what do you promise?”  More thoughts on the subject here.  (Yes, it’s arrogant of me to pick genre apart at this level.  No, I really am that analytical, so I will end up doing it anyway, even if it’s idiotic.)  The tl:dr is after the last bolded header

 

One of the things you ask as a beginning reader is, “What should I write?”

The usual advice is, “Whatever you want.”

If you push people a little further they’ll go, “You shouldn’t write to the market, because the market will change by the time you get done writing.”  And if you keep pushing, agents and editor may admit that yes, it’s nice to keep an eye on the market, but really, you have to write what you want to write.

Dean Wesley Smith talks about this this week too, in “Return on Investment,” which sparked some thoughts on this snowy morning (about three inches, thanks) about how it ties to my running meditation on genre.  If you’re a Zen master you think about the nature of desire and how it’s illusory.  If you’re me you think about how to make people want to buy your books.

I started out thinking, “Okay, I’ve done more or less what I wanted to with the main genres, and getting things organized.  What about subgenres?”  I quickly realized that I don’t know enough about every damn subgenre to be able to lay out the emotional expectations for every one.  I only know some, and some of those that I read, I don’t understand well enough to explain.  After talking to my friend Doyce about magical realism last week, I realized that you can go down the rabbit hole, trying to figure out the fine points of a subgenre.   There probably isn’t a limit to the knowledge of a subgenre you can gain, and you can follow a specific niche up to the bestseller lists.  I’m pretty sure being “the” expert writer in a niche is a good way to go.  I’m not trying to say you shouldn’t study subgenre, just that I’m not the person to give an overview of all of them.

But I still have to answer the question: “What should I write?”

The problem is that subgenres change.  (I’m going to avoid pointing out in detail how subgenres are like froth on the top of an ocean wave, because I’m going to have to name names, and someone will be defensive about their subgenre not being dead, and that’s not the point.)  At any rate, aiming at a subgenre is trying to hit a moving target, which is what I think agents and editors are talking about when they say, “By the time you go to get published the scene will be different.”

After some thought, I ended up with four points to consider with subgenres:

What you want to write
What you’re good at writing
What readers want to read
What gatekeepers think will sell

Indies, stay with me on this last one.  Amazon is a gatekeeper when they list their categores and decide whether or not to put you on some list.  (Anyone who’s had to deal with the current lack of YA as a category at KDP knows what I mean.  WTF, Amazon?)  Indies have gatekeepers, too.

Okay.  Imagine a Venn diagram (those ones with the overlapping circles) with four circles.  Ideally, what you should write is someplace where all four circles overlap.  You write what you want to write, which you’re good at writing, and it’s what readers want to read and what the gatekeepers think will sell.  Money!  Success!  Fame!

However, all four circles move.

This means that you need different strategies for different stages of your game.

As a beginning writer, you’re not good at anything (or don’t know if it you are), you don’t know what readers want, and you don’t know what the gatekeepers think will sell.  Therefore, write what you want to write and work on improving craft.  If you get published, great!  But it’s really dumb luck, and might not be repeatable once those circles move again, so keep working.  You can guess at the other three circles and should.  But the important thing is just to keep writing, really.
As a writer who is getting better at craft, you don’t know what readers want and you don’t know what the gatekeepers think will sell.  Write what you want to write with an eye towards expanding your craft skills.  Write specificially to improve something you’re not good at.  Now you should know what you’re good at.  Don’t just write there.  Don’t sit still; all four circles are moving.  You can guess at the other two circles and should.  You might end up in a subgenre, you might not.  It’s more luck than not.
When you know what you’re doing, you can really start getting into the meat of what readers want, and how specifically to do it to them. This is where you really have a handle on subgenres, on your subgenre.  You can actually write fast enough to keep up with the markets and trends now, but should you?  Should you write something that isn’t within your area of interest?  If you’ve been working on expanding your craft (you have), then you have a pretty wide area of interest, because it turns out it’s really hard to learn certain techniques without reading the hell out of certain genres, dammit, so now’s the time to start considering whether you should write a project to a subgenre if you don’t naturally read that subgenre, or if it’s a new subgenre.  I think.  (A note: I’m not here yet.  I can almost see it over the top of the @#$%^&* hill, though.)
When you know what you’re doing with readers…you can make your own subgenre.  Or even genre.  You can move the little circle that is “What the gatekeepers think will sell” all by yourself.  This might happen accidentally, by being at the right place at the right time and being good at it.  Or it could be on purpose.  The more I read Patterson, the more I go, “This guy invented Thrillers.  Other people were headed toward that spot.  They built a fertile ground.  But that guy said ‘this is how it’s going to go down,’ and nailed it to the wall.”  It didn’t happen without knowing what the reader wanted.  He didn’t just say, “You will want Thrillers.”  But he did go to the gatekeepers and say, “This is what you will sell.”

Should you try to write to a certain subgenre or to follow a trend that may or may not become a subgenre?  Yes, if you’re a pro-level writer and you’re interested.  No, if you’re much under or above pro level.  (That is, go ahead and do it anyway, but don’t force yourself to write something you don’t want to.  I’m all about breaking writing rules.  But don’t expect to make the same sales as a pro writer doing the same thing.)

But does that even answer the question about what a subgenre means, emotionally or otherwise?

No, it just sets the stage.

How do you figure out if you’re in a subgenre?  What even makes a subgenre?

I suggest that subgenres are so different that it’s pointless to say, “You just need to find out X, Y, and Z, and that will tell you the subgenre.”  The subgenres split along such different lines that categorizing even what makes a subgenre across different genres becomes meaningless.

So…how to find out your subgenre?

I propose two methods for finding out:

Research existing books.
Research the audience.

How would I research existing books?

This sounds pretty basic, but I hadn’t been doing it, hadn’t even realized that I needed to be doing it, so maybe it’s not as obvious as it sounds.  Bear with me.

Find out what the top 100 books of that subgenre are.  Make sure you’ve read at least one book by each author on the list.  On a list dominated by one guy (e.g., Patterson), read a lot more of that guy.  Make sure you’re up on at least 25 specific books on that list.  What King did 30 years ago is not what he’s doing today.  Study books from the last 10 years especially (thank you, Dean).  You might think you know a subgenre, but what you know is Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers (cough-me and cozies-cough).  The circles have moved since freakin’ Heinlein and Asimov, right?  They’ve even moved since Snow Crash.

Look for patterns.  What types of patterns you find will be different and not limited to these.  But play with:

What type of character is the main character?
What problems does the main character face?
How many “real” people are there, who affect the outcome of the story?  Versus “extras.”  Who are they?
What is the main character really afraid of, when stripped of all situational/external trappings?
What are the main character’s goals?
What does the main character want–their motivation–underneath it all?
What kind of external/internal conflicts are there?
What is the setting like?
Are there rules to the setting (e.g., rules of magic)?
What does the character feel about the setting?
What possible opinions of the author does the setting reflect?

I keep thinking in terms of character/setting/problem here, and finding out what external goals in internal conflicts are implied in that. I wish I could nail this down better, but I think I’m working at the edge of my abilities here

How would I research the audience?

Who is reading this type of book?

Age
Gender
Social status
Educational background
Opinions (political, religious, cultural)

Once you know those things, think about what that kind of person is likely to want.

Let me apologize here for not actually being an expert on this, just someone who likes to analyze.  This could be, and probably is, totally off.

But–let’s go back to the example of Geezer Lit from the other day.  It’s so new that there probably isn’t a bestseller list for you to look at, and the audience is pretty clearly defined: geezers.

They feel mature but not decrepit; they have a sense of humor; they’ll appreciate references to Baby Boomer stuff.  (A facile assessment, I know.)  They probably want to be reminded of good things from the past (with maybe a shrug towards the bad things), they probably want to feel more in control of or more accepting of a changing environment, they want to make fun of young idiots (cheap shots are still pretty satisfying), and they want to laugh.

I think that probably “chick lit” was such a hated term not because of the books that came out of it but because the label made assumptions about the audience that the audience didn’t make about themselves.  It showed a lack of reader understanding by the gatekeepers.  You say, “African-American fiction,” not “@#$$%^ lit.” (Sorry.)

I don’t know that “geezer lit” will fly.  I see a lot of Boomers who have a good sense of humor, who are at ease with making fun of themselves…but “geezer.”  I’m just not sure about that term.  I guess we’ll find out.

But…

Most subgenres aren’t going to be as easy to identify via audience research, unless you do surveys or something.  Who reads Regency Romances?  Who reads Steampunk?  Who reads cozies?   With solid subgenres, there has been this kind of research, so I’d go in search of it.  But it might also be good to do the reading and hypothesize about the audience from the patterns that you pick up from the books.

Example.  I’ve been reading a lot of Regencies lately, after not having been a romance reader at all.  I’ve loved Jane Austin forever; it seemed logical.  However, I found that I tend to dislike earlier actual Regencies.  Georgette Heyer puts me to sleep.  There’s only so much Stephanie Laurens I can take.  The newer stuff, I’m quite fond of.

One pattern I’ve noticed that carries throughout:  social customs are important.  One pattern that I’ve noticed that’s changed:  how one deals with social customs.  For example, the idea that if you don’t inherit or marry money that you will be poor is there, but how the characters deal with it changed.  Before, the story was: a poor girl marries a rich man (Mr. Darcy).  Now you get things like The Ugly Duchess, where the main character not only is a self-rescuing princess but makes her own dresses.  It’s the guy who needs the money, to bail out his craptastic dad.

Extrapolate.  How has the audience for Regencies changed, and how have they remained the same?

We still want the pretty dresses.  But we don’t want to be rescued so much as…what?  Known?  Accepted for who we are?  There are different opinions, both in books and in the people who read them.   The main characters are more active.   They don’t rebel against social mores just to be rebelling, then have to learn how to tone it down in order to fit into society.  They tend to make themselves the exception to the rule more:  the ton can say what it wants.  I have what I want and I live by my rules.  –A wish fulfillment, but a different one than in the past.

It’s a solid subgenre, but that circle’s still moving.  I think what readers wanted changed, and what the gatekeepers thought would sell changed, and what the bestsellers did to fill what the readers now wanted changed the gatekeepers, etc.

So after all that…

1) What should you write? Write what you want to write.  Don’t kill your desire to write by writing what you don’t want to write.  Eventually you will have broad enough tastes and skills that you can fuss with following or creating trends.

2) Are you writing in a specific subgenre?  If you want to write in a specific subgenre, you have to pay your dues and research the subgenre and the audience of that subgenre.  Things change too much, even in established subgenres, to come up with a systematic answer.  Do mess around.  But if you want to nail it, first you do the research, and then you write the story.