Writing When Your Genre Isn’t “In.”
Greetings, my tiny group of subscribers! Sorry that I haven’t posted in awhile, I took a break for the holiday season. Or, if you’re a new reader tuning in, allow me to quickly introduce myself. My name’s Faith Larson, I published my first horror novel, A Soul Made of Cinders, just a few months ago. I specialize in writing horror/comedy, and unfortunately for me, any other genre falls flat. It’s not that I can’t write anything besides horror, it’s just that frankly, I don’t enjoy it.
I’ve been a horror fan since I can remember, and I’m not just talking about psychological masterpieces like Hitchcock. No, I love one of the most looked down on horror subgenres, the kind that gets me weird looks when people ask what my favorite movies are. I’m a major fan of cheesy slasher films, things like Halloween, Scream, Friday the Thirteenth(Yes, even Jason Takes Manhattan), and I try to incorporate the feel of an 80’s horror film into my writing.
The funniest thing to me, is when somebody I know reads my writing, and they try to find a way to compliment it when they absolutely despise horror. I’ve been told my writing was fantastic but they couldn’t sleep that night, that my descriptions were good with no mention of the plot, and other things that would probably make a new author feel discouraged. However, when a horror fan reads my work, they’re usually very excited to talk about it and encourage me to continue on with another novel.
I came across a piece of advice once, when I was dejectedly searching Google for ways to increase book sales. The general message that new authors will get is to write what’s popular if they want to sell copies of their book. While this is an undeniably true fact, I want to remind new authors that the entire point of writing is to create a world that you love, and share it with an audience that wants to delve into that world with you. If you write only to appease to a larger audience, in my opinion, the entire point of becoming a fiction author is lost.
If I had written a romance, or a mystery, or even a supernatural romance with a weirdly sexy werewolf, I would have sold more copies of my novel, and that’s an undeniable fact. But I don’t write for money, I write because I want to scare people. I want to make an audience laugh, sneer, root for and hate my characters. Money is never the reason a fiction author should pick up a pencil, it should be because they have a world they need to get out of their head. Don’t be discouraged if somebody doesn’t like your book, because they were never the target audience.
I write because I enjoy my stories. Why do you write?
