It's a Genre-ation thing...

the testing of archie rathbone

Well here goes...

As will become starkly clear to you, I'm something of a novice blogger. Because of this, although I understand that one can do all sorts of clever things with the technology (widgets, RSS feeds, hyperlinks etc) I'm afraid you'll find my blog rather rough and ready until I get to grips with them.

Earlier today I joined the YA Science Fiction/Fantasy Group, and going through the process actually forced me to stop and ask myself...why? That might seem a strange thing to do - it does to me. It's certainly not that I think of myself as a YA Science Fiction/Fantasy author - as I tried to explain on my introductory post, I don't think I've ever considered myself as writing for or in any specific genre (or genres).

The first novel I wrote was undeniably an Historical Fiction - inspired by a life long fascination with Ancient Egypt. A little later in my writing 'career' I wrote a children's book about a dragon - inspired by a desire to have a 'novel' story to read to my then baby daughter. The book I'm writing currently has an under-current of science fiction, but it's also a love story, has a strong historical element, and shows early symptoms of straying into thriller territory, and that was inspired by a fascination with horology, the history of the huguenots and an over-active imagination!

It's not particularly surprising therefore that when I wrote The Testing of Archie Rathbone (the first novel I have chosen to publish - a humorous fantasy YA/cross-over novel...!) and my mother asked me "Alex, what type of book is it? What age group have you written it for?" I suddenly realised that I didn't have a clue.

If you've ever read the Writers' and Artists' Handbook then you'll probably know that one piece of advice given to would-be authors is to be very clear about what genre you're writing (or have written) for - agents and publishers don't like it if they can't put you into a nice convenient pidgeon hole.

I wonder - do some, or even most writers decide what genre they're writing for before they start? I really don't know. I'm quite certain that in most cases I don't - I am just visited by the inspiration pixies, and once the seed of an idea has been sown it generally decides all by itself how the plot's going to unfold and I as editor just struggle to keep up. It's usually only after the whole thing has calmed down and I've finally got a decent grip on the reins (just to confuse the metaphors stll further) that awkward questions such as identifying the genre (or age group) even get considered. By then of course, if the story doesn't already neatly fit one or other convenient pidgeon hole then it's already too late!

So why did I join the YA Science Fiction/Fantasy Group? Well when I first registered on this fantastic site I spent a happy couple of days adding all the books I've read (well, not all of them actually) and in deciding which ones to include I realised that many of the novels and writers that I've most enjoyed reading, and who have influenced the types of stories I love to write would now possibly fall into that category.

Perhaps my family are right, and I've never entirely grown up (a largely over-rated process anyway in my opinion).

Oh well - my first GR blog. Having looked at the high quality of the other contributions to this site (from writers and non-writers alike) I'm not sure that my contributions are going to excite much interest, but if you read this and would like to discuss anything about what makes Alex Hunter's writing brain (or inspiration pixies) tick, then please let me know.

In case you are interested, there's also another blog I've been writing for about a month now which you may wish to visit at Ravensgold Books.

Happy reading.