Don’t Break Your Promise To Your Readers
I spoke to a group of fledgling suspense novelists last week and loved their fire and enthusiasm. I tried hard not to dampen that fire when I answered the questions they’d submitted. A dose of reality can be a bit of a downer, but a clear view of the way the writing world functions is as necessary for a budding writer as knowing the difference between their, they’re and there.
I’ll share some of their questions with you, give you an insight into genres, brands and the promise every writer makes to his reader when he writes his second book.
I HEAR THE TERMS MYSTERY AND THRILLER AND SUSPENSE—WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE?
Though many novels combine a couple of these genres—because they’re closely related—the distinctions are fairly simple. In all three, there is danger and the main character is trying to find out something, some truth, or to prevent some bad thing from happening.
In a mystery novel, the main character must solve some sort of puzzle—usually about an unfortunate death or string of deaths. That character is not necessarily in any danger—though he might be as he nears the truth about who is responsible for the carnage. But other characters are often in great danger. Many times the detectives who solve the puzzle are themselves quite harmless, little old ladies like Miss Marple or child sleuths like Nancy Drew.
In a suspense novel, the danger grows as the book progresses. The screws tighten page by page. The main character in a mystery has the same information as the reader, but in a suspense novel, the reader often knows things the main character does not. The reader watched the terrorist plant the bomb or knows the murderer is waiting with an ax behind the door. The tension builds as the reader stands by helpless while the hero edges closer and closer to disaster.
A thriller is the easiest of the three to define. In a thriller, the main character starts the book in danger and stays in danger to the end.
The grand masters of the mystery/thriller/suspense genres are Agatha Christi, James Patterson, Stephen King and Dean Koontz.
DOES A NOVELIST HAVE TO STAY IN A PARTICULAR GENRE OR CAN HE WRITE WHATEVER HE WANTS—A ROMANCE, THEN A PARANORMAL THRILLER, THEN A MYSTERY?
Of course, a novelist can write any book he wants. But if he chooses to hop like a frog from one lily pad to another, nobody’s ever going to read any of them. Hard truth here, folks. To be successful, a writer must stay within his genre. Before you start painting your protest sign you need to remember that nobody holds a gun to a writer’s head and forces him into a particular genre. Writers get to pick. But once you pick, you need to stick with it.
WHY?
Because if you don’t, you’re breaking your promise to your readers. When a reader likes your first book enough to purchase your second, he has a right to expect that the two will be reasonably similar. If Suzie Snodmotz bought your historical romance and loved it, she will be unpleasantly surprised when she purchases your new novel, Dark Love, and discovers that it’s dark because there are zombies, vampires and space aliens in it. After that experience, she won’t buy your third novel, no matter what it is.
It’s called branding and I’m not talking about the mark you burn into the backside of a cow with a hot poker.
Think Stephen King—what’s his brand? Suspense/ Horror. He wrote a book called The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon that was not in his brand and it sold less than any book he ever wrote.
John Grisham. His brand is legal thriller. When he wrote The Painted House outside his brand, the book bombed.
Often it takes a writer a book or two to settle into a genre. It did me. But once you find your preferred lily pad, you need to build a house on it, plant a garden and put up a white picket fence. From now on, it’s home.
