Here we go with September’s Round Robin topic. This month's blog will be about the wisdom and experience of trying a new genre.
This topic couldn’t have come at a more appropriate
time because I am about to start writing a cozy mystery series after having
written ten historical romance novels and three contemporary western romances.
So why change horses in mid-stream? Much sage advice
has been written about whether an author should change genres. Although I have
enjoyed every bored lord and feisty heroine in my historical romances and sexy
ranchers and their ladies in my contemporary westerns, my go-to reading for
light relief has always been mysteries and, more recently, cozy
mysteries.
Part of building an author brand is promising your
readers sure-fire content and delivering it, so for an author, changing genres
might be the kiss of death as there is a chance of losing readers. In the
past, it was almost a must-do to have a pen name for a separate genre—think
Nora Roberts writing mysteries as J.D. Robb—which might mean a workload that
would daunt many authors. Two names might require two websites, newsletters,
e-mail addresses or whatever media platform the author prefers.
However, this isn’t always the case. Jude Devereux
writes historical romance with a side of paranormal and mystery under her name.
Carolyn Brown and Alyssa Cole both write historical and contemporary romances
as their selves. In these instances, and I’m sure there are many more, the
author is the brand. If readers like your work, I think they will follow you
out of curiosity, if nothing else.
Whether romance, paranormal, YA, sci-fi and more,
every story contains the who, what, why, where, and when writing principle of
journalism, which carries over into all fiction. Who are the leading
characters? What are they doing, and more precisely what is being done to whom? Why
is it being done? Where does that old road lead, or where will the spaceship
land? When did XYZ become a vampire, or did ABC know FGH was a werewolf?
The classic cozy mystery format is that a body is
found, often on the first page but usually in the first chapter, an
amateur sleuth investigates and reveals the murderer. It sounds simple,
but starting with the problem is like working backwards compared to my previous
books. What I like most about cozy mysteries is that there is no bloody
description of gunshot or knife wounds, or other causes of death. Sometimes,
there is no description at all, only the information that someone has been
found dead. This cuts out much research into weapons and the feasible wounds
they produce—likewise, any police or legal protocols. A cozy mystery is not a police
procedural, so there is little need for more than a detective on hand or a
detective inspector and his sergeant, as in the Midsomer Murders TV
series.
I have several more historical romances that I could
write about, but thankfully, my publisher has accepted my proposal for three
cozy mysteries. I have my characters, victims, and plots, and I am itching to
begin writing. It remains to be seen if my readers will enjoy them. I could
lose some, but on the other hand, I could gain a new following. Time will
tell.
Now, I will see what my fellow bloggers have to say.
Bob Rich at https://wp.me/p3Xihq-3jJ
Anne
Stenhouse http://annestenhousenovelist.wordpress.com
Connie Vines http://mizging.blogspot.com/
Skye Taylor http://www.skye-writer.com/blogging_by_the_sea
