Welcome, Guest: Register On Nairaland / LOGIN! / Trending / Recent / NewStats: 3,196,005 members, 7,960,202 topics. Date: Friday, 27 September 2024 at 02:51 PM |
Nairaland Forum / Entertainment / Literature / Three Genres To Notice (483 Views)
Several Reading Positions For Several Genres (photos Included). / The Real Genres Of Literature. (2) (3) (4)
(1) (Reply)
Three Genres To Notice by Divepen1(m): 7:01am On Feb 02, 2016 |
Three Genres to Notice
Oddities. Numerous oddities have been published
over recent years that might not fit neatly into a
genre or are unusual due to size. The Christmas
Box, The Bridges of Madison County and The
Celestine Prophecy were all small by the way of
word count, but each of these books ended up as
bestsellers. To use them as guides might be a
mistake for the beginning novelist, as they are
considered experimental and thus can be hard to
sell. I might note that all three of these books
were originally self-published and received critical
notice due to the authors’ own hard work and
tenacity at self-marketing.
Serial and Sequel are types of novels that often
find great success. They feature reappearing
characters and / or recurring themes. You’ll find
these novels popular in most current genres.
What makes them successful, of course, are
convincingly real, yet original characters and
situations.
Sex, Foul Language, Violence, Death and Aberrant
Behavior. The amount and depth of risqué scenes,
controversial themes and offensive language you
include in your novel is not only story and genre
dependent but also depends on the tastes and
policies of your publisher. It can limit not only
your audience but whether your novel will get
published all together. Candid, uncensored scenes
depicting real-life scenarios are important to the
integrity of writer and story, but understanding the
audience and dealing with those matters tastefully
and appropriately are just as important.
Sex and sexual tension as well as violence are key
factors in most aspects of human life and can be
interesting and important dimensions of many
stories. However, the amounts of these elements
and the approach taken by the writer should be
considered carefully. How these important and
controversial aspects of human life are portrayed
in adult novels will be very different than in
young-adult mysteries.
Again, the best advice I can offer is to look at
novels already published and currently on
bookstore shelves to see what is appropriate.
Even then, a good rule of thumb is that a story
should never include gratuitous sex or violence.
However, these issues should be dealt with if they
are important aspects of the story itself. Perhaps
you feel explicit depiction of a violent rape /
murder scene provides important character
motivation, characterization or plot information in
a novel about Miami drug gangs. If so, fine. But
in typical suspense or mystery novels, giving
details about body fluids and death throes
probably won’t be appropriate.
In his book Novel Writing Made Easy, Kindle
Publishers, Gordon Kessler had this to say.
Be honest with yourself and with your writing.
Don’t pull punches because your mother or your
pastor might read your story. Make your scenes
live, give them verisimilitude by realistic
depiction, but do so with consideration of what is
acceptable to your target audience.
For an example of a story written in a genre that
is generally full of violence and four letter words
but was very well done without either, read Ted
Dekker’s thriller Three. It’s an incredible novel
that I read without realizing its publisher,
Westbow, is a religious publishing house.
Discovering this after I finished the novel, I tried
to recall if at any point Dekker crossed the line by
using crude language or gratuitous sex or
violence, and I realized he hadn’t. Still, he told a
fantastic story, and I hadn’t noticed the lack of
swearing or graphic violence. What an excellent
job of storytelling!
NovelWriting Made Easy, Gordon Kessler. http://
www.Gordonkessler.com https://litehelp./2016/02/01/genres-to-notice 1 Like |
(1) (Reply)
"Masquerades", A Poem By Nikolasx / Book Review- Brilliant Presentations By Richard Hall / The Good Samaritan Essay Contest
(Go Up)
Sections: politics (1) business autos (1) jobs (1) career education (1) romance computers phones travel sports fashion health religion celebs tv-movies music-radio literature webmasters programming techmarket Links: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) Nairaland - Copyright © 2005 - 2024 Oluwaseun Osewa. All rights reserved. See How To Advertise. 12 |