Jash's Writing Tips: Knowing What Your Story Is

While the liking of any work of fiction is highly subjective, just like the whole concept of fun, there is a good way to judge if a work of fiction succeeds or not. Now this isn't to say I'll like something that succeeds in what it's doing, looking at you The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser, but it will help show if the work in question is objectively good.

That is if the work of fiction knows what it's doing.

Choosing a Genre

Each genre has its own set of rules of what you can and can't do. In extremely simple terms: comedy makes you laugh and so can be more unrealistic than other genres while drama is more based in reality.

When I say a work of fiction knows what it's doing/knows what it is, I mean that it knows what genre it is. So a comedy would know it's supposed to make you laugh. A romance that is based around soul mates wouldn't make the idea of two people being destined for each other sound insane.

A work of fiction that knows what it is can have fun with itself such as The Cabin in the Woods (2012) embracing the horror genre. It embraces the horror genre to such an extent it feels normal when the movie is also a deconstruction of the horror genre itself. Such as talking about the whole 'virgin dies last' thing.

When a work of fiction doesn't know what it is then things get bad fast. The Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy (by E.L.James) has the problem of not admitting it's a rape/abuse fantasy series. Because of that, some storylines aren't given proper treatment and readers get the wrong idea. The BDSM community, one that is already misunderstood, gets even more false facts released about it as it's put more into the public consciousness. And when kids read it, let's not fool ourselves that youngsters aren't reading that series, they might get the wrong idea of what a relationship is like. So having Fifty Shades admitting what it is could help it with marketing and the contents of its trilogy.

So when you choose your genre make sure you embrace it and can play around with it. If you need to appeal to a wide audience make sure to find a genre where that won't be a big problem for you.

Advertising Story as Said Genre

Once you have figured out what genre you want to make your work, now is the advertising part of the writing process. What? You thought writing was only the writing part? Nope, you need to get word out about your writing which means some form of advertisement. It doesn't have to be something big like Hollywood movies get, but advertising needs to be there.

Now one of the problems you may find is that you want to get everyone to read what you wrote. I understand the need, and drive, to get everyone to like what you do. But that is never going to happen. Not everyone will agree that your writing is good. Get a group of people with degrees in English and ask them about William Shakespeare. Be prepared for not everyone in that room to agree that Shakespeare is the best thing since sliced bread.

So if you advertise with the goal of attracting everyone, things can go wrong fast. Look at trailers for movies to get an idea what I'm talking about. Some of them lie through their teeth about what they're advertising.

What you want to do is attract people but not lie to them or else they'll be mad. And you want to make people happy so that they'll recommend you to their friends. A way to build up your fanbase.

It's like if I advertised Inbetween: The Darkening as a cute love story between two guys. Yeah, I'd attract the crowd that likes romance and the subset that likes gay love stories, but there is much more to the fanfic than that. They would be expecting a cute love story and then they'd get something much darker than that. It's a Hannibal fanfic so saying it isn't a happy story is an understatement.

Defending Your Choice of Genre

As I've talked about before, not everyone will like what you do and you shouldn't try to please everyone. That is never going to happen. And not everyone is going to like whatever genre your work of fiction will be. There are people out there that are sick and tired of all romances so they might lash out if you choose to do a romance. Not because it's a bad romance, but because it just happens to be that genre.

While I don't scream and rage at the genre: I don't tend to like historical fiction unless there is a science fiction aspect to it.

One thing to do when defending your choice of genre is to focus on what makes it a good story. If it's a sci-fi story you can talk about how it helped you to form a good analysis of a character or explored some theory that you wanted to discuss. Heck, you can even say you really like sci-fi and wanted to have fun with it.

Don't try to argue with critics who say that instead of it being a sci-fi story, you could've accomplished things better with it being a historical fiction story. The point isn't to do things the way everyone will agree on, the point is to tell the story you want to tell.

Yes, you should aim for your stories to be good, but you shouldn't expect perfection via one certain genre. One genre isn't better than another genre. I like horror movies while some people think that my choice in movies makes me a 'sick puppy'. That doesn't make me right or wrong, just means I have my own tastes.
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