You’re a writer. You love to write. You want people to read your writing. Probably you want people to pay to read your writing. The question is: What should you write? Actually, there are a number of questions related to that one. Who is your audience? Are they old or young? Rich or poor? Where do your readers go to read? Who publishes material for your audience? Are the publishers willing to pay for that material? Answer these and you’ll be well on your way towards discovering your genre.
These writing questions will eventually demand an answer. In the meantime, just write. Write what interests you. Write what disturbs you. Write what energizes you. Write what you want to find out more about.
After all this flurry of writing you will begin to discover what kind of writing draws you, which you do best, which keeps your attention.
We take different paths to our “perfect” genre. Some writers are born with the passion for a particular way of expression. Others, Grandma-Moses like, wait generations before the opportunity or inspiration strikes. The same thing may happen with your choice of genre. Here I’m using genre in a broader sense to include all forms and lengths and purposes of writing. Strictly speaking, genres are the categories used by the publishing industry to aid them in marketing to a specific target audience or a certain set of readers. These categories help librarians and bookstore owners know where to place their books on the shelves. As writers in the wide, wide world, we have more choices: long or short, fiction or non-fiction, children or adults . . . and so on. More about those options in coming posts.
For some of us, the decision is easy. It’s children’s books. It’s scientific articles. It’s steampunk (whatever that is). Others, myself included, tend to be more eclectic in our choices. In my earliest days of freelancing, I had pieces accepted for publication in forms as varied as children’s story, personal essay, inspirational, travel article, poetry, academic essay, news release, flash fiction, and devotional column. For me, that varied experience was invaluable in determining my final course. With a feel for writing in numerous forms, I could finally analyze what was the best fit for me.
I settled on fiction. I had started a novel while I was in junior high. (I thought you wrote them the same way you read them. Begin with chapter one and find out what happens.) Not surprisingly, I never finished. But the love of reading novels finally convinced me I should be writing them. At some point I had been advised that the best way to learn the craft was by writing short stories. I wrote several, but was never completely comfortable with any of them.
I ultimately decided the best way to learn to write a novel was to write a novel. Of course I read several books on the subject, attended workshops, and took courses about the subject to inform my writing. I fulfilled a lifelong dream and attended the Iowa Summer Writing Festival with the draft of the work in progress in hand. Once deciding on a mystery series, I turned to self-publishing for a number of reasons. I’m currently on my fourth, and, as you can see, I’m now writing blog posts.
My journey may not parallel yours, but as writers, we all have many experiences in common. So whether you know instinctively where your writing belongs or you have to sample the options, the important thing is not to give up. Research your options, perfect the craft you’ve chosen, and seek out publishing opportunities.
And don’t judge your experience by someone else’s.
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