How about SF?:I need a genre!

Now I had decided I had written a romance and, as far as I’m concerned looking back fifty years and using archives equals history, I had written an historical story.  I now had to address the main strand and have been forced back to Science Fiction – why am I so reluctant? 

I enjoy SF myself, have done since quite young although I have not read much lately.  My heyday was back in the 50s and 60s when I devoured the likes of H G Wells, Isaac Asimov, Robert A Heinlein and EE (Doc) Smith, Arthur C Clarke.  This was the age of space travel in books, hopes and dreams and by the 60s we were up there.  I think in my mind this form of storytelling remains fixed as true SF; no space travel, alien invasions or intergalactic wars, no SF.

In the 70s when I began my travels, in the days before e-readers, I took the classics on my journeys.  War and Peace in the Hindu Kush, The Seven Pillars of Wisdom

overlooking Sydney Harbour, that kind of thing.  Although large they lasted me longer and so my suitcase actually had room for a change of clothes! I did once, when stranded bookless in the outback for six weeks, read someone’s collection 30 of lurid covered science fantasy back to back, and as far as memory serves me – enjoyed them.

I discover now that the genre divides continually into more and more subgenres, and the subdivision continues as fast as do bacteria in a petri dish.  The form I read so excitedly in my far distant youth is now labelled hard SF.  This is not the Sefuty Chronicles.  I went to Wikipedia, a site I have always been suspicious of but I hadn’t found my trusty Oxford dictionary up to these subdivisions. 

I was still vaguely avoiding SF as Ellen’s Tale had very little of what I would call fictional science or even speculative science; although friends point out with much eye rolling that men who are manipulated genetically does kind of suggest science!  Any science in the Chronicles is only a continuation of what is possible now and indeed has been tried in some instances.  I never counted it as fiction somehow.  Genetic manipulation has been around for decades now.

I found a new genre to me, Dystopia, with The Handmaid’s Tale mentioned.  I had read this excellent book years ago and somehow never associated Margaret Attwood with SF.  An anthropological story of the future but a very realistic one, I could see how society could evolve thus; by this time I was well into my anthropological studies.  Well, well, Attwood was writing SF?  This was more comfortable, who else and what was this Dystopia? 

It was Gulliver’s Travels, Brave New World, Animal Farm and 1984.  All of these I had read when they came onto the bookshelves but if I had labelled them at all it would have been as political satire and rages against society.  I investigated further now that I had a ‘name’ for what I was looking for.  Maybe, maybe I was writing dystopian tales.  My dystopian world though was tame in comparison to those before mentioned, it had no bite; my government might rule as a dictatorship but it genuinely has a ‘heart of gold’.  As I say, hardly political satire.

Onward and outwards.  In these explorations into Dystopia I came across another subdivision, Apocalyptic.  I was hopeful again, after all hadn’t I single-handedly destroyed 8 billion plus of the world’s population in Ellen’s Tale; this may well be the answer.  

I did have a moment’s hesitation, however, when I found that Neville Shute was supposed to have written a novel in this genre – Neville Shute?  That wonderful author of quiet splendid people in the 40s and 50s, those books that couldn’t get any quieter if one muffled them in a sand dune.  I had read them all avidly when I was younger.  On the Beach I remembered was about nuclear war, it was a idea which exercised us all a great deal post WW2 .  We had witnessed for the first time the horror that man could unleash on man at first hand.  On the Beach  had been chilling and filled with those splendid people behaving with what is best of human nature.  I had read it as a story.  I began to see my problem.  I didn’t really think in genres, a book was enjoyable for its story.  I browse bookshelves like a grazer and never stopped to question what fodder I was eating up.  My mind barely has a cubby hole for genre let alone all these subdivisions.

Margaret Attwood had more than dipped her toe into this subdivision with her Onxy and Crane and The Flood.  I discovered Maggie Gee along the way , then that the old man of fiction,J G Ballard, was known as a dystopian writer, as I say I do not seem to think in genre.  Surprises abounding I began to settle into this search.

Actually these were all post apocalyptic which would have summed up the my chronicles well, after all the Sefuty Chronicles  are set 50 and 100 years after the great climate wars that had destroyed the greater part of the population.  I had moments of doubt as I realised that many of these Post Apocalyptic novels had such as vampires zombies and werewolves in them.  Not the Sefuty Chronicles cup of tea at all so now I had to put a rider into this genre as well;

Post Apocalyptic but without vampires.  Dystopian but with a beneign dictatorship and a hopeful ending.  An historical romance but set in the future!

More reading needed into these, it seems I was following some kind of a pattern and then there was a mysterious subgenre I have found - soft SF.  Ah well, back to the research.  Somewhere, somehow I will find a place to nestle!

I Need A Genre!

I have mentioned in the past my confusion about and dislike of the concept of ‘genre’.  When Ellen’s Tale was deemed ready to be sent to agents this word was the bugbear of my life.  Being told by some ‘experts’ that I was writing science fiction displeased me.  I was writing a novel.  Did I?  My memories of sci fi were so different from what I had written; I discounted the experts.  My tale was a love story: was it a romance?  Never, they said.  Was it historical?  Ah, come off it, they scorned. 

For various reasons and nothing to do with the above I decided to self publish and naively thought that particular problem was behind me.  After all in cyberspace there are no bookshelves, are there?  Wrong, wrong, oh how wrong.  Every site I wished to place news of Ellen’s Tale needed, with a passion, to know what genre I wrote in so that it could occupy its appropriate pigeon hole.  I hate pigeon holes.  I am not a pigeon, neither is Ellen, I would mutter with a scowl. I won’t even wear my name tag at conferences!

It has become an increasing problem and now I really do have to solve it.  Planning my virtual book tour this autumn, I find I’m unsure which blogs to approach while I don’t know what genre I am writing in. 

I have been researching over the past couple of months (again).  Discovering new fields of lunacy – er sub divisions!  In my ferreting around different information I have also made some interesting discoveries, found new authors to read, dipped my toes in genres I thought never to read.  It’s been fun.  Mind you, I’m no nearer discovering the true Alberta.

The following posts will be shorter than usual as I tackle each genre I might be writing in.  Maybe other confused writers will discover themselves along the way, just don’t hold your breath!

Self Publishing - what to do?

Well the book was written. Now what?  Oh the advice that came in was overwhelming and contradictory.  I’d re-read the great work – I'd considered the man hours involved, not just mine but those of my friends who had read, corrected, edited and commented.  The trees destroyed in the copying of different drafts, electricity used to power the computer.  Those 250 pages were the result, so then what to do with it?

Publish of course!  Isn’t that what we all want having put pen to paper – well finger to keyboard.  Print and go straight to Hollywood.  Another blockbuster. Another millionaire.

Back in the real world, on this planet, the doubts set in.  Publish, who would want to do so? I wrote it so it can’t be worth publishing, can it?  I re-read it again; I had by then re-read the dratted thing so often I could quote it word for word.  Well I would have been able to if I hadn’t  kept changing things.  I had to confess I liked the story.  Should I? Should I have enjoyed writing it so much?  I felt maybe I was fooling myself.  Not everyone liked it, my best friend, of oh I have lost count of how many decades, has read it almost as many times as I had and she did not like it. The subject matter interested her not at all, my style of writing grates on her nerves, she had been editing it for me and there was nothing about the book she liked, which actually made her a very good editor  Equally other friends who had been helping with the editing did like it.

I made a decision; I would try and get it out there. So then all the problems really began.  I  short listed the agencies who might be interested.  The first and most major  of stumbling blocks.  I had not written a ‘genre specific’ story.  I had just wrote a story.  I had drawn on interests and experiences of my own, as we are all advised to do.  Influences from other authors? Probably, I had been reading hungrily for over half a century.  My reading tastes were catholic and my interests and experiences were wide ranging.

Was my story science fiction?  Many said yes because it is set in the future and amongst other things deals with genetic manipulation.  I wasn't so sure , where were the space flights!  It certainly wasn't science fantasy - not a single dragon in sight!  My story was a romance but no bodice ripper.  I liked to think it is General Fiction but those agents are eagle eyed on time periods and if it isn’t set in contemporary life, General Fiction it is not.  I liked to think it was a little bit historical as it was looking backwards from 150 years in the future to 100 years in the future, but if it’s ahead of our times it is not historical. Ah well it was worth a try.

I put it on hold for a few weeks while I read novels set in the future.  I read Margaret Attwood, Ballard  and Maggie Gee amongst many in a whole long list.  They came into General Fiction as well as being Science Fiction, I could, I thought, slot myself in with them.  Who did think I was kidding? An unknown author trying to nestle in with the greats - I don’t think so.  Should I rework my story to fit in?  I have never been easy with fitting in.  So should I go it alone?

 Scary!

first published on
http://www.albertaross.co.uk/

see my other blog

http://wwwdidyoueverkissafrog.typepad.com/
(on all sorts!)

http://www.sefuty.livejournal.com/
(on reading and books mainly)