Tuesday, August 03, 2010

Variety of spices and other cliches...

Yesterday I talked about keeping it real and fresh in our writing, and wishing celebrities would follow the same guidelines.

In an ever changing market, it seems lately the fiction industry has gotten stuck on two spinning wheels - historicals and YA's. Romance is always popular, but usually the romance can be found in the historical or in the YA. We've talked genre before here on my blog, but what do you think now? Are you ready for historicals and YA's to fade out and let a new genre spin for a bit? Why or why not?

I LOVE reading historicals lately, which probably just proves the market is right on in knowing its readership. ha. I also really enjoy YA's. But I still love a solid contemporary romance, a good romantic suspense, a thought provoking and emotional women's fiction, and a funny, lighthearted but inspiring chick lit. (wahhh...bring back chick lit!!)

Variety is the spice of life, they say, which by the way is cliche so don't ever use that in your novel. (wink) But cliches are formed because they are true, and this is no exception. (wait. is "this is no exception" a cliche too? yikes. this is tricky!)

Variety lets everyone win. We need to keep a good variety of fiction on the marke so everyone gets to read what they love. There will always be one or two genres that are more popular right now than others (Amish fiction, anyone?) but hopefully readers will never let one particular genre die out completely. (I refuse to admit chick lit is 100% gone. Just revamped. Right?)

What varieties do you like to read? Do you read what you write? Do you write different genres than you read? What genre have you sworn to never read or write, or have you? Inquiring minds would like to know. (there I go again!)

2 comments:

Georgiana Daniels said...

I dare you to find chick lit on the CBA shelves in a bookstore near you =P It totally needs to come back. These are trying times and I think everyone would benefit from a good laugh every now and then!!!!

jenness said...

I agree--bring back the chick lit. Add some bright colors to those shelves filled with bonnets and buggies. :-) But maybe with a few tweaks--keep the snarky voice and light-hearted feel. Lose the materialic stuff and the same tired plot lines.
Variety is definitely a good thing.