A Signature Dilemma

I thought I was prepared to be an author.

I've done the research, I have prepared witty answers to all the popular questions (Where do you get your ideas from? When is your next book coming out? Is this character based on me? Where do you get your ideas from? How does the book end? Will there be sequels? Where do you get your ideas from? and so on) I've steeled myself for the slings and arrows of cruel reviewers (so far, not so cruel!) And I've practiced my signature and limbered up my signing hand. I am so ready. Fame and fortune, here I come!

Or so I thought. There are pitfalls that I was not expecting. Pitfall number one? The personalized inscription. How hard could that be, you ask? Good question, Dear Reader, good question. I was unprepared for the pressure that little space on the first page of my novel could bring. Friends, customers, family, all grinning madly at me as they slide my own book towards me. 'Write something clever,' they say. Or 'write something witty, I know how good you are at this.' Or my personal favorite, 'Just write something I'll love!' Something clever, witty, and good that they'll love. And personalized, of course. And different from whatever clever, witty, good and personalized thing I wrote in the last book a few minutes ago. The pressure gets to me after the first fifty or sixty inscriptions. I'm running out of clever and I'm running out fast.

Please don't misunderstand; I'm incredibly flattered and pleased that people enjoy my writing and that they expect me to be clever, witty, and so forth! It's all good, and I really love signing and inscribing my books for people. I just wish I were better at it! Now whenever anyone comes at me with one of my books, panic sets in. What if this inscription isn't as good as the last one? What if I start to repeat myself? What if everyone I've signed a book for gets together and compares notes? Inevitably, my brain seizes up and I totally blank out. So I'm holding a pen in my hand and I'm staring at that first page and it's tiny little space for inscriptions. Someone who likes me and/or my book is standing right there, smiling at me, waiting and I'm drawing a complete blank.

'To whom shall I make this out?' I ask to stall for time.

'I'm your mother; make it out to me,' replies my mother.

That stall didn't work so well.

The line of smiling people stretches out endlessly behind my mother, all of them holding copies of my book, all of them expecting something original and funny and warm and personal. Or so it goes in my nightmare anyway. I am not ready for this.

There are worse problems to have.

Meanwhile my life continues to amuse and distract me. If all goes well, tonight will see the first session of a new role playing game campaign. We're trying a Cthulhu thing this time around, so I have failure, insanity, and death to look forward to. No really, it's going to be a good time. Trust me, I'm an author.

I've been playing a board game called Stronghold lately. It's a great fantasy board game where one player controls an enormous invasion force of orcs, goblins, and trolls trying to overwhelm a walled city full of good and noble human soldiers. Stronghold has a sort of a tower defense vibe with the human player desperately trying to decide where to spend limited resources as the hordes of bad guys hurl themselves at the walls. The defender has to choose which walls to shore up, whether to invest in boiling oil, better trained soldiers, or a host of other options including praying for some truly impressive miracles. The attacker has a slightly randomized selection of options and the difficult choice of throwing bodies at a single wall section or spreading it around in hopes of overwhelming the defender. So far I'm slightly better at defending than assaulting, which is kind of a shame because my heart will always be with any side that can field trolls.

On the book front, I'm enjoying the heck out of Stephen Hunt's 'The Court of the Air.' Hunt has crafted a complicated political intrigue adventure in a fantastical steam punk universe that doesn't forget to offer up plenty of punk alongside the steam.

In the world of comics, I'm liking the new Action Comics, Justice League Dark, Secret Avengers, and Dungeons & Dragons. I'm also re-reading the classic (and all too short) run of Chase and the recent run of post-Annihilation Nova. I've loved the human rocket ever since his first appearance back in 1976. So yeah, I'm a fanboy.

And now it's time for me to read some classic pulp science fiction to get excited for my next interactive novel. It isn't always easy being me, but it sure is fun! Happy Merry Chrismahannakwanziyulikka everybody!

December 20, 2011
Chelmsford, MA

A few thoughts on Genre

People keep asking me about my novel's genre. I'd love to be able to come back with a snappy one word answer that effectively answers their question, but I can't. I think when someone asks the genre question they're asking a lot of different questions all at once. What's it about? Will I like it? What other novels that I have already read and enjoyed is your novel like? And other stuff like that. So when I answer contemporary urban fantasy murder mystery, the response is often, 'Say what now?' I really need to boil that mouthful down to a one or two word version.

But that got me thinking about genre in general and I thought maybe instead of answering tough questions, I could just sort of make stuff up. I'm way better at making stuff up, and I bet I can make a passable blog out of that, so let's go with it.

When people say genre these days they usually mean anything other than mainstream. It could refer to romance or science fiction or fantasy, or horror, or mystery. Technically mainstream literature is a genre, but in practice it's more like the lack of genre or perhaps just the default. The word genre comes from the French and originally meant 'hard to get published.'

One book can fall into more than one genre, for example my own book is both a classic noir mystery and an urban fantasy. The Lord of the Rings is both an epic work of high fantasy and a travelog of Middle-Earth. Believe me when I tell you to skip Mordor when you book that tour. Steampunk is almost always accompanied by another genre. Classic steampunk is often paired with Victoriana, but it can also be found in contemporary fantasy, pulp science fiction or even post-apocalypse adventure. Where ever you find anachronistic technology (often over-sized and baroque as all get out) paired with social inequity, goggles and hats you will find steampunk. It's really more of a style than a genre.

Can stories can change genre after they've been published? When Frankenstein was first published it was science fiction (and horror, of course) because folks believed that maybe - just maybe - if you shot enough electricity into a corpse, that sucker would get up and move around again. Now I think it's safe to say that idea has been relegated to fantasy. But does that mean that the novel should likewise be relegated to fantasy? Should we re-shelve Frankenstein? How about billing it as the world's first medical drama? Or should we just call it proto-steampunk and move on?

Let's consider Paranormal Romance. Is the paranormal part more important than the romance part? Is dating a bad boy from the wrong side of the grave cooler than dating one from the wrong side of the tracks? Could I write a historical romance novel, replace all the instances of the word pirate with vampire and have a million seller? They both wear pretty much the same kind of floppy shirts, it could totally work. Should I add a pretty-boy vampire to my next book? Should I add steampunk to my next book? Does throwing in elements from another genre change a story? Would it make a book better?

For me the answer is not just no, but hell no. When I'm writing in a genre, I want the heart of the story to be intrinsically related to that genre. If I'm writing a fantasy murder mystery than the means, motive, and opportunity all have to have fantasy elements. If they don't I'm just re-skinning a story using genre elements. There are reasons to do that and I might do it some day but not today. Tomorrow's not looking so good either. Is the genre the story or merely the way the story is told? How many stories can be translated into an entirely different genre without changing the essential elements of that story?

These are the things I think about late at night when other people are thinking about that last slice of pie in the refrigerator. It's just as well, I could stand to lose a few pounds.

Chelmsford, MA
November 21, 2011