Roseanna M. White is wife, mommy, writer, reviewer, and lover of all things literature-related. She has one book published, A STRAY DROP OF BLOOD (WhiteFire Publishing, 2009), and another due out summer 2011. She is the editor and senior reviewer of the Christian Review of Books, and a member of ACFW, HisWriters, and HEWN Marketing. She makes her home in the mountains of Western Maryland with her husband, two kids, and the colony of dust bunnies under her couch.
On Tuesday I introduced genre breakdowns and talked about those for young adults and younger and historicals. Today I’m covering contemporaries and a few of the big categories.
A contemporary novel is anything set after World War II through the present. Futuristic, science fiction, and fantasy are grouped under the title of “speculative”–I imagine we all know what those are.
The most widely read genre is Romance. And yet many of us (myself included) have no idea when we set out that Romance has a few musts. First, the love story between hero and heroine must be center stage. If it shares equal billing with another element, it is most likely a cross-over genre like Romantic Suspense or the like. Hero and heroine need to be apparent from the get-go, and usually they must meet within the first few chapters. Hero and heroine must have some issues, must work through them, and must find a happily ever after (a.k.a. HEA) by the last page. Usually this means either marriage or the promise of marriage.
Now, having a book where you don’t know who the heroine will end up with can be an excellent story—but it’s mostly likely not a strict romance. Having a book where the heroine doesn’t meet the hero until the last ten chapters—the same. A book where it ends with the hero and heroine not together—not a romance. These can be love stories, they can be women’s fiction, they can be some other genre. But romance readers have expectations, and if you don’t meet them, an editor is most likely not going to touch you. And you know, that’s for a purpose. When I picked up a book by an author I knew wrote great romances and discovered that she killed the heroine two-thirds of the way through the book, I didn’t finish reading it to figure out how the hero picked up the pieces and raised their baby. I wanted a happy ending, and I wasn’t interested in a “satisfying” ending at the time. Had I been, I would have picked up a different type of book, one that did NOT say “Romance” on the back.
I mentioned women’s fiction, which is what many books are that have love stories but don’t fit the strict Romance definition. Authors like Nora Roberts are billed as women’s fiction writers, even though most of her books are romance. Some defy the conventional definition, so there you go. Other women’s fiction includes the books about a group of four friends who each come into their own, the story about a woman finding a second chance after a divorce, the wife dealing with infertility, with unfaithfulness, the woman whose mother has Alzhiemers, etc. These are books geared at women, which are dealing with women’s issues. They can have romance, but don’t require it. I have a manuscript right now that has a love story, but just as key is the facing-her-past story. I could take the romance out and still have a book. This is women’s fiction, not romance.
There’s a thing called Love Story, which is what Nicholas Sparks says he writes. It’s again not something a publisher will use a label, but it’s something readers and writers toss around. Basically, it’s a story where the romance cannot be removed, but which does not promise to follow Romance guidelines. Maybe it stretches all the way until death, like Sparks’ The Notebook. Maybe the hero dies saving the heroine. That sort of thing.
Other contemporaries include:
Mystery—a whodunnit. Usually murder, but there are “cozy mysteries” that are often about a less gruesome crime. A mystery has an amateur crime-solver as the main character.
Suspense—one of those stories with high stakes, danger, intrigue, and a professional as a main character. Think 24. Jack’s a federal agent, not an amateur. Military stories are usually suspense. The ones about police officers tracking down a serial killer. That sort of thing. (A Romantic Suspense is a story where the romance and the suspense are equal.)
Chick Lit—light and comedic, generally but not always in first person, may or may not have romance. Chick Lit is currently out of fashion. I suspect it’ll make a resurgence under a different name soon.
I’m sure I’m overlooking some, and feel free to chime in with other examples or questions about how to break these things down! They’re tricky—published authors can sit and debate this stuff to no end. But subtleties aside, you have to know what it is you’re pitching to an agent or editor. And most of them will roll their eyes if you say, “It’s a historical mysterious romance that takes place in 1980.” What they’ll take from that is that you haven’t done your homework and don’t know where your story fits.
So—anyone need help figuring out what it is they’re writing? =)
Beautiful is a dangerous thing to be when one is unprotected.
For seven years, Abigail has been a slave in the Visibullis house. With a Hebrew mistress and a Roman master, she has always been more family than servant . . . until their son returns to Jerusalem after his years in Rome. Within a few months Jason has taken her to his bed and turned her world upsidedown. Maybe, given time, she can come to love him as he says he loves her. But how does she open her heart to the man who ruined her?
Israel’s unrest finds a home in her bosom, but their rebellion tears apart her world. Death descends with Barabbas’s sword, and Abigail is determined to be there when the criminal is punished. But when she ventures to the trial, Barabbas is not the one the crowd calls to crucify. Instead, it is the teacher her master and Jason had begun to follow, the man from Nazareth that some call the Son of God . . .
Born free, made a slave, married out of her bonds, Abigail never knows freedom until she feels the fire of a stray drop of blood from a Jewish carpenter. Disowned by Israel, despised by Rome, desired by all, she never knows love until she receives the smile of a stoic Roman noble.