“There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.”
Sherlock Holmes
Selecting
Location, Time Period and Genre for a Novel
Location, location,
location. Start close to home. Honestly, living in a small rural town may seem like
a drawback. But with a little digging (old newspapers and documents are right
at hand) you’ll find the smallest town has had its share of shady shenanigans or inspirational stories over the years. Take a walk thorough your local cemetery. Ponder the family
wiped out in 1918 by the Spanish Flu epidemic, the WWII pilot buried in a far
corner instead of his family’s plot, the middle-aged woman whose grave is
covered with Harley Davidson memorabilia and bottles of Jack Daniels. So many
stories waiting to be written, inventing new names of course.
The Era. Lots of people
feel they should have been born in a different time. They’ve already studied in
depth about the period, the clothing, the manners, the occupations, etc. That
makes picking a time period easy. For the rest of us? I like time periods
beginning in the mid-1800s when the printing press was churning out
newspapers…newspapers that are now available to read on the internet. Nothing
gets me into the overall experience quite like old articles and advertisements.
Next choosing a genre. Pick
what you enjoy reading. If you adore Romance, Murder Mysteries, Science Fiction
or Victorian era Steampunk, you’ll adore writing that sort of novel.
There’s always the Way of the Dollar. Number one selling
genre is Romance, followed by Crime/Murder/Mystery/Thrillers, Science Fiction
and Fantasy. My thoughts on the Way of
the Dollar is that it takes the fun out of writing. Suddenly, vacuuming and
folding laundry sounds better than sitting in front of my monitor.
Mixing genres. My novel
“Hidden Journals” is a cozy (no intense, graphic violence) cross-over between
adventure and mystery with a little romance tossed into the mix. However,
remember that agents and publishers prefer to place your novel in a specific
niche so readers can find the book and most importantly, buy it.
So share with us. As a reader, what's your favorite era and location? As an author, how
do you chose place and time? Did you try writing in a genre you didn’t
particularly care for on the advice of another or the lure of the Way of the Dollar? Share how that worked
for you. Love to read about your experiences in the comments.
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See
you December 15th right here where I’ll take you on
my journey of Self-Publishing on Amazon.
And, thank you many times over for taking time to read my blog and for checking
out my new book. https://www.amazon.com/dp/1070510645
Other places to find me:
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