April Camp Nano 2017 - Part 1

Today's Earworm: Heart Heart Head by Meg Myers
Today's Date: April 3, 2017

I have made a decision. A very serious decision to.

It's about Black Veiled Saviour, which is one of two books that I'm working on.

I have decided to just scrap the original story and start it anew. I have plans on using bits and pieces of the current chapters that I have, but I'm not going to continue the current story line.

I still need to work a few things out but to note I am keeping the characters used so far, and keeping their personalities. It's going to be interesting to rewrite this world.

But that'll wait for a bit of time. I'll survive. Really.

Now, something I wanted to talk about: Genres. I've noticed that there have been threads about Happily Ever After's (HEA) in romance and why it's a part of romance.

If you don't have a HEA it's not a romance damnit! We read romance for that. That is what makes romance romance.

People are trying to get rid of the need for HEA's and a few other things that make the romance genre what it is. Which is kind of stupid actually because then it's not romance.

Now mind you, romance has so many sub-genres that the sub-genres need sub-genres. It's that damn vast of a genre.

I personally write horror, comedy-horror, mystery, and sometimes Sci-fi, but I still work within the rules that sell those genres. Why?

Because that's what sells. It's been changed and perfected and honed over the years. A genre is set up a certain way because it works and yes, I'm playing with some cliches and some not so cliches and changing up my characters and introducing some new ideas...but...

I am still playing by the damn rules.

I write according to the beats that were set by authors that were around long before I was. I write my villains and I write my heros and I write my victims according to what sells.

And I do the same for my romances, rare as they are.

Stop trying to be edgy. Even the author of Twilight played by the rules set in her genre, as distasteful as I find the book. I grew up on Dracula, and Anne Rice okay.  Vampires do not sparkle and those wolves aren't werewolves. They're shifters.

But still, genre 'rules' are there for a reason. And that is because...

They fucking well sell! Learn what the guidelines are and figure out how to put your own damn spin on them. That's the idea behind writing. I swear.