Why do we have to write in a genre?

@GingerCoffee - I think it is literary-ish—except the style isn't really 'bleak' enough to be a modern day literary novel. I still haven't found a publisher/agent who seems to fit the bill enough to bother to query them. The length of the novel is the main problem. However, I'm not about to cut it in half just to satisfy an arbitrary requirement like that. I'll just self-publish.

People keep saying a story should be as long as it needs to be. I feel mine is the length it should be now. The pace is slow, to give people time to witness the characters in action, building relationships, be party to their thoughts and experience the kind of life they live. I'd maybe call it 'old fashioned immersive.' That's my style.

However, if I quote my word count, which is at 210,000 words (give or take a few) it will immediately go into the reject pile. And No, I'm not willing to cut it down to 110, 000 words to squeeze in under the wire. And NO, I'm not going to write other stuff, try to get the short stuff published, and THEN try publishing this novel on the strength of the short stuff. I'm 66 years old. Life is short. I want to move on.

I'm quite proud of this book. It's been in the making for nearly 20 years, and has been heavily edited and re-edited, has been read by around 30 betas, and has achieved what I wanted it to achieve. I just want to write the next one.

 

I disagree - I write by genre. Yes, it's a selling tool, but as I want my books to sell, I use it as I'm writing. This is probably most important in romance, which does have some pretty specific standards, but I think it applies to some extent to all genres. There are expectations, and while I don't share @jannert's level of pessimism about the impossibility of finding a publisher for books that don't meet the expectations, I think she's absolutely right that she's made things more difficult for herself by not writing with genre in mind.

 

I don't want to split hairs here over semantics, but I don't feel I've 'made things difficult for myself.' I have no regrets whatsoever about the way I wrote. I feel I've written exactly what I wanted to write. It took me a long time to get it to where I think it's done, but I did it. I'm just being realistic about my chances of traditional publication. And also realistic about the amount of time I want to pursue in attempting to attain it.

It's not as if I'd have done it any differently if I'd have known better before I started, and had written with genre in mind—which I feel you've implied (probably without intending to .) I have no interest whatsoever in writing short, fashionable genre novels, and then dancing around trying to get agents to look at them. Any more than I have interest in reading them.

It's all down to WHY you write. If you write to sell, and that's a major goal, then of course you pay attention to current fashions and requirements. But that never was my goal. As long as a few people get to read my story (and quite a few already have) I'm happy.

 

Fair enough - you wrote without a genre in mind, deliberately. And as a result you've produced something that you don't think you can sell to a publisher, but are still very pleased with and proud of, which is its own reward!

 

Yep, that's the sum of it. I'd have had more of a chance if I'd done this 30 years ago when heftier western-laid (but not formulaic westerns) books were more popular. Books like The Snowblind Moon and Lonesome Dove, which were both published in 1985. Or The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing, which was published in the 1970s. These are the kinds of books my story is most 'like,' and they are WAY out of date. Their agents are probably dead! At any rate, the word count for new books by unknown authors, regardless of genre, is between 80,000 and 100,000 words—tops. I'm double that. Seriously, no chance. And the western topic isn't fashionable either. Any western-laid book these days is either a formulaic 'western' like Elmer Kelton wrote, a Romance, or it's a gritty literary examination of social problems of the day, told mostly at arm's length. None of these is me. I guess I'm a product of my era.

This, from the Wikepedia entry on the topic:

Western fiction is a genre of literature set in the American Old West frontier and typically set from the late eighteenth to the late nineteenth century. Well-known writers of Western fiction include Zane Grey from the early 1900s and Louis L'Amour from the mid 20th century. The genre peaked around the early 1960s, largely due to the popularity of televised Westerns such as Bonanza. Readership began to drop off in the mid- to late 1970s and has reached a new low in the 2000s. Most bookstores, outside of a few west American states, only carry a small number of Western fiction books.

 

Not everyone is writing to earn a living. Though I've since come to appreciate the skills of those that are, I don't personally value the goal. Turning out a product is a different aspect of writing. If I were going to choose that avenue of creativity, I would have pursued writing in my teens or twenties.

I'm like @jannert. I have a story I want to tell. It's a good story. Whether I tell it well enough to interest others remains to be seen. I'm content with what I'm writing, that's the goal.

As for genre, I had some issues. I'm writing YA because that's what I enjoy reading. I set it in the future so it became sci-fi. That created some problems because it's not a sci-fi story. It's a struggle but I'm enjoying the world I'm building. And the story itself isn't the typical YA story. I may end up with the book I want and no one else does.

And I'll still be happy with it, (because I already am happy with it.)

 

You make a great point. Sometimes too much emphasis is put on genre. Just tell your tale/ write you piece and figure the genre out when its time for marketing and sales.