I can see this thread has more or less gotten back on track and I'd like to see it remain that way. Thank you. As for the topic, as @LostThePlot suggested earlier, the way I understand transcending a genre is basically a book that has appeal outside of the genre, especially if it's, say, BDSM erotica and then becomes a major mainstream hit like 50 Shades. It's not a good book, but it made a niche genre familiar, accessible, and cool to people who previously didn't think much of the genre or, if they were a fan, kept a low profile. This is not to say there weren't popular erotica books before, but that one really blew the lid off. Sounds like good business, something publishers want. And like several others have said, also introducing elements that subvert and flip the clichés within the genre could make the novel transcendent. Furthermore, this concept of transcendent literature kind of sounds like something of a given: you want to bring something new to the table to stand out. At least in some genres formulaic writing should be discouraged, imo, so the genre doesn't become too over-saturated with the same old elves, humans, and dwarfs defeating an evil sorcerer.
Exactly. If you're not doing anything interesting with your genre, just fulfilling standards and commonalities, then what's the interest?
The interest is huge. Plenty of readers want to read the same stories over and over again with only slight differences. There's plenty of room in the market for both experimental and 'safe' books
I don't mean you have to reject the genre or anything. Not at all. Just that doing something beyond the obvious is what makes it different which is necessary to be interesting.
Brandon Sanderson frequently muses about blending the familiar and the strange. Which is basically his way of talking about how much to transcend a genre. A comment pertinent to this conversation, from this article http://brandonsanderson.com/blending-the-familiar-and-the-strange/ When we, as readers, pick up a new book off of the shelf, we generally are looking for something new, yet old, at the same time. The ratio of new versus old varies drastically depending on the person and the genre. (Romance readers, in general, seem to be looking for a lot of the familiar while SF readers, in general, strike me as seeking far more of the original.) He covers the topic in more depth during lecture 2 of his videoed lectured series. http://www.writeaboutdragons.com/brandon_w2012/
My point is that I accept the idea of a very genre fiction that isn't that original, because it's very difficult to be completely unoriginal. You inevitably create your things, and people will try to be interesting even if they're being a bit too familiar for my own taste.
Oh, and what is more, I don't think 50 Shades re-invented the wheel, even. I doubt the author had any idea it was going to transcend genre/audience boundaries. Maybe the publisher saw the potential, who knows, but I've understood it's a rather safe and cliched story. A frumpy girl meets a hot, rich guy and (kinky) sex happens. Sounds like the kind of story/fantasy fulfillment many a woman wants to read. It's an old formula and appeals to a fairly big audience. It's safe. But I think it still transcended its genre as it became sooo super popular.
There's something interesting to be said about genre fans being kinda embarrassed about what they read, or at least publishers thinking they are. To this day sci fi and horror and fantasy are all genres that publishers seem to see as being outside the mainstream despite living in a world where zombie apoloyspes, superheros and big fantasy has become so safe that they all have their own tv shows. Five years ago zombies were already the white noise of creativity; thrown into every game and movie to jazz up a tried formula. They were so common that there's a separate genre of smart, self-aware zombie movies. But horror books aren't mainstream adult fiction. Publishers continue to believe that the people buying horror and sci fi and fantasy are kids and dweebs and nerds who somehow aren't proper readers because they really love the genre they love instead of buying the big famous titles that you're supposed to like but seldom are remembered fondly. We live in an era when Warhammer 40k novels have repeatedly topped the best seller lists. But sci-fi isn't mainstream. Most agents won't even look at it. It's not because they think your writing sucks, it'll just be really really hard for them to sell it. So what can we glean from this? Publishers are more likely to pick up a book if it offers some broader appeal. Not just a shining star in it's own genre; something that they can sell to a non-genre fan too. I've heard plenty of people say things to the extent of 'The [verb]ing was good but I just skipped the other stuff'. Now that doesn't sound like a great endorsement of that book, but publishers care about sales. A Normal who buys this genre book because they've heard it has a great romance is a sale. It's why all big budget popcorn flicks must have a romance because then your mum and your sister will sit through it instead of burning the theater to the ground and demanding in no uncertain terms that Michael Bay be buggered with an aubergine. In a very real sense these patronizing concessions are 'transcending' the action genre by including other elements. Bad elements mostly but still. The vast majority of 'pure' genre books are being released by pre-existing authors who've proven they can sell X books every time and that's worth Y money to a publisher. But when you're a new guy, especially a not particularly marketable one, who has no existing fan base and no proven ability to sell anything, well you better offer something that won't be put in a box. Think about it. It doesn't matter if you genuinely are Arthur C Clarke or William Gibson or Isaac Asimov; if you are starting your career today the sci-fi market is fairly small which limits potential sales. Even if your first book is awesome and becomes a must have for every genre fan, that's a drop in the bucket compared to a mediocre romance. Your sales aren't going to huge no matter what, even if you get showered in awards. And so your amazing Neuromancer or Foundation's Edge is a tough sell. What's an easier sell is something that promises interest from multiple genres or from mainstream 'non-readers'. Something that could reasonably be reviewed by Erotic Review as well as Fangoria. And that's what I think we're really talking about. A genre book will just on the surface appeal to one type of fan. You can only put it in front of one audience and (say) 1 in 10 of those people will buy it. But a 'transcendent' book you can put before two or three or more audience groups, and still turn 1 in 10 into a sale. Just on theme and construction alone a 'transcendent' book will have a bigger audience and more sales. Transcendent is a bad word, frankly. Because ain't a lot of transcending going on here. Just as a word it hints at 'way better than you could ever write'. That's deliberate. Anything to thin the heard of wannabe writers. But a better term here would be one borrowed from the music world: Crossover appeal. A rock band with a DJ. Pop acts with R&B singers showing up as guests. A romance book set in a sci-fi world. These things deliberately cross genre boundaries; some cynically, some stylistically; but by doing so a bunch of people who wouldn't otherwise be interested are.
Just for the record, I've now mastered the art of putting my pants on both legs at once. It took almost 60 years, but when something's important, you just keep working at it.
@LostThePlot I think Lolita would definitely be published today. Might not be HarperCollins, but there are a lot of publishing houses outside of the big six. I'm sure it would be picked up somewhere.
I think if something is brilliantly written it's going to find a publisher regardless of subject matter. I suppose one could concoct extreme scenarios that make it unlikely, but I wouldn't include Lolita in that category.
That's a different point entirely than you were making earlier. My point is that books can be really close to the "completely unoriginal" line and find a big readership lapping it up because that's what some genre readers want. There are books out there with more or less the exact same storyline but different characters speaking the words, and readers love them. You don't have to be original to sell OR to write an interesting book. Yep and it still baffles me to this day how it became so popular. But that's another thread.
I agree that crossover appeal is probably the more descriptive term. However, if you're writing for a genre, I imagine what a genre publisher will want will be limited by the expectations of the readers of that genre to some extent? If your story crosses over too much, it'll need to be marketed as a trade paperback/literary/general interest sort of book, won't it? It isn't a Romance just because there's a love story included in it. So if the love story wanders too far away from what the genre reader expects, includes too many other kinds of subplots, or doesn't end happily the way the genre reader expects, then genre publishers won't want it. It has nothing to do with how excellent the book may be. It's a fine line, really. How far can you push the envelope and still be considered 'genre?'
Well, I don't see it that way. That wasn't the intention of my words. But that doesn't matter much as an argument. I failed to convey my meaning in exactly the way I wanted. I'll have to see what went wrong. And maybe I can take something away on my phrasing. (Shrug).
We can but hope I suppose. Nabakov genuinely is one of the greatest English language writers of all time and maybe there are exceptions for that kind of genius. But let's say that I am (for sake of argument) the one thousandth greatest writer of all time. Is that enough to get my work in print as an unknown, brand new writer regardless of subject matter or genre? Where is the line where an agent or publisher is just going to say 'You're a great writer but I can't sell this' ? Now don't get me wrong; if I'm ever going to make it it'll be on the strength of my writing. My whole deal is writing sad, lonely, unheroic main characters and making you sympathize. I think it's an effective literary device but character focused genre defying fiction isn't what publishers dream of. If I get there it'll be because they are strongly written with unique insights. I think I will get there. Either by luck or by design I'll stumble onto something more marketable and once I actually get my foot in the door people will respond to how well I write. But just by being a great writer alone? Not really.
Well said! But you've got me all wrong. I'm not trying to emulate Stephen King's persona, thinking that will somehow give me a little bit of magic. Stephen King is actually a very mild-mannered guy. He started a town newspaper as a child, for god's sake. But when he writes a character or an opinion, he doesn't hold back. And somehow this has earned him a reputation of being "controversial" and "the horror king" or something along those lines. Things that happen everyday, such as sexual assault, abuse, swearing, racial slurs, drug use, etc. are suddenly outrageous because somebody writes about them. That's Stephen King for you. But behaving dreadfully? If wearing plaid shirts and playing in a rock band with some other writers, raising a family and trying to remain culturally relevant in his later years is dreadful behavior--I don't think I know what good behavior is. Not everybody can be a Mother Theresa or a Mahatma Gandhi. That quote jumped out at me, not because it justifies my own internal meanness. No, I am aware that I am mean for my own reasons that have nothing to do with "being a writer" or anything like that. This quote jumps out at me because I always wanted to write about things that were personally always fascinating to me. Sexual confusion, abuse, inappropriate relationships, revenge, hatred, suicide, strange desires, running away and starting over somewhere else, etc. But, I have always had to filter my thoughts because 'what would people think'? I have a muse, but she's a real bitch.
I plugged fifty shades in to Google trends and tracked its popularity over time, and it didn't become popular until all three books were already out. So, it wasn't some organic thing that happened as more and more people kept reading the books and talking to each other about them. They were nothing, and suddenly they were all anyone was talking about. The books probably got picked up on the blogosphere as a sort of tongue-in-cheek joke, that's my guess. If you notice, there was always a bit of humor involved whenever a news story covered Fifty Shades. Maybe it was a sort of gateway for people who had read Twilight to get into the world of romance novels in a non-threatening, non-committal way? The sex scenes in those books are ridiculous and quite funny. If you look at the trending data, a lot of people lost interest in Fifty Shades as soon as the movie came out. It was some kind of weird sexual liberation/chick-bonding/female empowerment phenomenon for privileged middle-class women that is hard for the rest of us to understand. A good deal of the interest in the books was probably fueled by criticism of them, as there is a significant movement in modern feminism that is actively seeking to establish themselves as victims of some kind of capitalist patriarchy... so here we have a young girl literally being dominated by a rich white guy. Like many things, it's hard to understand unless you see it through someone else's point of view.
Is it possible that you've confused Steve Jobs with Stephen King? Otherwise... ? I would say that no one who un-ironically uses the phrase "chick-bonding" is really qualified to offer insight about seeing things through the point of view of modern feminism.
