In a post on CrimeReads, Ann McMan says that forging your own path in fiction is challenging, but worth it.
“The harder we try to reinvent the wheel, the likelier we are to cobble together a flimsy retread of something that went before,” McMan says. While genre readers expect to travel familiar ground, can writers find variation within their bounds? “In art and music, achieving this desired but tenuous balance depends on the fusion of disparate aesthetic elements that, together, create a unified expression of beauty,” McMan says. “In literature, the intersection of unity and variety work much the same way.”
In The Talented Mr. Ripley, Patricia Highsmith had readers rooting for a murderous narcissist. “These novels tick all the boxes: unreliable narrator, convoluted plots, a multitude of twists and switchbacks, red herrings, gripping suspense, and the skillful manipulation of a limited point of view that hides essential information from the reader,” McMan notes. “Yet within those constraints, Highsmith managed to craft a series of psychological thrillers that straddle a world of darkness and insanity.”
McMan says all writers should attempt this kind of experimentation with genre, tropes, setting, and narrative. Even the venerated Agatha Christie experimented with reader expectations, in ways that have now become common. “She was a master at confounding her readers with unreliable narrators, criminals who cavalierly escaped justice, or even a murder case in which every suspect was guilty,” McMan writes. “She happily embraced such bold departures from the prescribed tropes that defined such tales.”
Modern book marketing makes this difficult, as key words have become more important than theme and, in some cases, even craft. “Therefore, our challenge—if we dare embrace it—is to strive to craft genre stories that satisfy, but still manage to push the limitations of their labels,” McMan says. The rules of genre aren’t set in stone. Borrow tropes. Mash up sub-genres. Question what you think about genre.
