Hello Everyone,
I was just wondering exactly how important it was to write within a genre. Also whether it would weaken your work if you were to cross genre; would your work become the equivalent of Aesop's ass (the braying one), or would it carry more commercial appeal?
Carles

Hi Carles
Well I guess it would depend on how vigorously you cross-genre'd?
A novel that starts out about a housewife in Leeds and ends up segueing into a medieval inter-planetary war against gigantic dust balls might not make any sense!
However, a novel about a housewife from Leeds who ends up on the run from the CIA is different - begins as chick-lit, becomes action - well, maybe you could get away with that.
But even then, women might start reading it and give up when it becomes too 'action' and men might like that part of it but never get to it because it starts 'chick-lit' (obviously I'm generalising here - personally I hate chick-lit and love Andy McNab.)

Did you have something specific in mind? It might make it easier to give opinions then.

Anna

Heya Anna,
Cor dear, you made me laugh. I think you are right, the extent and direction of the genre-hopping is key. But when a writer sits at his desk and types 'Chapter 1', should he be concerned with keeping within an established expectation or should he just follow his creative urge? What if the world is denied a cracking masterpiece because a time-travelling Northern housewife saving the earth is not considered genre specific?
And who controls the genres? Publishers?
I don't have a work in mind, I just wanted to explore the issue with writers, rather than trade. Incidentally, can you think of any fiction that does successfully switch genres, or even any writers? Sebastian Faulks is about as far as I got.
Cheers, C

Hiya
As for writers who do it, I couldn't name any, but I do know a couple of books where things don't turn out the way they seem - Ilium by Dan Simmons for one (sci-fi) - which starts describing the Trojan War until you realise, well, all sorts of things - the little symbiotic robots are a nice touch and fit in really well in Troy!!! - and Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy for another - at one point you assume you're in a normal fantasy book and then all of a sudden you're being told about Oxford, England in the present day. It adds a definite edge of realism and surrealism that works very well but can be confusing to start with as your perceptions are indulged and then ripped away by turns.

But you're right, the world could lose a masterpiece by the writer being constrained by what he thinks people wants. I don't think publishers control the genres per se, but to find someone willing to take a risk and publish a wildly cross-genre'd book would most likely be nigh impossible. After all, they're only in it for the money.

Anna