Writing
stories is like eating Skittles, I want to taste the rainbow.
By
Lindsey Pogue, Co-author of The Ending Series
Being a new-ish author, I feel like I’ve been treading water
over the past few years, trying to navigate authorship-ism-ology to the best of my
ability without drowning. There are plenty
of things that are difficult about being an indie author, like marketing and
book covers, editing and more marketing…If you want to produce high-quality
work to the best of your ability, to get your work out there, gaining a loyal
readership, then you’ve got to work hard at it. But that’s not necessarily the
most difficult part of being an author.
Finding
a niche is easy, for most people…
The most looming question of all is, which genre do I write for when I love reading them all? That might seem like
an easy answer to some, but having a controversial series under my belt that’s
gotten both rave and scathing reviews because it so delicately balances so many
genres, has made me question where I stand as an author.
Other authors have told me to avidly read the genre I want
to write so that it will make me a better writer, and so that I’ll understand
what works well and all the key components to those types of stories. Well, I
have seven bookshelves in my house chockfull of historical fiction, historical
romance, contemporary romance, new adult, dystopian, science fiction, literary
fiction, the list goes on. So, what do I do when my mind is a bottomless pit of
possible story ideas that span the breadth of many genres? Yes, I’m fully aware
this is a first-world problem, but it’s a problem for me nonetheless. I’m an
author, I want to make my fans happy, just like all authors do.
YA? New
Adult? Science-Fiction? Romance?
Until I actually started working on The Ending Series with
my co-author and dear friend, Lindsey Fairleigh, I never saw myself writing science-fiction, let alone thought the
first book I’d publish would ever be
considered so; I never read science-fiction and had no interest in writing it.
Obviously, things worked out much differently than expected.
Three years, three books, and six novellas later, LF and I
are writing our fourth and final installment in our emotionally charged,
post-apocalyptic world of The Ending. Perhaps it’s because of our series’s
inability to “fit” in anywhere that I am so curious about my own personal
writing future. People equally love and hate After The Ending. The feedback is all over the board—it’s too
emotional for sci-fi, it’s too girly and the content too young to be adult
fiction, but the themes are too adult for YA…see where I’m going with this?
So, that poses the question I keep asking myself, what will
I write next? Where will it fit in? Do I care? Yes, I care, but I know I
shouldn’t let that stop me.
Writing
stories is like eating Skittles, I want to taste the rainbow.
I’ve been writing all my life, completing my first YA
manuscript when I was in high school. I was so
proud of myself, thinking, oh yeah, this is my niche for sure! I’m gonna be a
writer! Woot! Woot! Yeah, well, then my genre of choice changed, and I went
completely off the path and ended up writing science fiction—romancey, new adult
sci-fi, but sci-fi all the same. I still want to write them all—the fantastical
and gritty real life—and just thinking about the possibilities gets my gears
turning and revved up for my next writing adventure. Let me tell you, when your
book doesn’t fit nicely into a
package, you open yourself up to harsher reviews from people who were expecting
one book but got another, and when it’s not cookie cutter, your book is much
more difficult to market.
But, over the past year or so, I’ve realized something: nothing
is black and white. There are tons of authors out there who write historical
fiction and paranormal romance, erotica and thrillers. While it generally works
out best if a story easily fits into a genre as I mentioned above, that won’t
always be the case. So why have I been trying to box myself in? As far as I can
tell, there is no single choice to be made if I want to be myself, to write
what I’m passionate about.
So folks, apparently finding a niche in the writing world isn’t
as easy for me as it is for other authors. But then, I’ve decided to give
myself a break. I need to do what feels right. I don’t have to choose one single
genre. I can be diverse as long as I can accept the can of worms that comes
with it. After all, diversity is what makes good writers, right?
As long
as there’s some romance, please.
Assuming that twenty years from now I’ve written stories across
many genres and I’m still going strong, there’s one thing I know they’ll all
have in common. Romance. YES! Nothing
makes me happier than creating new brooding characters or jokesters or hotshots
with cocky grins, and some of our fans most beloved characters are those very
ones. This gives me hope and a strange sense of security that no matter what I
decide to do, if they loved The Ending Series, people will enjoy all that comes
next from LF and I as well.
If you’re interested in reading After The Ending and forming your own opinion on the matter, you’re
in luck! It's currently on sale for 99 cents over on Amazon!
