Reading Quality Writing

The challenge in calling some novels “literary” and some novels “genre” is novelists by their nature aspire to a certain level of literary quality. One of the challenges with quality fiction is it becomes difficult to fit a good tale into the confines of a single, simple genre. A good murder mystery also has a great romance, for example. Or a thriller turns on a new scientific breakthrough pushing the story into the sci-fi category. Fantasy writers have no problem mixing horror, suspense, romance, sci-fi, mystery or any other genre into a single story.

Mixing genres is not a sign of good writing, per se, but it does make it difficult for the writer of an excellent mixed genre story to have their work accepted by traditional publishing houses. That’s because traditional publishers think in terms of book sales. They want to know on which shelf to tell the bookstore owner to place their book. So a mystery story is about a mystery in their eyes. They don’t want a lot of other genres muddying the marketing waters.

For this reason, the better genre writers often end up self-publishing their work because it simply does not fit into a nice little single genre definition. Now, you may argue that writing single genre fiction is a discipline and the best writers master it the way a poet masters the sonnet form. And many single genre authors are producing excellent fiction. Dashiell Hammett is one such example whose work is considered classic in the mystery genre. And you not only would be correct, you also would be describing an easier path to traditional publication.

But in your admiration of pure form, don't miss out on the great works of a mixed genre sort to be found in the world of self-publishing. The best way to identify quality in any book, whether traditional or self-published is to read the first chapter. I usually make my decision with the first sentence. If I can walk away from the story after reading the first sentence, the novel isn't for me.

And speaking of tales worth reading, please consider my suspense/thriller novel Fulfillment, click here for Amazon or click here for paperback. It's pure suspense/thriller, horror, mystery, romance and spiritual warfare. Self-publishing at its best even if it is published by PromiseGarden.

Here’s another novel idea…
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