Crossing Genre Lines is Risky. I did it anyway.

Why is crossing genre lines “ill advised”?

Crossing genre lines is a skip in the park for an author with a NAME. You see a book by James Patterson or Nora Roberts, you pretty much know what you’re going to get. Sure, a rock star like Stephen King can write horror one day and crime fiction the next. But a l’il ol’ indie like moi? That’s a big NOPE.

It’s all about author branding. Here are some of the objections I’ve heard:

• You’re going to mix up your readers!
• You’ll never get an agent!
• You’re going to waste boatloads of money on misplaced ads!
• How will your book covers work for multiple genres?
• How will booksellers – both physical and digital – know what shelf to put your books on?
• You’re going to mess up the algorithms! (This last one is absolute Amazon suicide!)

Three books later, I can attest that these points are all valid and excellent advice. Advice I continue to refuse to heed.

Then why did you do this thing, silly author?

Nobody puts Love in a box!

Did you know there are six separate Greek gods of love?

• Eros, god of love and sexual passion [a.k.a. our romantic hero]
• Anteros, god of requited love
• Himeros, god of sexual desire
• Hedylogos, god of sweet talk and flattery
• Hymenaios, god of marriage and marriage feasts
• Pothos, god of sexual longing, yearning and desire

Are you really going to tell Cupid he has to conform to some arbitrary genre definition? Hey, good luck getting Pan to obey! Guess what you’ll have at the end of that lame story- a soupy, generic nothing of a series that nobody will want to read.

Q says it pretty well in Quite the Pair when questioned about his sexuality:

“So you’re bisexual?”

Cupid shrugged. Humans and their labels. Things were much more fluid where he came from. “I don’t really know what all that means. I just like who I like.”

Reed nodded, a small smile settling on his face. “That seems like a good way to be.”

Quite the Pair, Book #3 of the Cupid’s Fall series

I get that most readers have their go-to genres.

Ask me my least favorites, and I’d probably list horror right off the top. That said, did I read and love my friend Paul Draper’s horror anthology, Black Gate Tales? Yes, yes I did. Why? Because the man is an amazing story teller.

Can you remember a time when you were persuaded to read outside your favorite genres, and you found yourself enjoying the experience?

My characters may physically exist on a digital bookshelf or in a cardboard box, but where they really live is in the readers’ hearts. I have faith in my readers. I trust that if I serve you up a compelling story with round, interesting characters, you’ll follow their story arc regardless of what journey they take the reader on. Ideally, the genre seams disappear, and the reader is simply immersed in the story. It’s absolutely thrilling when I speak with a reader who has fallen so deeply into the fantasy that they have forgotten that immortal beings don’t actually exist!

I don’t like to underestimate my readers.

You do understand that YOU’RE actually the ones being put in a box, right?

I explored this topic in a post from January 10th: One Writer’s Quest to Find the Perfect Reader. Clearly, I was already conflicted, and that was before publishing book one! Here we are after releasing book 3, and the genre waters are muddier yet.

Last week, I attended a talk by Anthony Doerr, famed author of All the Light We Cannot See and his new release, Cloud Cuckoo Land. His latest book is set in three different timelines, one being the future – which, ipso facto, puts him (at least partly) in the science fiction category. When pressed on why he crossed genre lines, he nodded as if he’d expected the question, and then answered something like this (sorry, I was too excited to jot down his exact words while he was saying them): I get that publishers need a label and booksellers need to know which shelf to put the book on, but I needed to tell my story.

THANK YOU, Anthony!

So which shelf am I actually on?

Tell me, how would you whittle down a story about hot-blooded Greek gods living in modern day USA looking for love in all the wrong places?

Right off the bat, it’s fantasy because immortals. It’s romance because love. And it’s comedy because Cupid is so stinkin’ naive and Pan is so completely blunt. And it’s LGBTQ+ because Pan is pan and Cupid is the God of Erotic Love, and as Lin Manuel Miranda so beautifully expressed it, “Love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love!”

Book one leans heavily on the fantasy aspect of living gods and immortality. By book two, most readers have settled into the world and are feeling pretty grounded in the very real life marriage of Ruthie and Zach. Book three, no question, is LGBTQ+. Classic friends-to-lovers trope except for the whole not echoing issue. And book four? Well, let’s just say the story completes its arc.

So if it seems we’re shelf-hopping, maybe that’s because love is rich and beautiful and enters into every story. Think about it – what is travel without the love of discovery of somewhere (or someone?) new? What’s a great murder mystery without passion? What is cooking without the tactile experience of texture and flavor and the desire to please someone’s palate (even if it is the chef’s own!)? What is self-help without self-love?

Name me a shelf, and I will show you the love!

How does a writer decide who her characters love?

One of the most interesting questions I’ve been asked was posed at a book club meeting for FIRST QUIVER (#1): “Why did you decide to make Pan gay?” Welp.

A whole lot of poets and writers well before my time made up those stories about Pan. THE Pan. The original pansexual. I didn’t make him anything. I just let him be Pan, and I sat back and listened and watched (and took furious notes).

Actually, that’s how all my characters work. If I consciously match any of them, I try to come up with pairings that will potentially bring out the very best and the very worst in both partners, throw them in a pressure cooker situation, and watch what happens!

There are so many delicious lenses we might choose with which to explore love. For my series, I chose four prisms that strike me as widely shared human experiences: first love (book #1), marriage (book #2), friendship (book #3), and meant-to-be fated love (book #4).

And looky who Superman loves now!

This is exciting! The latest news out of DC Comics is that the Man of Steel is going to be in a same-sex relationship.

The new Superman, Jonathan Kent, is in a relationship with fellow reporter, Jay Nakamura. And according to this article in The Guardian, “Kent’s sexuality is not the only way in which the character has been updated for a new audience and time. Recent issues have seen him protesting against the deportation of refugees, stopping a high school shooting and trying to put out wildfires that were the cause of the climate crisis.” Good for you, Supe!

“Superman’s symbol has always stood for hope, for truth and for justice. Today, that symbol represents something more. Today, more people can see themselves in the most powerful superhero in comics.”

Tom Taylor, series writer (NYT interview)

It seems my superheroes are in the very best company!

Okay, but why would a het woman write gay romance?

I was fortunate to have the friendship of a very dear gay man for sadly too few years before he was taken by cancer. Our lives intersected at the time I was starting to write fanfiction, and I had just begun to branch out into love stories featuring two men. I was very excited to share this with him, as he’d always been incredibly encouraging. (He also was a phenomenal critical reader, and I’m sure he would have been a valued member of my beta team.)

My friend was perplexed by my subject matter and asked me, “But why do you want to write about gay men?”

When I answered, “Because love is love,” he nodded, smiled, and answered, “Indeed. And parts is parts.”

Truth is, I came to writing gay romance the same way I hope you will come to reading it – that is, if it is new to you. I was reading a lot of fanfiction at the time (stories based off other authors’ work, specifically the Southern Vampire series – “True Blood” – and the Twilight series.) I would follow authors I loved into whatever rabbit holes they led me, and eventually, many of them ended up writing male-male love stories. Not every story was for me, but it definitely widened my horizons.

When I started writing m/m stories myself, I already had a wonderful, ready-made audience of readers who trusted me to tell a good story. I practiced, I experimented, I received critical feedback and encouragement. I bring many of those lovely women (and a few good men) to my Cupid’s Fall series.

Hence, my dedication for book 3, Pan’s love story:

The gauntlet is thrown.

I’m crossing genre lines like a mofo.

Will you come with me, reader?

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