Manor Mysteries and other genre projects.

[ilthit]

I found myself plotting a manor mystery yesterday, and continued it today, and I am having just so much fun.

How do you feel about writing genre fiction, especially fiction in a very specific niche like the manor mystery or gothic romance? When you have a narrowed-down genre, do you want to keep within the tropes of it, or mix it with another genre, or subvert those tropes? Or do you prefer not to think about genre at all?

Since manor mysteries are all about messing with your expectations (as long as it doesn't ruin the brain teaser) I expect this will be the most genre-loyal of any of my subgenre-specific stories. If it was a sword & sorcery story, I would not be able to resist making the lone barbarian warrior into the villain.

Comments

[leia_solo]

I like to mix it up a bit. I try to keep the tropes, but I would like to surprise the reader somewhat.

[ilthit]

Can you give me an example?

There's always moving so far from the tropes that it's no longer the same genre.

[leia_solo]

Well I tend to write in the romance genre myself. I can't honestly think of one off the top of my head actually XD

Sui generis

[revolutemind]

I like genre for its sandbox application; where some critics might not like being handed all their ingredrients up front; it hands you a whole bunch of toys off the bat to play with whether one wants to ham it up to the maximum of the genre's tropes, or turn the whole business on its head. It can be doubly delightful if you're a diehard consumer of that genre's products versus something less genre-specific (example: one of my guilty pleasures is sword-and-sorcery, and to read a tale with a villainous lone barbarian would be quote entertaining; roiling force of terror and chaos across the Holds and whatnot).

Re: Sui generis

[ilthit]

A sandbox is a good analogy to describe the manor mystery genre. It also has a strong brainteaser aspect that you don't necessarily get in thrillers or detective stories with a focus on the gruesome, the sexual or the psychological, which I like.

I am in love with genres. The tropes of a genre may reflect certain ways of thinking, which I love to break and challenge. And to be honest, I really don't think there is such a thing as a "straight novel" - you could easily set about to write a Highbrow Classic Novel That Will Be Loved By Critics and use a number of ingredients that keep popping up in just such novels. I could probably write a list of rules for one: 1. It must be about adult characters and their feelings. 2. It cannot be wish-fulfilment - the protagonist suffers severe loss and never recovers. 3. No magic or science fiction. 4. Maximum one action scene.

I'm probably not going to write it, so here, then, is the seed of an idea for a sword & sorcery story, free to a good home: a lone barbarian warrior whose prowess is so mighty that even armies cannot contend against him is laying siege on a nation he blames for the death of his wife. POV an ordinary native of that country, perhaps a soldier, who's struggling to save his people and the only home he's ever known.

[starflower]

I am a big fan of genre-specific books but when it comes to writing them I lack the ability to stick to the guidlines of a cirtain type of story. The closest that I have ever come to writing genre fiction is a series of young adults stories that I am working on at the moment. I supose they could be classified as comedic manor mystery but even then it is somewhat a parody of that genre. Generally my novels tend to be a mix and mash of various types. Many of them include action, mystery, adventure, scifi/fantasy, and occasionally a hint of romance all within one book.

[ilthit]

Sounds good to me! It's interesting what tropes you can break and still stay within the genre, and what are necessary for the work to be recognized as part of said genre. You could say - and many do, and I agree - that any work with a magical element in it is fantasy, but fantasy's subgenres are more tightly defined: paranormal, magical realism, high fantasy and so on.

What kind of guidelines do you find difficult?

I tried many times to plot a romance novel, since romance is in such demand, but I just couldn't deal with some of its tropes, and I think those were tropes that are vital to the romance genre as opposed to a novel with a strong romantic element.