Give me a G

Just in case you missed it yesterday, I'm running a contest/blog party to celebrate my followers. Click here if you want to get in on the fun.

And just to prove that great minds think alike, Nicole over at One Significant Moment at a Time is also running a contest to celebrate her followers. Click here to get in on that.

Now that the contest news is taken care of, what is it about genre and determining it that drives me to distraction? In my head, I know what it is and what the genres are supposed to be. As a reader I am drawn to all kinds of genres in my reading; science fiction, women’s lit, literary fiction, mystery. Genre is pretty easy to tell in a bookstore since they, well, tell you.

Readers want good stories to read, good being subjective and also not easily defined. Publishers and agents want something concrete they can accept and support and sell. As a writer, though, differences in genre are sometimes not easy to recognize or delineate as the lines blur for some of us. And for those of us hoping to publish, it is beyond important for us to be able to define what we’ve written.

And the lines become even more blurry when you, the writer, introduce other elements into your work. Romance/Mystery. Mystery/Romance. Romance/Women’s Fiction. Yes, I know that’s all about the happy ending thing. Women’s Fiction/Literary Fiction.

Guinevere over at This Is Not My Day Job has a great post about how difficult it is for some of us to determine genre. Especially those of us who straddle the line between literary, commercial, and women’s versus romance labeling for genre.

Mystery Writing is Murder has a great discussion here and here about genre blending and happy endings and character. I have to admit that genre is less important to me as a reader and a writer than character.

So here are my questions to you. What genres do you write? Do you blend genres? How does that work for you? Do you read/write dark? Or do you need a happy ending regardless of genre?