Three Genres to Notice Oddities. Numerous oddities have been published over recent years that might not fit neatly into a genre or are unusual due to size. The Christmas Box, The Bridges of Madison County and The Celestine Prophecy were all small by the way of word count, but each of these books ended up as bestsellers. To use them as guides might be a mistake for the beginning novelist, as they are considered experimental and thus can be hard to sell. I might note that all three of these books were originally self-published and received critical notice due to the authors’ own hard work and tenacity at self-marketing. Serial and Sequel are types of novels that often find great success. They feature reappearing characters and / or recurring themes. You’ll find these novels popular in most current genres. What makes them successful, of course, are convincingly real, yet original characters and situations. Sex, Foul Language, Violence, Death and Aberrant Behavior. The amount and depth of risqué scenes, controversial themes and offensive language you include in your novel is not only story and genre dependent but also depends on the tastes and policies of your publisher. It can limit not only your audience but whether your novel will get published all together. Candid, uncensored scenes depicting real-life scenarios are important to the integrity of writer and story, but understanding the audience and dealing with those matters tastefully and appropriately are just as important. Sex and sexual tension as well as violence are key factors in most aspects of human life and can be interesting and important dimensions of many stories. However, the amounts of these elements and the approach taken by the writer should be considered carefully. How these important and controversial aspects of human life are portrayed in adult novels will be very different than in young-adult mysteries. Again, the best advice I can offer is to look at novels already published and currently on bookstore shelves to see what is appropriate. Even then, a good rule of thumb is that a story should never include gratuitous sex or violence. However, these issues should be dealt with if they are important aspects of the story itself. Perhaps you feel explicit depiction of a violent rape / murder scene provides important character motivation, characterization or plot information in a novel about Miami drug gangs. If so, fine. But in typical suspense or mystery novels, giving details about body fluids and death throes probably won’t be appropriate. In his book Novel Writing Made Easy, Kindle Publishers, Gordon Kessler had this to say. Be honest with yourself and with your writing. Don’t pull punches because your mother or your pastor might read your story. Make your scenes live, give them verisimilitude by realistic depiction, but do so with consideration of what is acceptable to your target audience. For an example of a story written in a genre that is generally full of violence and four letter words but was very well done without either, read Ted Dekker’s thriller Three. It’s an incredible novel that I read without realizing its publisher, Westbow, is a religious publishing house. Discovering this after I finished the novel, I tried to recall if at any point Dekker crossed the line by using crude language or gratuitous sex or violence, and I realized he hadn’t. Still, he told a fantastic story, and I hadn’t noticed the lack of swearing or graphic violence. What an excellent job of storytelling! NovelWriting Made Easy, Gordon Kessler. http:// www.Gordonkessler.com

https://litehelp./2016/02/01/genres-to-notice