Genres? We don't need no stinking genres!

by Lisabet Sarai



Jamie’s topic for this week at Oh Get A Grip asks the question, what’s your favorite genre to write? My reaction is perhaps not so extreme as my title would suggest, but to be honest, I’m rather fed up with the whole concept. The way I see it, genres are primarily a marketing issue. The market slaps a genre label onto your work and puts you in a box.

I don’t like to be cooped up in a box. (Well, not unless my Master put me there!) My writing tends to cross genres. I write M/M, F/F, M/F/M, M/M/F, and pretty much every other combination of genders that you could imagine – in the same book. I have BDSM elements, paranormal elements, cross-cultural elements and historical settings – all bound up together.

My recently released novel Exposure is labeled as “erotic suspense”, and I suppose that is as accurate as any single label would be, but then I worry: will my readers be upset by the F/F scenes? And what about the readers who love lesbian fiction? How will they know they can find it in my book?

Incognito is tagged as “contemporary erotic romance”, yet nearly a third of the book takes place in Victorian Boston. Raw Silk was contracted to its original publisher as “erotica”. Now it’s selling as “erotic romance”. I probably changed no more than 1% of the text. Was that enough to change the genre? Of course not!

I recently pitched a story to one of my publishers, a contribution to a menage anthology. The editor rejected it because it had some male/male interaction, and this anthology was supposed to be restricted to M/F/M only.

Grr! I mean, it’s up to her what she wants to publish, but I can’t help thinking that she has a rather narrow definition of menage.

I understand why publishers want to assign genre labels. It’s a short cut for readers looking for a particular sort of subject matter. You liked the last two werewolf novels you bought? Here, try another one. Or twelve. But perhaps readers might be happier experimenting. As much as I love well-written BDSM, I can’t take a steady diet of it. Am I weird, wanting to have some variety? Wanting to mix it up? (My husband will energetically assert that I am indeed weird, but not for that reason!)

From what I’ve observed in my two and a half years in the ePublishing world, genre labels seem to encourage a distressing level of uniformity. We see piles of shapeshifter books, hundreds of vampire romances. Every week a dozen new volumes set in mystical realms inhabited by beings with magical powers hit the cyber-shelves.

Maybe most readers really are looking for predictability. Not me. When I read, I want to be surprised. Astonished by the author’s original premise. Sucked into places I didn’t expect to go.

Weird, right?

One genre label that drives me crazy is “inter-racial romance”. To me, categorizing a romance based on the race of the protagonists smacks of bigotry and prejudice. Sure, a black woman and a white man (or vice versa) may be more of a turn on for some people than a same-race couple, but to me, using the “inter-racial” label seems to be validating and perpetuating the old myths associated with segregation and slavery.

I’ve been assured by authors who explicitly identify their work as “inter-racial” that this sub-genre sells well. Ah well, I suppose the market rules. As for me, I’ve written stories featuring mixed race lovers, but I’ll never use the word “inter-racial” to try and sell them. Just my feelings.

It suddenly strikes me that my argument against the inter-racial label sounds similar to the complaints some people make about BDSM. It encourages violence against women, they say. It makes cruelty and abuse acceptable and sexy.

Now personally, I know that this is hogwash – at least for the type of BDSM that I write. The BDSM relationships in which my characters are involved are intimate, enjoyable, fulfilling, even healing. I suppose, though, that someone who had never read my work or experienced the potential joy to be found in a D/s relationship might well find BDSM fiction alien and threatening, sick and dangerous.

This, in turn, makes me realize that another purpose of genre labels is to warn readers away from fiction that would make them uncomfortable. I suppose I can understand this, but it still makes me wonder. If they’ve never read BDSM, or FF, or MM, how do they know they won’t like it. Do readers really want the same stories, the same experience, over and over?

Maybe they do. Maybe I’m just weird. Maybe that’s why my writing doesn’t sell better!

What do you think?