As you know, I spend a great deal of time discussing why not to follow trends with your writing. In other words, why you should avoid jumping into a genre that you know very little about. I have told you time and time again, much of the reason really stems from your lack of understanding that genre enough to add those special twists and turns to the story to make it truly fit. But there is another reason.
Writing outside of your genre, working with something that is more of a trend than your personal taste will lead to a serious lack of voice in the story. Since your heart and passion is not really in it, you won't (and I know I will sound paranormal on this one) channel you spirit into the story.
When I read a submission, I can clearly tell if the writer was "into it" or not. Sure the words in the query might sound enthusiastic, but something in the writing was missing.
I have to say, I see this mostly in writers submitting YA's. Some of these people haven't been around this age group for a long time. Their kids are out of the home and all they have to work with is what they see on the media and The OC. This is not enough. You have to be able to tap into that unique voice and to do that, you have to be able to tap into your own personal voice.
Are you writing in the genre you do best, or the one that you just started due to a trend or a "nifty idea?"
For those of you that submitted questions to me and we didn't get to everything with the Blog Talk Radio Chat yesterday, I will get to those and you should see answers in tomorrow's blog.
Scott
No comments:
Post a Comment