New Mystery

Getting the inkling of a new story. It started yesterday and I've scribbled a few notes. Another mystery - paranormal/psychological again. I'd begun to worry I had dried up, but this idea is exciting me like The Bookseller did.

But this time there's more to worry about at this stage. I confess to being a lot more ignorant about the writing process when I started The Bookseller. I didn't give a thought to tense or tone, I just wrote it. Rightly or wrongly, I relied on instinct. This time I'm trying to do more prep. At the moment I don't really have a story yet, just a few notes about events I want to happen and a nebulous idea about the resolution.

It's going to be all about paranoia. That's definitely my favourite stomping ground. Someone thinks they're going mad, the things happening to them make no sense, but once they change their mindset it all falls into place. This time the protagonist is a woman. I think. (Like I said, it's still early days)

The Great Genre Debate

If you trawl around some online writers' groups like me you may have encountered a strange subterranean war that is going on vis-a-vis the subject of genre. I first encountered it on a forum where someone had brought up the subject of how useful reviews were if the reviewer wasn't familiar with your particular genre. I was startled by the vitriolic response of some members on the subject. It's a publishing invention, they say. A Good Story is a Good Story, full stop. All well and good, but go into any bookshop and you won't find books arranged according to "Good Story" and "Not Good Story". So ignoring the phenomenon seems a bit naive.

According to which source you go with, there are hundreds of different fiction "genres" ranging from Chicklit to Crime and all points in between. And then of course there's Literary Fiction which seems to sweep across everything but take it to a deeper level, whatever that means. (I'm not sure you can get a Literary Chicklit novel - what do you think?) I recently enquired on one forum about what constituted literary fiction and brought down on my head accusations of snobbery. In fact I'd only wondered because while researching agents and publishers I find the term used by them, and I genuinely wondered who decides if a book is "literary" or not.

But the overall impression is that the subject of genre twangs a few writerly nerves out there. I'm not sure why. Do writers just hate to be categorised? Any thoughts, people?