10x10 Genre Change

This month, I’m doing something completely different. No 10x10, however that may come into to play again next month or the month after.

I did something completely different this month. I haven’t done anything drastic like throwing my laptop through a window, breaking every pen or burning notebooks full of stories. Sometimes, though, to readers, what I’ve done is a capital crime.

I changed genres.

The short story I wrote is as far away from Dragon’s Champion as it could possibly be. If you bought Dragon’s Champion (and a great big THANK YOU! If you did), and you bought what I just wrote based on that experience… You might want to hunt me down.

It’s not fantasy. It does not feature a bravely sassy girl setting out to save herself. There is bravery in the story, but… I’m not sure whether to call it dark fantasy or horror. I have 2 Beta Readers (those lovely people who read our work before we send it out to tell us if it sucked or not), and I’ve only heard back from one.

The one who has gotten back to me took it too personally. She knew that it is essentially a “Wyndie’s working something out and this is what happened.” She also knew the situation that caused it. What she forgot though, is that I am a fiction writer. When I work something out in my fiction, I take it, twist it away from myself and then set it free. At some point, it stops being about me and becomes completely the story. Of course, her reaction tells me something about the story as well.

I love this story.

I think it has power and grace, but then again… I don’t read enough dark fantasy or horror to be a good  judge. My other Beta Reader, she not only reads it she writes it.  If she thinks along the same lines as I do, it will go out for submissions.

Until then, I’m working on several other things. I’m coming to realize that I just might be an eclectic writer. That’s ok, many writers are. The trick is to balance it out so that the readers don’t expect one thing and get another.

What do you think? Does it annoy you when your favorite authors switch to a genre you don’t like? Or are you game to follow them no matter what? If you write, in what genres do you write?

(Just noticed in an odd coincidence, this post is 10 paragraphs!)

You can find me at http://wynwords.wordpress.com/ where I blog books, writing and parenting

You can catch my debut story, Dragon's Champion ,at Mocha Memoirs Press