As with any industry, publishing is all about investing in a product it already knows will sell. Therefore, originality goes out the window when a slush pile of the same old stories sits just awaiting some eager editor waiting to prove herself with a new tale about sexy vampires or a young, hot, sword-wielding vigilante. Why go out on a limb with something entirely different when more of the same is readily available and people will buy it? This mentality is what I found so very frustrating. I heard time and again that my novel was great but that it didn’t fit the mold. In fact, that’s what I loved about my book, and I wasn’t alone. Publishing companies want a perfect blend of something that’s never been done and something they know how to sell because they’ve sold so many before it. That mold is firm, and some writers will hack away at their precious pages until the book resembles the industry’s expectations but is nothing like the brilliant manuscript they wrote.

I’ll admit there is a delicate balance between being too married to one’s own work that any revision, any criticism seems like a brutal and undeserved attack and being so desperate to please any editor, agent, consultant, or remotely invested reader that one will write off characters, alter key plot points, or change settings or time periods. At some point, that writer must decide how much of the book to sacrifice to the gods of publishing.

This brings me to one of the top ten reasons to independently publish: creative control. At the risk of sounding petulant, I have to say that there are simply too many rules in publishing. Independently publishing a novel is liberating. Suddenly, I wasn’t bowing and scraping at the feet of editors and agents over word count, the name or ages of my characters, the setting, or how many books there should be in the series. It ends where I want it to- the book and the series as a whole. The characters look and speak the way I intended. I believe in knowing the audience and understanding the expectations of the genre, but I also have faith in the readers’ ability to accept and become a fan of something that fights against the old tropes spoon-fed to them by the publishing industry. I know this because I have been a reader for as long as I’ve been a writer. We, as writers, actually understand the genre and the market almost as well as the publishing companies because we’re our own target audience.

When I speak of creative control, I’m not talking about serving up an unedited, unpolished mess to the reading world. I’m talking about a writer’s ability to independently publish the best version of his or her manuscript. Before a writer self publishes a book, I recommend having at least two skilled editors comb through it. However, revisions can be wide ranging. Clarifying pronoun usage is a far cry from changing the relationship between characters or completely scrapping an ending. Handing over the red pen to someone more skilled is not tantamount to relinquishing creative control, and editing a book does not destroy the writer’s authentic voice. I feel that with the flood of self-published novels arriving on the market daily I can’t be clear enough about this point.

Creative control is the flesh and bone of a novel. Edits should be only the cosmetics. Lipstick on the teeth is one thing; however, even Uma Thurman would look a bit off if she shaved half her head. Don’t let the publishing industry give your book a nose job and cheek implants. It won’t be recognizable. But, I recommend making sure its part is straight.

Laugh-Out-Loud Fun, Gory, and Captivating



Larry Correia is my new favorite writer to watch.



Monster Hunter International is labeled a “modern fantasy,” which is an apt genre category for it. This isn’t the kind of profound prose that will change your life. It is, however, one hell of a fun ride. I absolutely love Correia’s sense of humor! One of my favorite aspects of the humor in this book is that it wasn’t relegated to the main character making one wisecrack after another. The entire tone of this Monster Hunter International was hilarious. However, the real quality of the novel comes from the relatable, dynamic characters.



Owen Pitt, the accountant, doesn’t seem like an impressive character. And, that’s just the point. He doesn’t start the story as a vigilante, hero, or hunter of evil. However, he gets there pretty quickly. The wild adventure starts immediately. It wastes no time on exposition or lengthy character development. The reader watches Owen grow as the plot unfolds. The cast of characters he joins is diverse, interesting, and like him, relatable.



It’s one thing to have an awesome monster story with gripping, strongly written action sequences, which this story has, but it’s entirely another to write a group of characters about which the reader can actually care. A lot of fantasy books have two or three characters buzzing around the protagonist, and the reader can safely get invested in that handful of personalities, figuring that they won’t buy it in at least the first few books in the series. I got attached to every one of the characters, from Holly the stripper to Julie’s trouble causing father. The next installment is on my must-read list. Like I said, Larry Correia is one to watch.





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The Night Circus is not just a novel: It’s an experience. It’s like the book equivalent to watching Avatar or the ice scene in Dr. Zhivago. The magic of the circus setting and the Victorian style narrative creates an experience of decadence and lusciousness. I loved sitting down to read this book. Every time I came back to it, I was drawn into the world of magic, fantasy, and forbidden love.



Celia and Marco are the magicians, bound together in rivalry, who fall in love. They start in the novel as children living out their fathers’ twisted game and are then trained for their ultimate impending competition. The source of their individual powers is handled in two different ways. With Celia, it’s an innate power; however, for Marco it’s a gift of manipulation of perception. But, in spite of differences, the result is magic nonetheless. Whether it’s a leather jacket being transformed into doves, a perpetually burning fire, kittens performing acrobatics, a fire breathing paper dragon, or a truly spiffy ice garden, the magic is truly intoxicating.



I would classify this book as a strong character novel. However, Celia and Marco, in this case were side characters. They were not as developed as I would have liked. Even though, the reader first encounters the characters as children, their depth is never truly realized. This is partially a product of third person parallel narratives, which inevitably draws focus from the two main characters and spreads it across other scenes and people. Another reason for this disconnection between the main characters is the timeline in the book. I personally felt a bit deprived of the development of the love affair because the book jumped across three years after their first stolen kiss and bounces back and forth frequently. The effect is heightened suspense but an ultimate detachment from the characters and their developing love affair.



But these are really small criticisms considering what the trade-off was. The reason I maintain that this is a strong character book is because I think of the circus itself as being the main character. The reader sees it from its inception to its… well, to avoid spoilers, I’ll call it a transformation. The circus is the reason to turn over 300 pages. Celia and Marco’s relationship is romantic and intriguing, but it’s not what pulls readers into the narrative. I fell in love with the most remarkable and dynamic character in the book, the one with the dark, mysterious magic that engrossed me from the beginning. The Night Circus is not the setting of the book. It’s the entire novel, and it’s worth every page.





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However, a label can make an enormous impact on a book. Suddenly, my fiction novel, written before it was categorized, had an already established audience and with it a collection of expectations. Janice Hardy’s post addresses these expectations:

The publishing industry considered it a hot but overly saturated market. Readers had one of three reactions: strong interest (because they were long-time fans), rejection (usually due to thinking it was bloody, scary, or too steeped in fantasy), or confusion (typically a result of never having heard the term urban fantasy). The first group continued to ask questions about the plot and setting, all the while growing more and more interested. For the middle group, I would typically explain that it was bloody without being gory, suspenseful rather than frightening, and a fantasy set in our contemporary world. And, for the latter group, I stupidly found myself eloquently explaining the term urban fantasy and its roots instead of explaining my book, which didn’t necessarily fit neatly into the category. I did that only a few times. However, people still have preconceived notions about it based on the label. I have fielded questions, such as “Does it have vampires?” (no), “Is it like Twilight?” (um, big no on that one). “Will my teenager like it?” (absolutely), “Will adults like it?” (yes, more than the teenagers).

Essentially, the genre label, meant to be helpful to the publishing industry, has proven confusing to the readers. Some expect it to fit nicely on the bookshelf next to other urban fantasies where a barely-clothed, well-endowed woman with a steely expression sits splay-legged in a graveyard. No offense to the character on that book cover, but when my Gabrielle Gayle sets out to demolish were-witches, she does so with all her parts covered and protected. She’s beautiful and sexy, but she will leave the lipstick at home in favor of packing her daggers. But, I have accidentally found myself on my soapbox about the over sexualization of female heroes in fantasy. Back to my point, for months, I trolled the aisles of bookstores and pulled countless titles off the shelves falling under the urban fantasy umbrella, lined them up to look at their covers, and asked myself how, and even if, my novel fit in with these. It does, mostly, but it also fit in with other books, novels that are a part of another sub-genre, dark fantasy. Dark fantasy has closer ties to horror than urban fantasy does, and poor horror has its own battles to fight when it comes to audience presumptions. After only a few months as a member of the New England Horror Writers, I have already been to some events where audience reaction was either excitement or blunt rejection. At least people know what it is to be classified as horror, for the most part. But, horror seems to be even more polarizing than fantasy. People either can’t get enough of it or steer clear of it, buying the books for that odd friend or family member who likes “that kind of stuff.”

With more and more novels being ones that cross genres, affixing a book with one specific genre label seems to be more troublesome than clarifying. Publishing companies can’t get by without the hard and fast categories and will at times allow new ones to spring up because every book simply must have a place. They revel in the preconceived notions held by audiences because it makes marketing that much easier.

But, what about the writer?

What happens to the unpublished writer spending thousands of dollars on fiction conferences who hears time and again that one particular element, while brilliant, simply isn’t found in that specific genre? One writer could hear from an agent that his or her science fiction book has too much science and not enough character while another agent could tell him science fiction is supposed to be more about the concept and less about the characters, all based on expectations of the genre. What’s to keep that writer from hacking at his or her work removing the book’s most poignant and well-crafted pages only to replace them with elements that, for no better reason, exist simply because they fit better in the genre? How much should a writer mold the book to fit the genre? Shouldn’t it be the other way around? After all, books are created by writers while genres are made by publishing companies to classify books?

Another issue is that there are likely too many genres for readers and writers to be aware of them all. Below is a genre map from Book Country. Notice that dark fantasy isn’t included? That’s because it’s only recently been recognized as its own sub-genre.

And, there’s no fixed formula or set of criteria for a book to meet before it’s labeled. And, an additional side effect of genres is that they often don’t settle with just the book. The labels attach themselves to the writer as well, like mold. Novelists aren’t simply writers once they’ve written a genre book.  They’re fantasy writers, mystery writers, romance writers, etc, leaving one to wonder the following:

Do writers themselves also conform to a specific genre to satisfy expectations of the audience and the industry? And, what does this mean for writing as a craft?

Happily searching the internet, I found this little joke. Enjoy!

This week’s joke is from a site I happily stumbled upon.

There was once a young man who, in his youth, professed his desire to become a great writer. When asked to define great, he said, “I want to write stuff that the whole world will read, stuff that people will react to on a truly emotional level, stuff that will make them scream, cry, howl in pain and anger!” He now works for Microsoft writing error messages.

The thing I love about constructing the first few paragraphs of chapter one is that it’s accompanied by that optimistic enthusiasm that I will actually keep these sentences, that I won’t find myself toiling over them and rewriting them dozens of times. It’s refreshing, like a great first date when you can think the person is nearly flawless.

While I don’t tend to judge a book by its first line or even its first chapter, here are some recent favorites:

I’d love it if you’d share your favorite first lines with me.

A fantastic gender bender

It’s about time! This book has a great combination of the hiss and gurgle of complex steam punk gadgets and a fantasy mystery. Books and Braun are a great mismatched pair. I referenced purchasing this book in my blog http://kaseyshoemaker.com/?p=261 because I had sadly dragged my disappointed self through another overly sexed urban fantasy where the main character ended up raped. It was awful, and I was more than a little offended to realize that it was a pattern. On my blog, I ranted about the state of the female hero in modern literature. In a huff, I grabbed my purse and headed to the nearest bookstore hoping for the genre to redeem itself in my eyes. When I picked up this novel, I was delighted at the gender-bender tale and amused that Eliza Braun, the “explosive” field agent wore a bulletproof corset. Princess Leia would have been proud to have her join the sisterhood. Books, is proper in that kind of sexy-but-doesn’t-know-it way. And, his resourcefulness and quick thinking made him an equal partner for Braun.

My only complaint about this book is that I couldn’t shake the feeling that the publishing company rushed the release. It had a distinctly unpolished feel, which was glaring against the beautiful Victorian wit. Other than that, I would highly recommend this read, especially if you appreciate the type of sharp-tongued banter that can be enjoyed in any Sherlock Holmes tale.




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Let me start by saying that what the Mercy Thompson series has done for urban fantasy has been nothing short of amazing. The protagonist, Mercy, is everything I love about heroines in fantasy. I almost didn’t buy any books in the series in spite of Amazon’s constant recommendations because the covers, showing a scantily clad and inconsistently tattooed female character, made me think it was like so many other fantasy books. It is not! Mercy is a strong, opinionated VW mechanic who spends more time covered in grease than she does showing off her assets. But, more interesting is that she is a “walker.” She can transform into a coyote at will and is resistant to most magic.

At the beginning of the book, the reader learns immediately that Mercy, who is not motivated by vigilante justice or anything more glamorous or complicated than a good, kind heart, can get herself into trouble with her actions as easily as she can get her friends out of it. She begins by trying to help a young guy, practically a kid, who has been turned into a werewolf against his will. Having grown up in the most prominent packs in the area and having an Alpha as her neighbor, she knows a bit about this world, and she intends to help him learn to control his wolf.

While the stories in this series are great and full of adventure, I keep turning the pages for the characters. Stefan is an old, strong vampire who drives a VW bus made to look like the Scooby-Doo Mystery Machine. Samuel is a werewolf and Mercy’s old flame. Adam is the Alpha werewolf of the Tri-Cities pack, Mercy’s neighbor, and eternally patient potential love interest.




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The Mercy Thompson series continues! Blood Bound starts off with a suspenseful, bloody, and more than a little twisted scene between Mercy, Stefan (a vampire to whom she owes a favor), and a vampire controlled by a demon. Awesome. In this installment, the reader gets a more detailed and satisfyingly dark peek inside the vampire seethe, which is equipped with a sadistic truth-telling chair.

One of the great things about Blood Bound is that it spends a little more time on character development. The loving relationship between Kyle and Warren is bought to the forefront when Kyle, a human, learns about Warren being a werewolf. Also, the Mercy, Samuel, Adam love triangle becomes a square, so to speak, with the revelation that Stefan also has feelings for her. This story is not the typical fantasy tale where a strong, sexy main character suddenly has multiple men falling all over her, killing for her, and fighting for her. No. While the additional love interests for Mercy provide confusion for her and conflicting emotions, it’s not the kind of plot element that was thrown in when some attractive guy inadvertently crossed paths with the heroine or when a guy who is so obviously bad for the female character that the reader loses respect for her. In the case of this series, these are friends who have a long, murky history together where love has developed over shared adventure and shared tragedy. It’s far more realistic and more satisfying for the reader.




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