Analyzing Genre Expectations

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

I just returned from WisCon, which was a delightful, warm, sort-of summer-camp version of a con. I had a great time. I also got to visit the farmer’s market and get a wonderful jump start on spring.

Our topic at the SFF Seven this week is: How to analyze genre expectations for your genre.

You know, I have one answer to this question, which is pretty much the same as what KAK said yesterday: READ.

I feel like people are often looking for the shortcuts in this business. And certainly there are the shovel-salesmen eager to sell the gold-miners the newest-fangled device that will make their job SO MUCH EASIER. So, sure – there are tools and surveys out there that purport to analyze trends and bullet-point the expectations of the hot genres.

But nothing substitutes for reading. And reading what’s current, as well as the canon the new stuff builds upon. Genre and the expectations readers bring to their reading are fluid and ever changing. I once advised an aspiring author – a woman who’d been very well published 20 years before, had a life-lull, and was looking to get back into it – who hadn’t read anything published in her genre in the last couple of decades. She couldn’t understand the feedback she was getting from agents and editors because her reading lens was calibrated to what amounted to ancient history genre-wise.

Also, reading refills the creative well. All writers begin as readers first. (At least, I hope so. A writer who doesn’t love reading seems to me like a fish who swims but doesn’t like water.) If you don’t have time to read, make the time. Replace watching shows or scrolling on your phone with READING. You don’t have to finish everything you read (I certainly don’t), but you should read at least some of what’s popular and what your readers are reading.

Did I mention read? Yeah: do that.

First Cup of Coffee – May 22, 2023

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog, Podcast

Zencastr borked on me, so there’s an abrupt ending, but I’m talking about self-publishing careers vs. trad-pub ones, AI and creativity, and writing a book that is an artistic conversation with another book.



First Cup of Coffee – May 19, 2023

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog, Podcast

A roundup of my travels and socializing: Nebula Conference, the Santa Fe International Literary Festival, New Mexico Writers, literary snobbery, tail-sniffing, and repping genre writers who keep the industry going!



Resisting the New Shiny: How to Decide What to Write Next

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

I’ve just returned from Nebula Conference and this moment was a highlight: the photograph of SFWA past-presidents in attendance. From left is Gay Haldeman, SFWA Ombudsman; Joe Haldeman, SFWA Grandmaster and past-president; Michael Capobianco, past-president; Karen Silverberg, novelist; Robert Silverberg, SFWA Grandmaster and past-president; and lil’ ol’ me. Quite a heady experience!

This week at the SFF Seven, we’re talking about the Picking and Choosing—how do you decide which idea to write?

This is the eternal question, with many factors affecting the answer.

Some factors are practical, especially if you make your living as a writer, as I do. To keep that income flowing, I have to think about the next book in the series – both for the sales and to keep my readers happy – and I have to look at what’s selling best for me. Likewise, in working with my agent – the fabulous Sarah Younger at Nancy Yost Literary Agency – I coordinate with her on what she thinks she can sell for me, along with her schedule, balancing me with her other clients on reading, editing, etc.

Then there’s the creative side…

As we develop as writers, one of the primary skills and disciplines we must learn is how to *finish* a work. There are a lot of would-be authors out there with a few to dozens of unfinished manuscripts. It’s a thing and you HAVE to learn to overcome it. A big piece of learning to finish a work is setting aside the New Shinies – the ideas that turn up, alluring as fae lights in the darkness, luring the unwary writer into a merry chase that leads nowhere. By the time the writer returns from the wild pursuit of flickering delight, their work in progress has aged and they have nothing to show for their efforts.

Then again…

Sometimes an idea descends and demands to be written. It’s only happened to me a few times, but it’s happened recently and – though I have lot practice, skill, and discipline at resisting the siren song of the New Shiny – I finally capitulated to writing it. We’ll see what happens.

 

The Business of Writing

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

This week at the SFF Seven, we’re talking the business side of being a writer.

In our fantasies of being famous and beloved authors, we envision many things: bucolic writing sessions, romantic candlelit garrets with wine- and quill-strewn desks, celebrations with adoring fans, bookstore windows filled with our bestseller. (What’s yours? I’d love to know!) We (or, at least, I didn’t) don’t picture ourselves slaving at the computer, going cross-eyed over royalty statements or struggling to ramp up on the newest social media trend.

Many of us creatives don’t love the business side of being a writer. I mean, there’s a reason we took literature, theater, and art classes in college instead of Economics, and that we only knew where the business school was because we occasionally had to meet one of our friends there. With a few exceptions, as creatives, business is not our favorite learn.

But we have to learn to do it and we have to learn to do it WELL.

If we don’t, people will take advantage of us and, believe me, there are plenty lined up to do just that. There are ample cautionary tales of authors handing over the business aspects of their careers to someone else and losing everything. Even if it doesn’t go that badly, we run the risk of making foolish choices out of ignorance.

How much time do I spend on the business aspect of my writing life? A lot. At least as much time as I spend actually writing, possibly even twice as much, or even three times. Because I’m a hybrid author, self-publishing my books counts as me running a small, highly exclusive publishing company. It takes hours every day. On the trad publishing side, even though I have an agent who is amazing and efficient, I still have to spend a fair amount of time on back and forth with her – all business. And then there’s conventions and conferences, which are basically all business. Chatting with my author friends is fun and social, but also? Business.

The way I see it, since I write full-time and have no other job, anything I spend my time on that isn’t drafting or editing words counts as business. I take it very seriously.

First Cup of Coffee – May 8, 2023

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog, Podcast

A bit of advice on how Patreon works, about my meeting with Graphic Audio and how fantasy words like “Cosmere” become part of the industry lingo, and some <> thoughts on the medical establishment and obesity.



 

Advice for Writers: Combatting Boredom

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

Our topic at the SFF Seven this week is somewhat cryptic, at least how it’s noted on our calendar: Long books – how not to get bored.

It’s not entirely clear to me who’s attempting to avoid boredom here. The writer? The reader?

Hopefully not the reader! Most of us readers who love to read long books are totally in it for the long, for the full immersion into another world, living other lives. I suspect the principles for writing a long book that won’t bore readers are the same as writing *anything* at all. We never want to bore readers.

So, I’m going to assume we’re asking about getting bored writing long books. How to avoid that?

You can’t.

Sorry, but… sometimes writing is boring. Sometimes it’s fun. Sometimes it’s agonizing. Writing novels, especially very long ones, requires a particular skill set of paying attention to, and working incrementally on, a work that takes a very long time to complete.

The whole point is not to try to avoid boredom with the process. The point is to revise your expectations.

Writing is work. This is why there are so many people who SAY they always wanted to write a novel and such a vanishingly smaller percentage who have. An even smaller percentage of that subset ever write more than six books. It’s hard work and there’s a reason we distinguish work from fun. Writing may be occasionally fun, but it’s always work.

What’s important to keep in mind is that the experience of writing is not the experience of reading. Don’t conflate the two. One of my least favorite pieces of “writing advice” is the saw that “if the writer is bored writing it, the reader will be bored reading it.”

NOT TRUE.

Writing takes vastly longer than reading. Every one of us who has spent months writing a book that releases at midnight and then wakes up to comments from readers who read it overnight understands this truth viscerally. Writing a novel, especially a long novel, requires patience and attention over a long span of time.

So: don’t worry about finding ways to not get bored while writing long works. Accept that boredom is part of the process. It’s part of the price we pay.

 

One Piece of Advice for Aspiring Authors

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog, Podcast

Figure out what your process is and own it.
See, the point is that every single creator has the0ir own creative process. It’s as individual as retinal patterns. While it can be helpful to take classes on writing processes and techniques, to learn from other authors, in the end we all find that our process is unique to us. I’ve seen SO MANY writers struggle to change their process and try to “make it be” something or other, to no avail. The whole point of learning various techniques is to triangulate on what works for you. It can be a long and iterative process, but that’s the “magic formula.” Figure out what your process is and own it. Don’t try to make your process be something other than what it is, even if you are occasionally frustrated by it. (I often am by mine!)
Like learning to love yourself, learn to embrace your process. Own it. It’s yours.

First Cup of Coffee – April 25, 2023

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog, Podcast

How to graciously answer that invidious question: “Have I heard of you?” Also, some lovely early feedback on ROGUE FAMILIAR – just released!!! – and how we don’t always know what we’re writing.