That’s fascinating, ahh I am so sorry your book got passed on, but what a lesson to have learnt – genre (if you want to sell books) is kinda important. BUT like you say, you have to write the book you want to write, and if one genre isn’t calling to you, then fuck the agents, look elsewhere. Write what calls to you <3

She encouraged me to excise some violence, some coarse language, (okay, like 90% of my dialogue) and all of the suggested sexual situations. She even recommended a YA agent as she doesn’t rep YA. Thing is, I remember transitioning to adulthood as scary and a little mean, nothing expresses fear and anguish as well as a blue tongue. I like nice solid, unambiguous resolutions and nothing says “resolved,” like a .357 round to the face. And, we’ve all borne witness to sexual situations we’re really rather not know about but care too much for someone else to look away. Bottom line: we have to write the story that speaks to us. So, I excised the quest, 60-70% of the FOOW, and omitted all mention of my protag’s age with only hints to make the point.

Typed all of that to say, you have to, have to, HAVE TO know music theory before you can ever attempt credible improvisation. Books are our music, genre is our music theory, tropes are the rhythm/signature time we play to. Miles Davis revolutionized music–but he was still playing jazz.

Thanks for helping us all figure out our tune before we put that horn to our lips.

It makes you an author of two books who is fully explore all the pieces on the chessboard. I salute you!

Well, it’s not to say we can’t write without tropes, I mean, damn the world would be well boring if we all wrote the same way and the same stories 😀 thank you for stopping by

Well you just put an epic sized smile on my chops! Thank you so much for the lovely compliment. I agree. You neeeeeeed the stereotypes because otherwise you don gun piss yower reyders right off! The thing is, there are so many repeated stories, but like the two books in this post – while they are the same story they are totally different!

Yup – that’s a biggie the chosen one. I think some of those big ones are unavoidable too, I mean, they are expected to a certain extent.

I guess you need to do what is right for the story. If the story requires tropes, use them. If it doesn’t dont. I know that’s not helpful, but it’s also logical, if you’re going to write a chosen one fantasy and then dont use the chosen one trope then your readers aren’t going to be happy. A lot of this also depends on whether you are writing to market? Are you? If so, I’d bend towards the tropes, that’s not to say you can’t mix it up, but if you are targeting an audience, then you need to give them what they want.

Well, not everyone writes in genre specific categories, and that’s okay, the world would be boring if we did. wowza, that sounds like an awesome plot line though – how is NaNo november going? Have you got far through it? Let me know the release date of Wisp – we will have to get you on here as a guest blogger – drop me a line and i’ll let you know the kinds of things I prefer to have.

Possibly (aside from romance) the most trope heavy genre? I love a bit of fate vs. free will – I have some of that in mine too 😀 omg the word ‘the’ is a cliche?????????? WTF?

Thanks for stopping in Erika 😀