Where Do You Begin When You're Ready to Start Writing That Story?

I consistently see posts on social media where one aspiring writer after another says, “I want to write a book, but I have no idea how to begin.” Well, you begin with an idea, and that idea should consist of the basic genre and theme of your story.

However, when I ask these aspiring writers what their genre and/or theme is, they often have no idea what I’m asking.

Now, I’m not going to go into “theme” just now. Instead, I want to discuss genre and why we start there. Why does genre matter, and why does it matter that you know which genre(s) your story fits into before you begin? Well, in simple terms, how else do you know where to begin?

Genre is characterized by the similarities in form, style or subject matter. As an author, the genre you choose controls what you write and how you write it. It determines the style and focus of your story.

But there’s a second very essential reason for understanding what genre your work fits into before you attempt to sell, promote or market your hard work in whatever way you decide fits your goals and desires.

Let’s take, for example, traditional or indie publishing. Traditional publishing is defined as securing a contract with a legitimate publishing house. And one step in that achievement is securing a literary agent to represent you, and that means you first have to sell your book or story idea to a literary agent, who, in turn, then attempts to sell it to one of the publishing houses.

But whether you’re attempting to secure a literary agent or you’ve found an opening where you can solicit directly to a particular publishing house, and whether it’s one of the Big Five or a smaller publishing house, the process is basically the same; you have to submit to them what’s called a query letter.

Now, every agent and/or publishing house has its own specific criteria, which I strongly suggest you follow to the T. Otherwise, they’ll simply ignore your submittal altogether, but in any case, the query letter itself must always follow a basic format, and the introduction of that format begins with:

1.     Your purpose for writing them, i.e., to secure representation;

2.     Your “working” book title;

3.     Your word count; and

4.     Your genre.

Why genre? Because that’s what first tells the recipient if they want to bother reading further. You see, every agent and every publishing house caters to specific genres. Even if you see somewhere that the literary agency of Bash and Bobblehead represents your favorite author, you can’t simply say to yourself, “Well, Stephen King is my favorite author and writes in the same genre, so I’ll send my query letter to someone there.”

The Bash and Bobblehead Literary Agency has twenty agents on staff. Some of those twenty aren’t even accepting query letters right now, so if you choose one that isn’t, without checking first, in the toilet yours goes.

In addition, only two or three of those agents likely deal with your particular genre. That’s why there are twenty agents, because one or two couldn’t possibly handle every genre. And if you send your work to the wrong agent or publisher, don’t think he or she is going to take the time to pass it on to the correct one.

Likewise, if you plan to indie-publish, or you’re simply trying to gain a following on social media (another must before the big publishing houses will even consider giving you a shot), how do you create and write your promotional material, or know where to push it, if you don’t fully understand where your book fits?

If indie-publishing, it’s up to you to write your back cover blurb, your book description, and all of your marketing material. You have to have your book cover designed as well, and even if you hire these things out, you still have to tell your copywriter, designer or whoever what you want, and believe me, the first thing a professional is going to ask is, “What is your genre?”

Now, I’m going to use someone else’s words here, and I can’t remember their name, so forgive me, but I love the way they put this: We buy certain books because we’ve enjoyed similar stories. Reading these novels gives us a sense of belonging, of sitting down with an old friend and knowing we’re on familiar ground. There is also a camaraderie between readers who follow the same genres.

This person went on to say that the most important part of genre fiction is that it fulfills our human need for good old-fashioned storytelling, as we all sometimes need stories we can rely on to blunt the harsh realities of life.

Did you know that it is extremely rare for a book to fit into just one genre/subgenre category? It’s true! And do you know which genres/subgenres your book fits into?

If you want to get a better understanding of all the genre and subgenre categories to choose from and learn all about defining the theme of your story, I invite you to check out my “Theme and Genre” workshop at KillingItWrite.com.

Until my next post,

Happy Writing!