Friday, October 5, 2012

Genre Attack

It is strange when I suddenly realise that what I am writing fits within a genre I didn't expect. It happened with Steeplechase (Text Publishing due May 2013). I was writing this book and I thought it was just a straight literary fiction. It was only sometime in the second draft that I realised I was writing a ghost story of sorts, not actual ghosts but the ghosts of your past. I started to read gothic ghost stories and suddenly the whole book fell into place.

This next book, Abstinence had the same journey. I wrote the first draft referencing classic erotic texts and it was truly an erotic novel. That was it's genre. Facing the second draft I knew something was not quite right. It seems what I have written is a sexual superhero story. I blame my obsession with Wilhelm Reich, of course, but now that I come back to the book, the Orgone energy thread is the strongest trope in the book. My heroine is a sexual superhero. She is Barbarella, she is Batman with a cunt. I am learning to embrace this now. In my re-draft I am upping the superpowers. This is not a genre I am used to. The comics I enjoy are more Chris Ware than Marvel or DC. Perhaps I should introduce a costume for her at some point. Oh dear. What have I done?

1 comment:

Melba said...

Ooh looking forward to your new ones, Krissy. You are prolific, I admire that. Here I am still toying with ms1 four years after starting, and at first draft (or draft zero as some say) with ms2 after two years or so, and 17K of ms3. And notes & ideas for 4.