It could be worse...

Inspirational Writing ~

All this talk about genre has me thinking what genre my novel falls under. Well, its a spiritual thriller, mystery laden, ghosts, angels, and toss in some thrilling uncovered mystery, and a possible time warp and you have... a doggone good novel is what you have.

That is what I’ll be working on during my hiatus in mentoring. I’ll begin the task of revising my novel while working on my health issues that are plaguing my days and nights. This way I’ll feel as if I’m still hands on in my writing, while everyone else is at class whooping and hollering and having a blast living it up.

My mother always has a way of saying, “It could be worse.” And I have to agree with her on that one, it could be worse. But let me remind you that she always says that right before things actually do get worse. She means well in her ways, but sometimes I just have a problem with accepting that theory.

It could be worse. Now there’s a concept we need to look at while writing our novel. Keep those words in mind as your hero has fallen out of a tree, crawled to the highway and is signaling for help. Does a savior come and rescue her? Think “It could be worse.” Then make it worse, she crawls into the path of an about to be picked up hitch-hiker, she calls out for help and as he turns to look at her, his face resembles that of Freddy Kruger! Her heart sinks, but just remember, “It could be worse.” She could have met up with Hannibal Lecter, when all of a sudden the man driving the car gets out to help, and it IS Hannibal Lecter!!!

You see, maybe my mother is not all wrong. Maybe she has something there with that, ‘It could have been worse theory’. As I go through trying times repelling the dark force that wants to fill the hole in my life, as I fill it with the Light, the forces tend to battle it out and I’m in the middle, swirling and twirling and in the end, the light wins, at which time I will stand up and whisper under my breath. “It could have been worse.”

There’s a point to be made here, I’m certain. With Inspirational Writing, you can always talk about the good and the light and the love of the Lord, but your audience more than likely is in a dark spot and can’t relate to a word your saying. Reaching out to their level. You have to give them the depths of the hell that you’ve been through; every slimy shimmering taste of it so they relate, then dish out the light so they drink in the benefits of all that was worse and how you fought to make it better.

In a world where people struggle with their Faith, it is quite easy to see all the Light, surround themselves with what they think the light is, but it is too soon that they forget that the dark exists. “The dark only has power if you let it.”  The most untrue words I ever heard spoken. When the dark has its tentacles wrapped around you while you are breathlessly grabbing for that one ray of light. The dark friends, people, acquaintances all feel you and tug you dragging you into the road, only for you to be spotted by Hannibal and Freddy.

It’s a war out there in this world of Light and Dark...but hey, it coulda been worse...

Genre

Have you gotten a genre all picked out that you like to write for? The lines are sometimes blurred but publishers accept many along the blurred lines because the genres mix and match. I think sometimes people make up their own genre then the publisher says, "Hey, we accept horror and fantasy, why not publish mystical spiritual?"
 
Are you writing to entertain? To inform? To persuade? Setting the purpose for writing is just as important as setting the purpose for reading, because purpose influences decisions you make about the shape and form your writing will take on. And this is why we have a genre to categorize our writing.
 
When researching GENREs, I never got a clear picture; that was so strange because I thought genre meant: Mystery, Horror, fiction, historical fiction, non -fiction, poetry, etc. but I kept running into list like:
 
The different genres of writing include descriptive, expository, narrative, persuasive, poetry and technical writing, and a combination of these are usually used for any given body of writing.
 
The National Writers Union bases its organizational structure on three very broad genre groups: the book division, for both fiction and non-fiction writers, the journalism division, for magazine and newspaper writers, and the biz-tech division, for business and technology writers. In addition, they include a special caucus for those who write prose and poetry.
 
I can see why now, we as writers have a hard time organizing our work and the need to classify where to send out work if we don’t understand the many genres being accepted in today’s writing world.
 
The type of list I was going for was something like this:
Action-adventure -- features physical action; the knock down dragged out missions of take no prisoner--ALIVE. Many times set in forbidding locales such as jungles, deserts, or mountains. May be historical fiction, containing facts.
 
Crime -- centered on the criminal society; told from the point of view of the perpetrators. Ranges in tone from lighthearted "caper" stories to darker plots involving organized crime or incarcerated convicts.
 
Detective -- has become almost synonymous with mystery. These stories relate the solving of a crime, usually one or more murders, by a protagonist who may or may not be a professional investigator. This large, popular genre has many subgenres, reflecting differences in tone, character, and it always contains criminal and detective
 
Mystery -- Think ‘whodunit’ in this category. Technically involving stories in which characters try to discover a vital piece of information which is kept hidden until the climax. Keeping the reader enthralled throughout, I might add. I might also add spiritual Mystery to this. Not having the gore elements of horror. Also Paranormal fiction fits in here along with horror.
 
Fantasy -- Think Lord of the Rings;  unrealistic, make-believe things exist in imaginary worlds such as wizards, dragons, griffins etc
 
Horror -- Bloody, gut wrenching, spine tingling, gore.
 
Romance -- Love! A couple meet, fall apart, and in the end live happily ever after. Not to be confused with, Eroticism!
 
Science fiction -- Think of extrapolated, theoretical science and technology; A lot of new planets are in this genre
 
Western -- Primarily set in the American West in the second half of the 1800’s. Has romance, and cowboys!
 
Inspirational --  A term that refers to fictional or non fictional works with religious themes and aimed at a Christian audience.
 
There is also added categories :
Childrens -- targeted audience kids under 8
 
Young Adult (aka YA) -- young people from 10 and up because let’s be honest, many adults are readers of YA
 
Adult fiction  -- can get by with foul language and topics

I hope you enjoyed today's Genre piece. Categorized as  Informational!

Talk-o Tuesday

Rom. 2:19 And art confident that thou thyself art a guide of the blind, a light of them which are in darkness,
***

Wow, I haven’t had a talk-o Tuesday in quite some time. Talk-o Tuesday is where I go on and on about audio books and their ascent to being the top listened to way of hearing a good book in a car, on a treadmill or even just sitting with your legs crossed by a roaring fire, in the dark. Audio books is the route to take.

Why do I want to tell you about audiobooks? Because my beau has an awesome site where he does reviews. Now many of you already know, my beau is blind, but this does not hinder his time on this thing we call a computer. Nope, instead he has a screen reader and he plows away at the books like they were sand in his shoes, shakes out a couple of audiobooks in a week and gives an in depth review at Audiobook Heaven, not revealing too much, but you can get a pretty good idea if you’d like to read the book.

And there have been plenty of reviews and publishers requesting reviews! So his day is pretty consumed with listening and writing reviews. And what is also exciting? The man can write! Two years ago when he initially started going blind, to sway him from the pits of depression, I suggested he start a blog. “Just write all those mixed feelings out,” I said, “Free your mind and free your soul, write!” I have a tendency to tell a lot of folks to do the same thing, “Write to heal!”

In the beginning there was Drums in the Deep,(still going strong by the way) the diary of a blind mans quest for life. Then as his days of listening to books grew, he decided to start a blog on Audiobook Reviews. The site went through a bit of constructing and reconstructing in the beginning, but finally he hit a stride, and now taps out 3 reviews a week, in the least!

The pits of depression were all put on hold because a man,  who fought to know the love of God and decided along with God, that writing was the emotional healer that would get him through some of his darkest days, and nights too, if truth be told.

Why not check Audiobook Heaven out and show some support, you won’t be sorry. :)