In Writers’ World (think of it as an unscripted version of The Truman Show), ‘Genre Genre Genre’ is the equivalent of a property developer or estate agent’s ‘Location Location Location’.

It’s taken me a long time to accept the validity of this line of thinking. Partly because I’m stubborn. Partly because I’m ignorant. Partly because I’m naive. Or should that be ingenuous? Probably all of them. And there’s plenty of other partly’s I could come up with to explain why it’s taken me several years of devoted attention to the art and craft of writing to properly comprehend that not writing in a specific genre puts you out there in no man’s land. If the truth be told it has less to do with the ‘partlys’ than with my own inability to suspend belief. So this post has been sitting in draft mode since June 2012 (!)

I’m finally ready to accept it. The undeniable truth is it’s much harder to emotionally reach readers and garner good reviews if there is no framework or context to prepare the reader or reviewer for the story they are about to read. Covers and titles and even the splurb on the back book jacket are all necessary to create a consumer brand impression, which relates back to a genre type. This is how publishing works in the 21st century; the less hidden surprises the better. It’s become understandable if a reader feels cheated or misled, and just as understandable for a certain type of reviewer to slate a book publicly that is not their preferred genre/brand.

But easier is not always the way to go. Sensible is as sensible does. There is space for something harder to achieve, something that strives to be different. This post is finally being published because a penetrating and far-seeing clarity has been thrown on the matter by a guest post hosted on Jeri Walker-Bickett’s ‘Best Books’ blog, which focusses on Margaret Atwood’s The Blind Assassin as a mixed genre novel. Thanks to A.K. Andrew’s thought-provoking essay I am ready to proceed knowing that, while as Andrews puts it “Mixing genres in one novel is not for the feint-hearted”, it is a way of writing novels that can be justifiably pursued.

I shall persist in calling it chiaroscuro fiction until I find a better term to describe the depth and breadth of mixed genre fiction.

P.S. It seems to me that this is a different nomenclature, my own personal inner definition. In commercial publishing terms ‘mystery suspense’ or ‘literary suspense’ is where the kind of books I want to write would probably fit.