Occasionally writers or friends offer suggestions about writing competitions I might like to enter. These are welcome and kindly meant, but sometimes they surprise me because they have incorrectly assumed my writing genre, which can be amusing.
Genre for authors is a tricky subject; because your agent (if you have one) will want a bestseller and a bestseller is usually the genre at the top of the Sunday Times list. Today (Sunday 11th Nov 24) it is Lee and Andrew Child ‘In Too Deep’ which has just toppled Richard Osman’s ‘We Solve Murders.’ Of the 10 hardback books listed, 8 are crime/thrillers/who done it? The paperback chart has a little more variety; but is skewed by novels with Christmas or Pumpkin in the title (tis the season etc.)
It's easier to state what you won’t find in my work.
No Cowboys.
No Horror.
No terror.
No fluffy Romance.
No one in a corset.
No battle scenes.
No grim countless slayings of young women.
No recovering alcoholic crime detectives with a murky past. (Although sometimes I’m tempted.)
No women in negligees (unless it’s the nineteen fifties.)
So, what do I write? I write drama.
Enigmatic and socially aware psychological mysteries. I often begin with an image such as a family portrait, a rare stamp, or obsessions (heavy hemp rope, hair, or menacing origami ditto menacing dress alterations). All these have featured in my prize-winning and published fiction. I write about the past as it informs the present, often a dark past incident and occasionally, a dystopic future.
I employ the following:-
Atmosphere, surroundings, deceit, outright lies, the misremembered, the misheard, the unwittingly disclosed, along with humour, psychological angst, love, care, and disdain.
And my elevator pitch...?
That is and will remain a well-kept secret.
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