Tuesday, October 09, 2007

Genre Biased?

Okay...something popped into my brain that has me thinking. Yeah...scary, I know. A fellow writer and crit partner, Patricia Woodside has a wonderful interview on her blog with author Francis Ray. She began her career published in writing confession stories and transitioned into series romance. She's also had a romantic suspense selected as a made-for-T.V. movie on BET. BUT that's not all...mainstreamwomen's single title, novellas, historicals and Christian fiction.

Wow! I know that maybe, or I should say WHEN I am published and I've grown tremendously in my abilities...I wouldn't mind being a multi-genre published author. My question is though...

If you had a favorite author like Ms Ray, would you snap up everything she has ever written? Regardless of the genre? My opinion is...yes ma'm. Why not? I have such eclectic tastes and if I enjoyed an author's voice, I would love to read anything they wrote. I've got a couple of favorites like that...ya know...La Nora. Linda Lael Miller is another. She's not nearly as multi-faceted as some because her stories mostly have Western themes...and I love my cowboys. It's just that some of them are historicals, others may be contemporary and may occasionally have a hint of paranormal features.

If you didn't care for a particular genre...would you read it because you enjoyed a certain author?

4 comments:

Chicki Brown said...

I'd like to say I would remain faithful, but it depends.

This is what happened with me and John Grisham. I LOVED his legal thrillers and have every single one on my keeper shelf, but he lost me when he switched up and wrote that Christmas story...

The situation was different with James Patterson. I'd read all of his suspense stories. Then he wrote a science fiction story that was fabulous. Next he wrote a women's fiction in the female protagonists voice, which was incredible. I'll read anything the man writes.

Jennifer Shirk said...

Hmmm. I can honestly say...maybe. LOL!

I really didn't care for Nora's "In Death" series. But that's me, I'm not really into fantasy/futuristic stuff. But I do like her contemporary books.

Chelle Sandell said...

James Patterson...yes ma'm! But John Grisham lost me when he did the non-fiction (supposedly) about a false conviction for murder happened here near-by in Ada, OK.

Mr. Grisham and many others including the publisher is being sued by the legal end of the perspective who are accused of the wrongful conviction. It'll be interesting to see how it plays out.

Yeah...I've been a little busy lately and slipped away from Nora Roberts cause I've been reading more of the line I'm targeting. But whats sad is that I'm not really sure if I miss her.

PatriciaW said...

I haven't read Ms. Ray's historical yet but I'm going to find it. I love everything else she's done. But if you think about it, she's stayed within her genre, which is romance.

I've read authors who used to write secular fiction who now write Christian fiction, like Terri Blackstock. She's one for whom I can read anything she writes.