: Re: Is there a disadvantage to transcending genre? I am an aspiring author. I've often heard that you have to keep your 'target audience' in mind. It makes sense - certain genres attract certain

I will just broaden very great answer by few insights:

You will never make everyone happy There are people who generally hate Shakespeare. And there are best selling books which confuse most of people. The Fifty Shades of Grey is great example of such book (and movie. Yes, they made it into movie).

So, ultimately, focus on telling a story. Although I am sci-fi and fantasy lover, if there is gread story to read, I read it. Example in my case is The Beach which is totally out of my normal area of interest, but I loved the book totally.

And downside?

Crossing genres too much can be overkill: Yes, I bought recently a movie which got translated to my language as Attack of Nazi zombies because I was really really curious, how bad the movie can be. (It was so bad, that I did throw it out half an hour in).

If you have idea for a story where Mr Spock and Luke Skywalker got warped to nazi Germany and fight nazi zombies using fantasy spells (and then they fall in love to each other), try to write it down. But, if you cross genres too much, the outcome story will be mostly "just plain stupid"

And last but not least: Good examples of things which cross genres:

Her - Is it romance? Is it sci-fi? Is it psychological drama? You decide
K-Pax - is it sci-fi? Is it psychological?
The Guru - great mixture of bolywood and romance comedy
Stardust - half fairy tale, half fantasy

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: No, you can only do that if you're making some sort of break or shift in narrative style. If the story switches to a dream, for instance, or if the characters enter a Fae realm or another

@Debbie451

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: If you can't boil down your novel into a logline (or "elevator pitch," which is how I learned it), then you may actually have a problem with your novel. You've provided the structure of

@Debbie451

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: "Literary criticism" and "editing feedback" are two entirely different beasts. Litcrit is about looking at an existing text and analyzing it. You look at the author's intent, you look at symbolism,

@Debbie451

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: In narration, stay in one tense. "She had green eyes" is fine, because your entire story is in the past tense — the "present-past," if that makes sense. If she had green eyes as a

: Re: Is there a disadvantage to transcending genre? I am an aspiring author. I've often heard that you have to keep your 'target audience' in mind. It makes sense - certain genres attract certain

More posts by @Debbie451

: No, you can only do that if you're making some sort of break or shift in narrative style. If the story switches to a dream, for instance, or if the characters enter a Fae realm or another

: If you can't boil down your novel into a logline (or "elevator pitch," which is how I learned it), then you may actually have a problem with your novel. You've provided the structure of

: "Literary criticism" and "editing feedback" are two entirely different beasts. Litcrit is about looking at an existing text and analyzing it. You look at the author's intent, you look at symbolism,

: In narration, stay in one tense. "She had green eyes" is fine, because your entire story is in the past tense — the "present-past," if that makes sense. If she had green eyes as a

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