Last night’s work read saw a celebrated author of so-called “literary fiction” attempting a murder mystery. Great characters, fabulous dialogue, smart ideas–terrible plot. Why? The writer doesn’t know the first thing about genre satisfaction.
This happens from time to time. A “real writer” will decide to take on a genre, thinking that it must be easy otherwise there wouldn’t be so many of them. But what said “real writer” doesn’t understand is that true genre excellence comes out of love for what the genre has to offer. Continue reading
