September 2006

Writing Between the Worlds
by Yasmine Galenorn
www.galenorn.com

Yasmine Galenorn writes the paranormal Chintz 'n China Mystery Series and the Bath & Beauty Mystery Series (the latter under the name India Ink), both from Berkley Prime Crime. Witchling, the first book in her new paranormal romance/dark fantasy series, the Sisters of the Moon, will be coming out from Berkley 10/06. And she's written eight nonfiction metaphysical books. Yasmine describes her life as a blending of teacups and tattoos. She lives in Bellevue, WA with her husband Samwise and their four cats, all of whom are an integral part of the Galenorn household.

What do you get when you cross Murder, She Wrote with Twin Peaks? My Chintz 'n China mystery series. What do you get when you cross Charlie's Angels with Buffy the Vampire Slayer? My Sisters of the Moon mystery series. Okay, so they aren't jokes. I never said I was a comedienne, though some of my readers seem to think so.

I'm what is known as a cross-genre novelist. Until the past decade or so, cross-genre was a hard-sell to agents and publishers. For years, the publishing industry was entrenched in making sure everything fit in a neat, tidy box. Science fiction couldn't mix with romance. Mystery couldn't mix with the paranormal. And gods forbid you try to blend a horror story with women's fiction. But somewhere along the line, the situation began to change. To be honest, I can't tell you when and where this movement started, but all of a sudden paranormal mysteries began showing up, fantasy-oriented romances, science fiction noir mysteries. And people bought the books, which of course told the publishers there's a market for mixing metaphors. Now cross-genre offerings are accepted as legitimate and can be found at all stops along the literary walk. Oh, some specialists still turn up their noses at those of us who write cross-genre, but our ranks are growing and we're finding our audiences. We're blurring the boundaries and sneaking under the fences. Don't worry, though. We aren't out to destroy the pure forms of genre — not at all.

Instead of destroying the purity of the genre, we create bridges between the camps. We lead mystery readers into Faerie Land, where we show them that murder and romance lurk everywhere, even within the hearts of elves and dragons. And we escort fantasy readers into Cabot Cove to prove that yes, some of the skeletons in Jessica Fletcher's closet actually get up and dance a jig. We're adventurers, never fitting entirely into one uniform because we have so much fun changing clothes.

I didn't set out to write cross-genre. When I was a young girl in the late sixties, I was bent on joining the ranks of the premiere science fiction and fantasy authors. And oh, I wanted that so bad. I grew up on Bradbury and Asimov and Clarke and LeGuin and McCaffrey and MZ Bradley. Women were starting to break the ranks of the male writers and I was always excited to see a woman's name on the cover. That meant that someday, my name could be on the cover of a fantasy or science fiction novel.

Our library didn't have age restrictions, so by the time I was nine, I was speeding my way through the paperback rack in the adult section. Since I'd already decided that I was going to be a writer when I was three years old, I was determined to read my way through everybody who had anything to do with the career I'd staked out for myself.

Fast forward from 1971 — the year I was ten — to December 2000, the month before I turned forty. There's an entire book stuffed in those thirty years, including skipping three grades in my teens, hitchhiking to California, making the mistake of hooking up with an abusive man (now an ex), several boring jobs with the state, and a crazy year when I lived in a converted school bus on the back of five acres . . . But those are stories for another time.

By December 2000, I was married to my second (and wonderful) husband for seven years, and I had seven novels hiding in the closet that nobody wanted. However, I'd managed to sell seven nonfiction metaphysical books, so at least I was publishing. (Seems like seven was a prominent number for me at that point!) Maybe I wasn't publishing the fiction and genre I'd always wanted to, but at least I was starting to make a living with my words and I was proud of my work.

And then, everything crashed. In mid-December that year, my mother died from a two-year battle with cancer, my husband was told (falsely) that he had a terminal disease and would die a truly gruesome death, and we were facing financial uncertainty due to the dot.com fallout and the fact that he was a contract computer programmer at the time.

One week after Mom died, I received the contract for my eighth nonfiction book and the publisher wanted it on her desk within six weeks. My husband and I found out that no, he did not have ALS, but some other unknown neurological condition that they couldn't diagnose. (He remains undiagnosed, but quite alive, to this day). He found another contract job to begin after the start of the new year, and life settled down a little.

But I was a mess. The fallout from all the stress had taken its toll on me, but at the same time we desperately needed the advance and the publisher was willing to get the check to me as soon as possible. So I gritted my teeth, pushed aside my grief over Mom, and wrote Totem Magic. I finished on time, though I have no memory of writing the book. I do remember coming out of my office at the end of the day so exhausted that I couldn't think, but I don't remember the actual writing of the book itself.

When I turned in the manuscript, I took a month or so to try to relax, but pretty soon my fingers were itching to get back to the keyboard. But what to write? I had no desire to write any more nonfiction. I wanted to go back to my first love: storytelling. I picked through all of the novels in the closet, but none of them grabbed me. I had several fantasies, one gothic romance, a mainstream literary novel, and one contemporary supernatural. While I hoped to see some of them in print one day, I knew that I had to write something fresh.

So I sat down at the computer and just started to putter. I wrote three pages that left me clueless as to what exactly I was writing, but the pages made me smile and laugh — which I desperately needed at that point. I showed them to my husband. He laughed, handed them back and said, "Write some more."

So I did. I wrote a full chapter and he loved it. Now, my husband doesn't read much fiction anymore, so if he liked it, I knew I might be onto something. I sent the chapter to Jeff, an agent friend of mine. He edited it and sent it back, saying, "Write more." So I wrote three chapters and sent them to him. He red-inked them till they bled and sent them back. I revised them, sent them to him again, and this time he wrote back saying, "Good, put them away and finish the goddamn book." So I did.

By then, I realized that I was writing a mystery, but it wasn't a "straight" mystery. No, my main character was a psychic who considered ghosts and spirits to be normal fare, as did her children. She was more afraid of people than she was the supernatural. I wasn't sure that I was doing myself any favors from a marketing point of view, but I was having so much fun that I didn't want to stop. I decided that whether or not it sold, I'd write the book the way I wanted. So I gleefully mixed up murderers and ghosts, astral nasties and folk magic, slang and pop culture.

When I sent the book back to Jeff, he tore it to shreds. Not the content, not the writing, but the pacing. He line-edited it for me and sent it back, showing me exactly what I'd done wrong in terms of pacing a mystery. I'm a quick learner, I revised it and finally, it was ready.

While Jeff didn't end up representing it, within less than a month a friend's agent had taken me on and two weeks later she snagged me a three book contract with Berkley Prime Crime. I was now a novelist as well as a nonfiction author, writing paranormal mysteries.

This was a far cry from the fantasy author I'd first envisioned myself, but I realized that I was having fun and reviewers were giving me a thumbs up. All was right with the world.

Then the mystery readers who didn't like the paranormal aspects got hold of my books. The books had "too much woo woo" in them, the "mystery took second stage," there was "too much sex" in them. I had to wonder why somebody who didn't want to read about "woo woo" stuff would pick up a book that clearly stated on the back that a ghost shows up to tell Emerald, the main character, that she's been murdered by her husband and oh, by the way, would Emerald please help her prove it? To me, that has "woo woo" written all over it.

But wait! The paranormal readers found them and suddenly a few comments cropped up of "there's not enough magic in them" and there was "too much cozy detail." I glanced at the bookstore shelf that said "Mystery" and at the imprint — Prime Crime — a mystery-only imprint — and scratched my head.

And then some of the people who loved my metaphysical work read it, but discovered I wasn't writing nonfiction disguised as fiction. The magic wasn't "real" and I was betraying my "pagan roots." (I should be fair and say that this category contributes the fewest objections among my readers.) My response: "If I wanted to write about real magic — as in true to my traditions — I'd still be writing nonfiction."

Oh — and lest I forget, there were the readers who wanted more nonfiction and couldn't give a hoot that I was writing fiction. I've heard a number of "but when are you writing another nonfiction book?" over the past few years. Again, I just shrug and say, "Sorry folks, I simply have nothing more to say in that area."

In other words: there wasn't a whole lot of loving going on from a decidedly small, but vocal minority.

After biting my lip and realizing that — for whatever reason — nasty comments aimed at my fiction hurt a lot more than nasty comments about my nonfiction, I managed to see my way through the haze of rejection to the fact that far more people loved the books than didn't. Thus was revealed a fundamental truth for every author: You aren't going to please all of the people all of the time and you've got to be okay with that, or you'll drive yourself nuts.

After the second book in the series was released, I ran into another problem cross-genre writers encounter. Chances are, the publisher's marketing department won't know what to do with you. The letters I received from readers showed a far different audience than Marketing thought I was targeting. I was attracting more liberal male and female readers in their 20s to 60s who don't usually read mysteries, rather than the traditional cozy fans.

I talked to my editor about it but, as dear as she is, she was listening to Marketing. I hoped for the best but realized, when the third book came out in January 2005, that if I wanted to get my name out to the audience that was actually enjoying my work, I was going to have to dive into self-promotion.

By then, however, I was writing two series. Now I had a traditional mystery series on top of the paranormal. But wait — the traditional series has heavy elements of chick-lit in it. Again, not quite the typical mystery. The main character was younger with an attitude a mile wide and no interest in the male lead other than to get him out of her way. Once again, I wasn't playing by the rules.

I started looking for the common denominators in my two audiences and aimed for the center. And I made the decision to sign up with an on-line promotion company who focuses on readers who love, of all things, romance. But it seemed that my books could fit in their paranormal romance/suspense and chick-lit focus groups.

But wait — the promotion dilemma gets even more convoluted. I landed a third series last year and Witchling, the first book of that one is due out October 2006. Another cross-genre foray, in the Sisters of the Moon series I'm mixing outright fantasy, suspense, mystery, sex, and dark humor. And this series will be released under the paranormal romance line, so yet another cross-genre focus, but one that actually does fit the books this time. Luckily for me, the publisher's getting behind this series and from what I can tell, they are going to promote it.

Having fewer worries about marketing at this point from the publisher's end, I come to yet another problem for the cross-genre writer. Bookstores may not know where to shelve your books. I've found my books on all of the following shelves: mystery, horror, romance, and fantasy, and this is in the brick and mortar stores, not just online. When people ask where they can find my books, I steer them to the customer service counter of their local bookstores. When I go looking for cross-genre work to read, inevitably I end up at the customer service desk, asking "Where do you keep Ms. Cross Genre's work?" because otherwise, I spend half an hour vainly hunting for the book I want to buy. So I figure I might as well warn my readers to do the same.

So, with all of the above headaches, why would someone want to write cross-genre?

The answer is as simple as to why any writer writes what she does: we love the stories and the characters. We love language. We have a flash of vision and can't get the images out of our heads. And that vision may just involve a ghost and a detective in a parallel of our contemporary world, or a trio of half-human, half-Faerie sisters sent to Earth to get them out of the way.

And sometimes, real life intrudes on our subject matter. I've been involved in the metaphysical area since I was young. It's simply part of my reality and so my writing in the Chintz 'n China series mirrors that. The Bath and Body series — the more "traditional" mystery series I'm writing — has been the hardest challenge of all for me because it feels like a part of life is missing when I eliminate the paranormal aspects, and yet I manage to tuck in something that I spent a lot of time on in my nonfiction: blending fragrance oils. And while I still love "straight fantasy and SF," I like writing about the world in which we live, so the Sisters of the Moon series resonates with that part of me.

Other writers may simply want to expand their scope. Love both SF and romance? What's wrong with mixing them and telling a love story on an alien world? Or horror and fantasy? Think fairy tales gone horribly wrong (back to their Grimm roots).

I think the germane part of this issue resides within the fact that life is multifaceted and we simply choose which perspective to tell the story from. And sometimes, we choose two instead of one. We see the mystery of the dead body, but we also see the ghost of the victim hovering around the detective, and suddenly, we find ourselves writing cross-genre. Or we see the political intrigue set on a spaceship, but we also see the love story unfolding between the captain and her first mate.

It can be a lot of fun, mixing and matching, as long as our characters are "real" enough for readers to identify with and that our stories make sense within the context in which they are told. There will always be readers who don't like cross-genre; but if we focus on what we love to write, there will always be readers who pick up our books and get lost in the worlds of wonder we create.