Monday, March 18, 2013

I am back with another blog chain topic and this time Michelle is asking the questions:

What elements in your favorite genre make it your favorite? For instance, if your favorite genre is romance, what elements do you like in a romance story? A tortured hero? A spunky heroine? Steamy love scenes? Sweet romance? If your fave genre is sci-fi, what elements do you love the most (the characters, the science, the possibilities?), etc?

Young adult novels have become my favorite genre for one reason: VARIETY.

You can have romance, adventure, mystery, sci-fi, fantasy... You name it, YA has it.

But the thing that I like the very very best about this is the ability to mash up all these different sub-genres and make something that doesn't fit into just one of those categories, but straddles several of them.

This fits me, not just as a reader who likes to keep things fresh so I don't get into a reading rut, but even more so as a writer. It frees me up to not worry about how my story will fit within predefined parameters, and it lets me take my stories wherever I want them to go - no matter how crazy that place may seem.

ANOTHER LITTLE PIECE checks so many different genre boxes: horror, paranormal, mystery, romance - there's even a little poetry thrown in there. HarperTeen is marketing it as 'literary horror'. But at the end of the day, it still sits beneath the young adult umbrella... and that is a wonderful and diverse and exciting place to be right now.

If you've been paying attention then you probably already know that this is only the beginning of this blog chain. To keep following it, you'll want to check out Sandra's blog tomorrow.