Why Genre Hopping Is Bad (and I don't care!)

Writing has rules and we all know rules are stupid. Don't head hop, get rid of those pesky adverbs, always end a sentence with a period. Okay, those are all pretty good rules but you know what they say. Rules are meant to be broken. Except genre hopping. They say it's bad. The worst. Career suicide. I don't know who they are but I do know that they're pretty opinionated about it.

What is genre hopping you ask? Well let's say you want to buy a book. You go into your favorite bookstore, or at least you did before they all closed down, and you walk to the section where all your favorite books are. Now that might be science fiction or thrillers or romance. There they sit on the shelves all shiny and new with the authors names on the spines and flashy covers. The books you want to buy. But what if your favorite author of space opera just wrote a historical romance. Would you read it? Probably not. But how about an action adventure novel? An apocalypse novel with aliens? What if someone recommended it to you? I like to think you'd take a chance. I know I would.

As a reader, I like to read a lot of different genres. As a writer, I never even think about what genre I'm writing in until the book is almost finished. You see the story comes to me one piece at a time, like a jigsaw puzzle I'm putting together in my head. Now all my books are dark and twisted. You won't find me writing a straight romance or a comedy. That's just the way the words come out. But you may find my books straddling the lines between thrillers/suspense/horror and who knows what else. I hope you'll take the leap and follow me down the path of words I leave behind.

In a couple of weeks I'm hoping to release a book I wrote last year. This is a crime thriller with a plucky, damaged private investigator and a serial killer who wants her dead. It's not new adult. It is what it is. I have an awesomely scary cover for it which I'll be revealing in a few days. Honestly, it's really creepy. I think you're going to love it. And I'm also still working on my dark fantasy. I hope when that book is finished, you'll follow me there too!