• Novel
• Kids’ lit
• Young adult novel
• Chick lit
• Autobiography (not the life history of an auto)
• Travel (rent-a-camel)
• History (no fewer than twelve hundred pages)
• Medical (requires author to have a degree in something personal)
• Personal essay
• Screenplay (appropriate to one thousand videos)
• Stage play
• Poetry (commercially limited to greeting cards, but cost- effective in regard to not needing a haircut)
• Journalism (sometimes called “the Fourth Estate,” because part of you has died)
• Humour (a very chancy genre unless your name is Woody Allen or Dave Barry)
• Income tax return
NOVEL
Not just the short story on steroids, the novel is a relatively recently evolved species of creative writing, still treated with contempt by some older literary critics. Even the noun was unknown until the sixteenth century when the Italian novella was introduced to Western Europe, along with the pepperoni pizza.
For centuries the novel form was monopolized by male writers such as Daniel Defoe and Samuel Richardson. Women were waiting for the invention of the printing press, which boosted book sales enough to make novel writing competitive with prostitution. Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein, made a bigger killing than her monster, inspiring female novelists everywhere to create heroes who needed to be struck by lightning.
Today virtually all successful novelists can be clinically identified as female. The exception being Stephen King (horror has no gender). The bestselling of these novels is called chick lit (with apologies to the chewing gum). They are stories written by women, about women, for women who have tried real men and moved on. You shouldn’t attempt chick lit if you are a virgin or otherwise sexually impaired. (Another test: can you write with your legs crossed?)
If you feel that you don’t meet any of these criteria, it doesn’t mean you are totally lacking in sensitivity and should be writing parking tickets. Your talent may be juvenile, and better suited to writing books for children.
KIDS’ LIT
This is a tremendously lucrative market for writers who have refused to grow up. Reason: parents are frantically buying books for their children in a desperate if futile effort to dislodge them from the Internet. Having to compete with porn channels is a real challenge to the children’s author trying to create a bedtime story that doesn’t involve handcuffs.
In order to write for children, it helps to think like a child, without having previously played professional hockey without a helmet. Some frequently asked questions about kids’ lit:
Q: I’m a guy. Won’t people look at me funny if I try to write children’s books?
A: Of course. That’s why you need to write under another name (nom de plume). Charles Dodgson, a respected English mathematician, could never have written Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. As Lewis Carroll, he did. Just make sure your literary alias hasn’t already been taken (e.g., Mark Twain).
Q: Should I avoid using words of more than one syllable?
A: Not at all. Most kids over twelve can handle two syllables, sometimes more. But polysyllables may cause incontinence in sensitive children.
Q: Where can I research children’s books without having to buy one?
A: Your public library. A librarian will be happy to direct you to the shelf where the children’s books would be if they weren’t out. Or you may browse in a children’s bookstore, though some managers get shirty if you bring a camp stool.
Q: What about nursery rhymes? Any market?
A: This little piggy didn’t make it. The problem with nursery rhymes is that it is difficult to write any new ones without having them, under analysis, reveal the author’s sexual perversion (e.g., “Jack and Jill went up the hill” has a motivation other than to “fetch a pail of water”).
YOUNG ADULT NOVEL
This is a relatively new genre of creative writing: books aimed at the special market of parents who want to give their teenager something of a legal substance.
The prototype of the young adult novel has long been the works of Horatio Alger, Jr. (1832–1899), whose boys’ books inspired a whole generation of young Americans to go forth and earn big bucks. Alger’s classic — Ragged Dick — despite the catchy title is little read by today’s teenagers, being one long endorsement of hard work as a source of wealth. Alger also gave away much of his earnings to street kids, dying poor himself. Perhaps he’s not a role model for those students drawn to YA novel writing in lieu of gainful employment.
YA novels are usually published in soft cover, a hint that your work may not have the longevity of the Dead Sea Scrolls. And the royalties are apt to be less than what the publisher paid the illustrator. But the glory is all yours, Horatio.
CHICK LIT
This genre is deplored as demeaning to novels in general. These novels are typically written by female authors, read mostly by women, and critically reviewed by men who like to live dangerously.
Unlike male-written novels, which are sometimes about something other than sex, chick lit concentrates almost entirely on relationships. It is impossible to imagine a Roberta Crusoe. Even if the castaway has email.
The genre was formerly described as “the bodice ripper.” Perhaps because today no one is quite sure what a bodice is, there seems to be less ripping going on than in the days when women wore discernible vests. Also, the provocation for shredding a woman’s underwear (“No!”) has waned as a response to male ardour. Today it is more likely to be the guy who gets his shirt totalled by impassioned fingers. Autre temps, autre skivvies.
To author chick lit, a woman really needs to have a personal background of bad experience with her mother. If she hasn’t had a mother, she is working at a distinct disadvantage. She will also need to have had an aunt, grandmother, or older sister to provide the oppressive regime when she is creating a female protagonist that will resonate with the reader who has relatives.
Here care must be taken, lest a wicked stepmother emerge from the closet to sue the author for libel. In fact, the author of chick lit may need to write off all her kin, in terms of amicable relations. It is the price one pays for writing fiction that isn’t kept entirely outdoors.
Can a male author write chick lit? What if he is a bit effeminate? Secretly paints his toenails? Hates ice hockey? Well, probably not. Virginia Woolf said that there is a spot at the back of every woman’s head the size of a shilling that no man ever sees. What she meant was that some areas
