Know Your Genre

Jill Edmondson blogs to us today from Toronto, ON, where she is a Communications Professor at George Brown College.  Her first novel, 'Blood and Groom' is out now!  Here she goes...

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When I was first starting to write, I went to a Crime Fiction seminar where Rosemary Aubert (the Ellis Portal series) was the guest speaker. She spoke for about two hours and answered questions from the audience after her talk. The whole evening was informative and interesting, but what stuck with me was one sentence: Know your Genre.

How helpful and how true!

Before you sit down and start to write, learn all you can about the genre. This will benefit you in untold ways.
1. You’ll know what’s out there and what works and what doesn’t.
2. You’ll learn what’s NOT out there and then you can perhaps fill a void.
3. You’ll know where and how to pitch your book to potential publishers.

Long before I started writing Blood and Groom: A Sasha Jackson Mystery I was already involved in the mystery genre. I had taken a mystery writing course. I was an associate member (fan member) of Crime Writers of Canada, and of Sisters in Crime (Toronto Chapter). I read mystery related magazines/websites. I belonged to (actually I founded) two mystery fiction book clubs. Through Crime Writers of Canada, I was once a judge in a book award/competition (the Arthur Ellis awards given by CWC). Talk about having a solid foundation in mystery fiction!

I was also working on my Master’s Degree at the time, and I did some independent studies on... you guessed it: Mystery fiction. As part of the MA work and research (and ultimately thesis work, essays and so on), I read a lot of scholarly papers on Crime Fiction. I learned the history of the genre. I learned the sub-genres (police procedurals, cozies, etcetera). I learned about characters in crime fiction (roles of women, sidekicks, lovers/relationships, and the like).

It took me six months to write Blood and Groom. It took about three months to land a publishing contract. Enough said? Knowing the genre made the whole process faster, smoother, less frustrating and certainly much more enjoyable than if I’d done things differently.

Cheers, Jill Edmondson
“Blood and groom” is available on Amazon or via your favourite bookseller!
Trailer for “Blood and Groom”
I’m also on Twitter: @JillEdmondson
http://www.jilledmondson.com/
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Thank you, Jill, for guest blogging for me today.  I don't know if I'll do it in six months, but I certainly will write my book faster for your help!