Editing Rant: Know your Genre – Christmas Edition

Photo 31391356 | Bad Christmas Tree © Wojtek Kaczkowski | Dreamstime.com

The story I was reading was a Reverse Harem Superhero Christmas tale – ’tis the season and all. Somehow it manages to fall down on all three genres badly.

Reverse harems/Why Choose are basically three-for-one romances. The heroine falls in love with each of the potential love interests in turn, and they fall in love with her back. “Why Choose” sub-category is more about the romance, while “Reverse Harem” is more about the erotica. Each of the love interests (usually, but not exclusively male) should be different – individuals in their own rights – bringing a different set of character traits which match the heroine, filling a need in her, and she, in return, fills a different need in each of them. With one male, she might be strong and be by his side in battle, with the gender neutral mate, she and they might craft and create together, bouncing ideas off each other, and with the final “choice”, she could be the soft he needs, while he can be vulnerable with her. These books are so much fun to have the zing of falling in love three (or even more) times in a row, but they are hard to write – giving each couple a chance in the spotlight takes up time and requires a lot of work at pacing.

To save time, the author in this book always had the three potential love interests (PLIs) on screen together. The PLIs never had solo time, they always appear together, and they always did practically the same thing. Really, one PLI could have worked as well as three.

For the superhero genre, her powers had no impact on the story, were amorphous in their definition, and were hardly used. The plot would have been the same if she could fly or travel through time or turned purple.

For the Christmas part of the genre, the author was exploring someone who always had a bad time at Christmas. The Christmas genre is about found family, discovering joy, and gifts. At the end of the story, the reader should feel uplifted. It’s okay for the character to have a crappy time at the start of the story, but the plot should pull them out the other side with all the reasons to live. Instead, we end the tale nearly as desperate as w

It’s okay to turn tropes on end, pull from other genres to create new mashes, but you still need to deliver the POINT of the genre. Science fiction without science, Fantasy without magic, Romance without at least a Happily for Now – these are not genre.