Genre Split Personality
Vampires…Cowboys…Vampires…
Oops! It’s April—must be cowboys, again!
I started writing before I knew a thing about “author branding” or I might have settled on one subgenre of erotic romance to write. If I had known, I probably still would have been all over the place. I’m easily bored and ready to jump to the next “sparkly” concept.
A good agent might still sort me out and set me on the “right” path, but until then I’ll keep genre-hopping along. I’ve written dark and funny paranormals, futuristics, Medievals, contemporaries, straight erotica—pretty much anything I’m thinking about when I sit down to a blank screen and start typing at page one.
Kind of naturally, two genres have consumed me of late. Westerns (both historical and contemp) and dark paranormals (vamps, demons, mages).
The two do one thing in common. Larger than life, definable uber-Alpha males—but, at least in my stories, little else. The urban fantasies are plot-heavy, plot-driven, multi-sexual and often have heavy doses of horror and suspense. The Westerns, so far, have completely monogomous couples, are more character-driven, contain a large dose of humor, and have unamibuous happy endings. The UrbanF stories, often leave you wanting the next book to see what I’m hinting at on the last page.
Sometimes, when I’m working them at the same time, I feel like “Dark Delilah” has to leave the room before the cowgirl can come out to play. The language, the tone, the way the characters interact (violent passion vs. overwhelming seduction), are very different.
Even the way I feel about them is different. I’m deeply passionate about my vamps. I smile a lot and shiver when I talk about my cowboys.
At the end of this month, the second volume of light and sexy Westerns, entitled WILD, WILD WOMEN OF THE WEST II, comes out. My real-life sister, Myla Jackson, and my BFF, Layla Chase, are also featured in the book Kensington is publishing. The tone is light and sexy with a touch of paranormal. My heroine in Once Upon a Legend is a dime novelist coming west to meet the hero of her very first novel and bracing for disappointment.
“For all she knew, the real Jake White Eagle was a short, squat man who could suck his whiskey through the space where his front teeth ought to be.”
There you have it. That’s my Prudence’s mind at work in a nutshell.
If a publisher suddenly told me I couldn’t write both, I think I’d seriously have to consider therapy. After I drain blood for the vamps, I need to cleanse my palate with the “black and white” world of the Western. And so far, I’ve been lucky with New York, alternating stories, vampire/western/vampire and so on, for the past couple of years.
So, I’m curious, do readers feel the same way, too? Do you like to vary your reading between a couple of favorites or consume a steady diet of one genre of book?
