So it was time for another visit to Barnes and Noble's. I've been
busy as heck recently, as well as having some family issues, so I
haven't been able to stop by for a while. Wednesday night, I headed
over after work, and the news was not good.
In the fiction area, the shelves are three segments wide, front and
back. There was still no horror section, but incredibly, there was
a section solely for Twilight and assorted rip-offs. There were
dramatic rip-offs, romantic rip-offs, and light-hearted rip-offs. To
be fair, some of them weren't rip-offs at all, they were stories
about kids falling in love and/or lust, and about all the
complications that always follow. The fact that the characters were
vampires, werewolves, ghosts and cheerleaders just gave added flavor
to the stories. These books were on one shelf, taking up all the
sections on one side and two of the three on the other side.
I'll snicker about it, but I also have to think about it. My gut
reaction is to say 'back in my day, if it had monsters in it, it went
in the horror section.' But that's not completely accurate, is it?
People have been using and misusing monsters ever since they stopped
being genuinely afraid of them. Predating my day were movies like
'The ghost in the invisible bikini,' (with Boris Karloff, no less!)
'The ghost and Mrs Muir,' and of course, the many relevant films of
Bud Abbot and Lou Costello. These are movies and not books, true.
But I suspect my inability to name similar books off the top of my
head is due to my ignorance, not lack of material.
Rather than get into the sour grapes of how well Stephenie Meyer's
little sub-genre is doing, (because I think the whole rest of the
human race has already seen to that) I'm going to admit the reason.
Much like why the damsel in distress is still on the market, this
sub-genre is getting the royal treatment because it's selling. B&N
wouldn't give up valuable shelf space if it wasn't.
What does this mean for me? For those of us who prefer hearts
pounding in terror, or torn out while still beating? It means we
need to realize that a good chunk of our potential audience likes
that stuff, and decide whether or not to include it in our work.
I spent the day putting together an outline of Roja. I don't like
doing this before I write the story, but now that I'm doing the
rewrite I need it to keep all the points straight. To make the
outline, I had to skim through the whole book, and I still like it.
That's a good sign.
Still writing like a horror junkie.
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