Genre

I'm being asked, a lot about what genres my stories fit into and I'm beginning to wonder whether genres have become boxes into which we are squashed and the lid closed.

Personally I would hate that. I don't do labels and I don't do boundaries.

I am constantly and deliberately experimenting with my work, varying tense, POV, methods like alternating voices, different language patterns, formality of language to define characters, storylines etc and deliberately explore areas which might be uncomfortable for some folk, such as disability, sexual deviation, abuse, suicide.

I have a concern about being put in a box because if that happens then I am going to attract the wrong readers and they are going to be disappointed.

My stories involve romance, sometimes bucketfuls of it but, as anyone who has read The Unfairness of Life will tell you I'm certainly not a romance writer.

My stories contain gay characters but I don't write gay stories. The stories stand for themselves without the sexuality of the characters and that doesn't define them.

My stories sometimes have sex in them but that is only ever in when it adds to the story and is never gratuitous therefore, even though there are erotic scenes and elements there it doesn't fit the label of erotic fiction either.

It certainly isn't non fiction, sport or comedy

Adventure? Sure there is a lot of adventure, but if I put myself in that box what about the romance, the sex and the gayness?

Horror... certainly a lot of my stories have a hint of that but none of them have it as the primary theme.

I guess the only thing that is consistent is the fact that there is darkness in all of them.

I'm wondering whether we can make a new genre of Unclassified Ficton, or something like that.

Don't try to put me in a box or when you open the lid you are going to get one hell of a nasty surprise.