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Genre Rules In Indie Fiction: What Does A Mystery-Thriller-Paranormal-SciFi-Magical Realism Novel Look Like?

~ David Biddle ~ 2 Comments
What would Janis say?
There’s a simple question at the end here for folks who have read Beyond the Will of God.

When I started to seriously write Beyond the Will of God back in 1993, I knew where the book was going to take the reader. I knew that there were questions I’ve always had about altered states of consciousness and the power of music. I had some weird adventures late at night back in the 1970s. Adventures in my mind. Adventures that needed to be turned into an intriguing story.

But I didn’t know how to get the story to where I knew it had to go. [I promise there is no spoiler in this brief essay]. The first scene I wrote is part of the first third of the book. It came out of nowhere for me. I woke up one New Year’s Day and sat down in front of my new Mac II. I wrote one sentence: “His vision has that vibrating feel to it, like his eyes are being massaged with electricity.” 

And then another: “In the distance, through the humidity, ribbons of watery light look like Technicolor shower curtains strung one after the other into 120-degrees of rippling physical distance, overlapping ever so slightly in rainbow flashes, glistening in a sun made for teenagers and movie directors – neon orange, fluorescent lime, metallic blue, purple, aquamarine, magenta and yellow.”  

I had no idea why I wrote this. It was an extremely intense moment, to be honest. I knew the guy was weird and had secrets and that he might be connected to all the conspiracies that had ever been. That was it. 

So Beyond the Will of God got its inception as a mystery. But I knew it was going to go way out there as a story. I wanted it to. I wanted it to be a kind of funhouse fictional ride for Boomers and Boomers’ kids who “get it.” I knew that it had elements of being a thriller as well and that it would also deserve to be called a science fiction story or at least speculative fiction. Once I completed the novel and had sent it off to agents and publishers (2000 – 2002), I learned that some folks thought the thing had signs of paranormal activity. Recently, my good friend and colleague, Paula Silici, has pointed out that you gotta throw in magical realism as a category, too. I like this last description. However, most e-book consolidators — certainly Amazon — don’t give you “magical realism” as a category. 
Here’s the problem, though. Genre classifications are in many ways considered the first and fundamental rule of marketing a piece of fiction. Writers like me who offer up stories that are hybrids or that move from one genre to the next are told we have to lock into something. Check out this article on that issue.
The full title for this story is Beyond the Will of God: A Jill Simpson Mystery. So, obviously, I’ve decided to categorize my interesting tale of intrigue and secrecy as a mystery. But here’s the question: Is it really a good thing to classify this crazy story as a mystery? I think most people like mysteries, and they love kind of following along and puzzling things out. But at the same time this story deals with quite a lot of other stuff on a whole bunch of somewhat odd levels. A book in the mystery section of Borders (poor Borders) isn’t going to appeal to my crazy zombie loving friends; nor is it going to appeal to folks I know who love music and are still hooked on understanding the spiritual dimension of life. 
I’m asking this because I am in the process of designing a print-on-demand paperback edition of Beyond the Will of God. When you design a book, when you invest in a book, the end product is not as plastic or flexible as an e-book. I need the paperbound version of Beyond the Will of God to fit into the right framework and to look like what it is — the typeface, chapter structure, cover design, back cover, etc.
So the question is, what is Beyond the Will of God? 
  • Mystery
  • Thriller
  • Science Fiction
  • Paranormal
  • Magical Realism
  • Speculative Fiction
  • Visionary Fiction
  • Twisted Literary Fiction
What?
Thoughts from anyone are most appreciated. 
To buy Beyond the Will of God: A Jill Simpson Mystery, go here on Amazon.com.

A Thinking Person’s Music: The Mystery of the Loud Guitar

~ David Biddle ~ Leave a comment

My new novel, Beyond the Will of God, is intended to remind readers of, or introduce them to, the playful, exotic, and mysterious elements of loud music that I believe we’ve forgotten. Beyond the Will of God seeks to thread the needle between serious mystery and quirky cosmic thriller. It is funky, humorous, and pathetically romantic — the way we used to be back in the day.

The book gets its title from a line in the Jimi Hendrix song, “1983…(A Merman I Should Turn to Be),”:
…And you know good and well
It would be beyond the will of God
And the grace of a king.

In many ways, this story is a murder mystery…but it’s wrapped in the magic of music…and then rolled up into cosmic questions that we used to ask ourselves all the time. What is the relationship between mind and body? What is telepathy? Why is the truth about altered states of consciousness so delicate and hard to understand? Where is the communal power of music coming from? And what about the psychedelic experience and music? Is that magic real? Or just mental dust?

A few weeks before he died, Jimi Hendrix gave an interview in which he talked about his aspirations for the music he wanted to write in the future. He said he wanted his music to change, that it should be about healing and peace, and that music was first and foremost a spiritual tool.

I’ve been struck by that statement ever since I heard it nearly 30 years ago. Back in the 1960s and 1970s the combination of blues, soul, funk, melody, and poetic lyrics were an enormous force of liberation in The Americas (and Great Britain). Whether you listened to Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On?,” an Allman Brothers instrumental like “Hot ‘Lanta,” “Riders on the Storm” by The Doors, or, say, Jimi’s “Power to Love,” you were moved, you were freed, and you knew you were part of something gargantuan. That gargantuan-ness was best exemplified by the loud guitar.

I don’t want to sound like an old-school prig, but most people don’t feel that way anymore about what they listen to. There’s no question that the music of today is just as good as the music of that bygone era (I love everyone from Global Illage and Citizen Cope to Honey Watts and The Roots). But music used to be at the center of what was once a powerful cultural shift on multiple levels all happening at once — we were waking up to how profoundly powerful the magic of the human mind is. Listening to Marvin Gaye or Pink Floyd or Santana took the heart and the mind of the listener on a trip that was both oddly spiritual and physically alluring. The link between emotion, language, and the body was something we were all really truly committed to understanding…and Experiencing. [Don’t get me wrong here: musicians are still working at this level; trust me, I know many amazing artists. It’s never been about anything but getting to the spinning heart of the magic of the human soul…I’m talking about the rest of us.]

Can you dramatize all of these issues? Can you make a story up that calls the reader to the back fence when everything almost seemed to make sense? Are there still mysteries here worth exploring? How does a writer delve into all of this and leave the mythologies of the past open-ended in a way that still lets the reader bring their own intuitions to the dance?
The only way to find out is to read Beyond the Will of God. Stay tuned and consider buying this e-book when it comes out on June 15. If you don’t have an e-reader, you can download Kindle for the Mac and Kindle for Windows. Just go here: Kindle Apps

Or use this as your excuse to buy a new iPad or Kindle. You know you want one.

Remember, June 15 is the release date at the Kindle Store. It will be interesting summer reading.

And for those who know what they’re doing, if you send me your Kindle email address (found in your Amazon account in the “Manage Your Kindle” then “Manage Your Devices” section), I will forward you an advance copy of Beyond the Will of God at no charge. This offer is good through June 14. All I ask is that you let people know about this book, and/or that you review it at Amazon after June 15th.

-dcb