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| Somewhere in this photo is an envelope containing over 100 rejections. |
thriller
Genre Rules In Indie Fiction: What Does A Mystery-Thriller-Paranormal-SciFi-Magical Realism Novel Look Like?
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| 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.
Beyond the Will of God Is Now Available
My first novel, Beyond the Will of God, is available for purchase at Amazon’s Kindle Store.
If you’re looking for something different to read this summer, this book is for you. It’s part thriller, part mystery, part paranormal speculation, and part science fiction. There’s romance and sex, of course — just enough. But the book also deals with big questions about life and the human mind.
Click here to go to the Kindle Store page for Beyond the Will of God.
As always, Amazon’s sample pages are available for you to read. Check it out.
If you don’t have a Kindle or an iPad with the Kindle, you can download an App for your computer or smartphone right here.
Buy the book now to take advantage of introductory pricing. It’s a pretty good deal at $2.99.
And I’d truly be grateful if you let your friends know about this offer. Send them the link to this web page or to the Amazon listing. Or share this with your social network.
Happy reading!
David
Conspiracy Theory and The Near Future
A book announcement.
The 1970s were the pinnacle years for conspiracy theories in America. Uncertainties about JFK’s assassination got things rolling in the 1960s, but the stories got weirder and weirder the more we watched our great cultural heroes pass on into death well before their time — Kerouac, Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, MLK, Jr., even Elvis — to name just a few.
For years it was said that no one ever saw The Doors’ Jim Morrison’s body after he died and that his grave in Paris was empty.
Conspiracy theorists had a field day when evidence of CIA misdeeds came to light during the Church Committee Hearings. No one had ever heard of Remote Viewing. The experiments performed by various military and CIA intelligence units on unwitting citizens using psychedelic drugs seemed like proof that the mysteries of LSD, mescaline, and psilocybin were more than psychological fancy.
As the 1970s gave way to the 1980s & 1990s, abandoned missile silos throughout the prairie belt of the US became decommissioned and old school Cold War paranoids became convinced the military was up to something far more dangerous than nuclear missiles. And then there were all the stories about secret “black helicopters” and paramilitary militia groups, bolstered by the realities of the Reverend Jim Jones, David Koresh, and other fanatic cult groups.
My new novel, Beyond the Will of God, playfully links a good portion of these tantalizing “theories” together. Imagine as well that something far more important is at the root of what’s really been going on. Somewhere in the heart of central Missouri in the near future, mysterious music will filter through night darkened farmland. The dead body of an Amish teenager will launch a police investigation that leads to a great deal more than a simple homicide. Elvis will be seen roaming the countryside. A young, drug-addled clairvoyant will arrive in the area, confused about some odd power that improvisational psychedelic music has over human consciousness. The Sumter brothers and their unofficial militia group are also somehow involved.
Police Sergeant Jill Simpson teams up with Philadelphia tabloid reporter Franklin Harris to tie all of these issues together. These mysteries play out amidst the dense heat of rural central Missouri and on the edges of the almost forgotten city of Columbia. Secrets are revealed about the supposed doors of perception and the limits of expanded consciousness.
If you are looking for summer reading that is fun and thought provoking and far beyond the usual, this book is worth the read. I think of Beyond the Will of God as sort of a fairytale for Baby Boomers and other people who “get it.” It’s part thriller, part mystery, part science fiction, part paranormal speculation.
Publication is scheduled for June 15 at Amazon’s Kindle Store. Contact me if you’d like an advance digital copy (available by June 1). Just email me david.c.biddle@gmail.com and I will forward you a digital copy for your iPad, Kindle, Nook or most anything else.
See the top of the page to sign up for email updates regarding Beyond the Will of God and other stuff I’m working on.
And, lastly, for what it’s worth, please forward the link for this announcement to those who might be interested. Believe it or not, all the marketing studies out there say that word-of-mouth is the most effective way to sell books. I’m an independent writer. I need your help. Post the link on your FaceBook Page, email it to friends, Tweet it, whatever makes sense. I am Grateful!
-dcb
