Writing in Different Genres

I’ve been a guest on various podcasts and have been getting asked the same question a lot: You write in a lot of different genres. How did that happen and how does it work?

It’s a great question and might reflect my reading tastes. I read all kinds of books, therefore it makes me interested in writing in different genres. I’m a huge YA reader, which makes sense why so far I’ve only written in the YA space, but I read all kinds of YA: romance, mystery, fantasy, thrillers, dystopian, etc.

I also am a pantser (writing by the seat of my pants) so when I get a glimpse of an idea, I start typing away as if I’m in a fever dream. When I first got my idea for SUPERFICIAL, it was going to be two fans attending a Comic-Con convention when weird things start happening, but as I was writing, instead of one of them being a fan, he became the star of the convention and a superhero in real life. That’s when I realized I was writing a superhero book. It shouldn’t have surprised me because I’m a huge Marvel movie fan, but I had never actually read a superhero book before starting to write one (I have now).

For my next book, the one I’m currently editing, I only had an idea for the first paragraph. I started writing it out and I kept writing and suddenly someone got murdered. Oops! It also shouldn’t have been a surprise to me that one of my books would be a murder mystery because in high school I would devour them, like Mary Higgins Clark and Carolyn Hart.

I have a seed of an idea for two other books and guess what, they are going to be adult. Crazy, right? But I also do read adult books and would like to try my hand at them and my ideas I have only work in the adult space.

So how does it work as an author who writes in so many different genres? It sometimes can be a little tricky to market, especially if your audience found you for one book, like mine did. People begun to follow me on social media because of my debut novel DOES LOVE ALWAYS WIN?, which is a sapphic YA romance. My next book, SUPERFICIAL, is not that so I’ve been trying to find my audience for that book. And I’ll probably be doing the same for my murder mystery. Whenever I’m talking about myself, I now make sure to state that I’m a multi-genre queer YA author, so people know I write more than one genre.

When some authors publish in a new genre, they have a pen name. I didn’t want to do that since all my books are YA and queer but I am considering having one if I do move into the adult space, that way it’s clear that it’s something completely different than my YA books. It will really be a whole different audience I’m trying to attract.

Even though writing in different genres can sometimes be complicated and harder to find your audience, I wouldn’t change my approach. I have a lot of fun when I’m writing something completely brand new and challenging. It helps keep my writing fresh and interesting. Who knows what genre I’ll try next!

Check out my books here.