What Type(s) Of Stories Do You Write?

[PurgatoryGirl]

For those, who actually write their own stories and NOT Fan Fiction, what type of stories do you write? Do you have a certain genre(s) or sub-genre(s) your work falls under?

Even though some of my stories are bound, they are unpublished. It is probably no surprise given my personal interests that I write mostly Horror/Thriller Short Stories.

Although, I did write at least 1 story over the last 6 years that would most likely be considered Realistic Fiction. Lately, I'm starting to think that my short stories have the ability to cross genres.

When saying that, I believe it is possible for them to be Psychological Thriller as well as Horror at the same time.

Also, they would most likely be considered "New Adult." New Adult Fiction typically has characters in their late teens to mid-20's, if memory serves me right.

The New Adult label sounds ridiculous to me. What is more ridiculous is that the Young Adult label on books is meant for teenagers. That never made any sense to me, but whatever.

So, what about your work?

Edited September 24, 2018 by PurgatoryGirl

[PokeNirvash]

Come to think of it, my current project could be considered New Adult based on your definition.

[PurgatoryGirl]

More recently, I watched a YouTube vlog by a self-published Young Adult author. She said that the New Adult demographic never fully took off.

When you really pay attention to the advertising for age demographics, Adult and Young Adult are the most popular. There aren't too many of us, who write novels and other types of stories about characters, that really ARE young adults between 18 to 20-something years old.

[Ginguy]

  I'm not even sure what I would categorize my writing as. When I do write, which isn't often enough honestly, I tend to either work on a fantasy story or short stories that are almost ephemeral in nature. I guess maybe an odd blend of urban fantasy and a dash of whimsy. I'm not sure what demographic they would be classified as either, they aren't raunchy per se but I don't know that I would want a 14 yr old to be reading them either.

Maybe I'll post some of them sometime after the election is over.

 

 

[PurgatoryGirl]

Your stories sound like they would be branded as Fantasy Fiction for the adult demographic. Also, if you plan to submit them to publishing companies, it is best not to post your stories online.

They would be considered "previously published" and you will have a much harder time trying to have them published.

Publishing excerpts are fine online, but you should keep the full story offline, if you want your work traditionally published.

The fact that there are people pirating and plagiarizing authors' work makes it worse.

Edited September 25, 2018 by PurgatoryGirl

[PurgatoryGirl]

The only gripes I have about this informative vlog is that there is no mention of the Thriller genre, along with the fact that she did not acknowledge that Horror is not always about monsters. It is also very cliche.

Horror and Thriller are very broad genres, that can overlap into each other. Some friends, who are published and unpublished authors have said, that most of my short stories would be considered Horror with Thriller elements.

Take Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho, for example. It is a Psychological Thriller that was able to crossover into Horror.

 

Edited September 25, 2018 by PurgatoryGirl

[PurgatoryGirl]

 

[Phillies]

Back in the old ASMB I used to write this InuYasha smut that was kind of interesting.

I have this idea to write a fan fiction novel of Duke Nukem in honor of John Cena staring in the new movie thats underway. 

[Ginguy]

22 hours ago, PurgatoryGirl said:

Your stories sound like they would be branded as Fantasy Fiction for the adult demographic. Also, if you plan to submit them to publishing companies, it is best not to post your stories online.

They would be considered "previously published" and you will have a much harder time trying to have them published.

Publishing excerpts are fine online, but you should keep the full story offline, if you want your work traditionally published.

The fact that there are people pirating and plagiarizing authors' work makes it worse.

Thanks for the info.

I doubt I'd publish much of them, they are mostly just loosely connected scenes more than anything else.

The actual fantasy story is another thing entirely, that I might consider submitting.

 

[PurgatoryGirl]

10 hours ago, Phillies said:

Back in the old ASMB I used to write this InuYasha smut that was kind of interesting.

I have this idea to write a fan fiction novel of Duke Nukem in honor of John Cena staring in the new movie thats underway. 

Publishers don't accept Fan Fiction. It's really not that hard to create your characters and write stories about them.

Edited September 26, 2018 by PurgatoryGirl

[PurgatoryGirl]

6 hours ago, Ginguy said:

Thanks for the info.

I doubt I'd publish much of them, they are mostly just loosely connected scenes more than anything else.

The actual fantasy story is another thing entirely, that I might consider submitting.

 

As long they are your own characters with a story, you should try submitting it.

[PurgatoryGirl]

For years, I have always felt that short stories were and still are under appreciated.

Like Stephen King said in this interview, too many writers want to write novels, when they are not ready.

Years ago as a Creative Writing assignment, my last Creative Writing professor, who is also a published author, made our class pay homage to an author.

In a much darker tone, I mostly paid homage to Octavio Paz's short story, "The Blue Bouquet" and my professor loved it. "Blue Bouquet" is a 3-paged Flash Fiction Story.

In similar format, my homage was a 3-paged, Horror Flash Fiction Story (of course), which scared the shit out of some classmates.

Edited September 26, 2018 by PurgatoryGirl

[Phillies]

5 hours ago, PurgatoryGirl said:

Publishers don't accept Fan Fiction. It's really not that hard to create your characters and write stories about them.

I know it was just for fun. 

No one is going to accept my stories anyways.

 

[PurgatoryGirl]

10 hours ago, Phillies said:

I know it was just for fun. 

No one is going to accept my stories anyways.

 

If you don't write your own stories, create your own characters, and submit them, you never know.

Given my chaotic schedule offline, I have yet to spend more time on my short stories. There have been some revisions I have made over the last few months.

However, I need to invest in a literary agent and a proofreader. It's always best to have another person give a 2nd opinion before submitting.

[Phillies]

Just now, PurgatoryGirl said:

If you don't write your own stories, create your own characters, and submit them, you never know.

Given my chaotic schedule offline, I have yet to spend more time on my short stories. There have been some revisions I have made over the last few months.

However, I need to invest in a literary agent and a proofreader. It's always best to have another person give a 2nd opinion before submitting.

You have more courage then me

Where do you even submit them too?? 

[PurgatoryGirl]

Simply do a Google search for writer's submissions. If you know the particular genre your stories are, that can help narrow your searches.

[Phillies]

I will have to rename the InuYasha smut "InuTrasha" and hopefully get published! 

[PurgatoryGirl]

Actually, changing the names of characters into being your own will be a lot better.

Like I already said, publishers don't like or accept Fan Fiction. Neither do some authors.

Write your own stories using your own characters and you will get more credibility and respect.

[Bouvre]

Slipstream/New Weird tends to be a major recurring subgenre of mine. From high school kids obsessed with a bottomless pit, to a story from the perspective of an incubus possessing a young man, it's commonly pretty straightforward stories edged by offset elements.

Edited September 27, 2018 by Bouvre

[PurgatoryGirl]

That sounds interesting.

[Bouvre]

11 minutes ago, PurgatoryGirl said:

That sounds interesting.

The first stories that really opened up that style as a thing I wanted to do was Kelly Link's "Faery Handbag" and portions of Italo Calvino's short novel Invisible Cities

[PurgatoryGirl]

Oh, okay. I've never read either of them. Therefore, I would not know.

[PurgatoryGirl]

It will probably seem biased of me sharing sharing some of these Stephen King videos, but he writes more than Horror novels. King has books published explaining about writing and more.

 

[PurgatoryGirl]

Here's a longer video. What Stephen King said about Carrie was enlightening as well as hilarious, especially when talking about the screening for Carrie in 1975.

 

Edited September 29, 2018 by PurgatoryGirl

[PurgatoryGirl]

You could probably say, that I took a "weekend break" from here. That's something most of us should be doing. Unplugging from the Internet, when it is possible.

So, I just thought of something. If your work ever gets published or self-published, do you have any ideas of what you would want your book to look like?

I can't really think of how I would want the exterior to look. However, I would love for the pages to have Charcoal Gray paper with bright red font, in order to help set the spooky tone.

I know others will say my idea sounds insane, but imagine opening a book of Horror stories with pages that look spooky, before the book can be read.

[PurgatoryGirl]

It will be hours until I come back online. Right now, I am trying to get a professional 2nd opinion from a writing company about whether or not to share an excerpt of 1 of my short stories to this site.

Since I write Horror/Psychological Thrillers, the excerpt I have in mind could possibly be shared in the Horror sub-forum. It is graphically disturbing.

The protagonist is a misogynistic gynecologist.

He has the personality of Married With Children's Al Bundy combined with American Psycho's Patrick Bateman. Yes, he is just that fucked up.

If I do share it, just remember that you have been warned in advance.

Edited October 4, 2018 by PurgatoryGirl

[PurgatoryGirl]

Unfortunately, I am not allowed to share an excerpt of the story I previously mentioned.

According to the writing agency I talked to earlier, posting an excerpt of it for public viewing would be considered "previously published work."

It's amazing how posting an excerpt for public viewing would be labeled "previously published work." It's not like the entire story would've been published.

Supposedly, literary agents and book publishers don't want to fight over rights to an author's work. It's mostly a copyright issue than anything.

Luckily, I am able to keep the excerpts of my stories locked on my website's Horror/Thriller page for members to view.

[PhilosipherStoned]

I wrote a martial arts/ action story or atleast came up with the frame work for a creative writing class in college.

It was set in a more or less prehistoric time period, on the grounds of a native nomadic tride of people.

I'd need to put a lot more thought into it to give it some actual substance.

[PurgatoryGirl]

Oh okay, that sounds like it would be really interesting.

[PurgatoryGirl]

Is anyone here still trying to decide, which genres and/sub-genres your stories would be labeled? It has already been said, that Horror and Thriller can cross genres.

As of right now, I'm starting to think that mine would most likely be labeled as Psychological Thriller.

With that being said, I feel that my work could be published in anthologies for both Horror and Thriller, in the future.

This has actually become my latest goal.

Edited October 5, 2018 by PurgatoryGirl

[PurgatoryGirl]

At the end of last week, I suppose you could say that I managed to find a loophole, in regards to sharing excerpts of stories and what would be considered "previously published work."

http://writersrelief.com/blog/2013/11/what-is-considered-previously-published-writing/

Originally, I was going to share an excerpt of a short story. After remembering just how divisive certain posters can be on this site, I changed my mind. The less drama, the better.

Meanwhile, have you ever been in the middle of revising any of your stories and started laughing at some of the dialogue, that you wrote for certain characters?

I'm really curious mostly because I found myself cracking up, while re-reading some of the snarky, dark humor that I wrote for certain characters' dialogues. So, have you EVER had that experience?

BTW: Happy Birthday to PokeNirvash! Eat, drink, and be merry!

[Bouvre]

On 9/29/2018 at 12:19 AM, PurgatoryGirl said:

It will probably seem biased of me sharing sharing some of these Stephen King videos, but he writes more than Horror novels. King has books published explaining about writing and more.

 

King has actually one of my favorite books about writing. Even if you're not a fan of his work, On Writing is regarded highly and wonderfully accessible.

[PurgatoryGirl]

4 hours ago, Bouvre said:

King has actually one of my favorite books about writing. Even if you're not a fan of his work, On Writing is regarded highly and wonderfully accessible.

Yes, I have also read and heard about this Stephen King book.

[PurgatoryGirl]

Does anyone here have friends, who are published and/self-published authors?

What about having discussions with friends or possibly with other writers in regards to the genre of your work?

In other words, what if your friends and/other writers believe your stories should be labeled under a different genre than what you personally think they should be labeled?

For example, some of my friends, who are published, believe that my work is more Horror than Thriller. 

Since the Horror Industry keeps recycling the same cliches (werewolves, vampires, zombies, witches,etc.) they barely give other types of horror much recognition.

Even though my stories have none of the above, they are still Horror. At the same time, I believe that my work has the ability to overlap into Thriller, most specifically Psychological Thriller.

It seems like most people forget that we can find horror in the simplest things such as real-life phobias, tragedies, crimes, etc. that we watch and read on our local news and beyond.

Honestly, I can't help reiterating how much I have always favored the Slasher Horror sub-genre. It was the most demonized out of the Horror genre, during the '80s and I mostly believe it was because stalkers and serial killers resonate more with reality. Dealing with either of them can be frightening.

Although, serial killers and stalkers in fiction can be seen as Psychological Thriller. So, what are your thoughts?

Edited October 18, 2018 by PurgatoryGirl

[PurgatoryGirl]

As a quick update for those who may care, I submitted 3 of my short stories for a writer's review. Hopefully, there will be no complications, since today is the due date.

[Ginguy]

15 minutes ago, PurgatoryGirl said:

As a quick update for those who may care, I submitted 3 of my short stories for a writer's review. Hopefully, there will be no complications, since today is the due date.

Good luck with that. Hopefully it will go well for you, and you can at least get some constructive feedback.

 

 

[PurgatoryGirl]

12 minutes ago, Ginguy said:

Good luck with that. Hopefully it will go well for you, and you can at least get some constructive feedback.

 

 

I really hope so, too because this is long overdue.

[Phillies]

On 10/1/2018 at 3:25 AM, PurgatoryGirl said:

You could probably say, that I took a "weekend break" from here. That's something most of us should be doing. Unplugging from the Internet, when it is possible.

So, I just thought of something. If your work ever gets published or self-published, do you have any ideas of what you would want your book to look like?

I can't really think of how I would want the exterior to look. However, I would love for the pages to have Charcoal Gray paper with bright red font, in order to help set the spooky tone.

I know others will say my idea sounds insane, but imagine opening a book of Horror stories with pages that look spooky, before the book can be read.

Not too concerned about what the book will look like. 

Since it will be sci fi an artistic drawing on the front cover of something will do fine. 

[PurgatoryGirl]

Oh, okay.

[Phillies]

I don't like the charcoal pages 

[PurgatoryGirl]

I like the idea. It would be different from the usual color.

[Phillies]

Used to read these back in the day.

There are textured bumps all over the cover. 

[PurgatoryGirl]

For the last 25 years, I have owned Night Of The Living Dummy. It's amazing how time flies. I haven't read it in years.

[PurgatoryGirl]

Years ago, I had this tiny anthology of Flash Fiction for Creative Writing Class. This anthology has Octavio Paz's story, "The Blue Bouquet" in it.

"The Blue Bouquet" is only 3 pages long. Since the semester was over, I cashed it in for money during our campus book buyback. Looking back, I probably should've kept it.

[PurgatoryGirl]

Wow! It has almost been a month, since I last posted in this thread.

To give a quick follow-up regarding my submissions for writer reviews, it looks like I wasted my time. Or should I say, that the company wasted MY time?

After spending time revising and submitting 3 of my short stories to be reviewed at Writer's Relief, they e-mailed me a bogus message claiming, that they were unable to review my work due to the "sheer volume" of submissions. Like, seriously?

Here's the real kicker, they told me to submit MORE in 2 more months. HA!

If they have so much to read from various writers, that they can't seem to review them, what sense does it make to tell us to keep submitting?

While Writer's Relief wastes our time, I will continue to write and revise other stories for submissions to other companies.

Not only have I been submitting short stories, but I also managed to squeeze in time to read Stephen King's short story, "Children Of The Corn." It has been years, since I last watched the movie based on the short story.

While reading "Children Of The Corn" on Friday night into early Saturday morning, I couldn't help feeling annoyed with the main characters, most specifically the wife, Vicky.

If you have never seen the movie or read the short story, the movie is way better than the story.

Reading "Children Of The Corn" mostly consisted of Burt and Vicky trying to "save" their failbag marriage, while fighting on a road trip to Nebraska.

The couple was supposed to have been visiting Vicky's sister and her husband. Vicky and Burt were fighting in the car, while running over a boy.

The boy's throat was already slit by the Children Of The Corn and he was trying to escape.

It was a failed attempt on his part, especially after Burt ran him over in the street. Anyway, the Children Of The Corn don't appear until it gets closer towards the end of the story.

Storywise, the movie is a lot better and is scarier than the actual short story, that Stephen King wrote. Honestly, I feel disappointed after reading it.

Throughout the story, I was looking forward to Vicky's death. She was just that annoying.

Edited November 18, 2018 by PurgatoryGirl

[PurgatoryGirl]

Since last night, something has been weighing heavily on my mind.

Before having the chance to watch Species, I got a phone call from a supposed literary agent. He wanted to know how far I was in my writing process.

I explained to him that I have been revising and submitting my work for writer reviews and was trying to figure out how to find a literary agent. The man I spoke to on the phone said that he works for Page Publishing. 

Because I never heard of Page Publishing, I will have to conduct research on it to make sure it's not a scam. If it is legit, I can't help feeling excited yet apprehensive all at once.

For the last dozen years or so, I have been wanting to have my stories published. At the same time, I have some family members, that are unsupportive of my work because it's mostly Horror/Psychological Thriller.

Like I said in the past, I have friends who are published authors that say my stories are more Horror than Thriller. My mother and I are the only 2 out of our immediate family that are Horror fans.

Meanwhile, my grandmother is the stereotypical Christian zealot, who has a problem with any and everything that doesn't fit her Christian views and lifestyle. 

If she were to read my Horror Short Story, "The Horrors Of Womanhood," she would probably go apeshit. LOL!

This particular short story is written in 1st person narrative and it's about a misogynistic gynecologist, who loves torturing his patients all because he has deep seated mommy issues. Over the last 7 years, I have thought about how mostly women would react to this story.

On my website's Horror/Thriller page, I published an excerpt of "The Horrors Of Womanhood." My male subscribers found some of the humor in the story, which is a positive.

However, nobody has ever read the entire story, which could lead to female readers being outraged if worse ever came to worse.

Even though there is some dark humor written in the narration and dialogue, my intent is to show how extremely vulnerable us women can be during a personal doctor's appointment, while possibly having a gynecologist who could be a misogynistic serial killer.

Edited November 30, 2018 by PurgatoryGirl

[DragonSinger]

5 hours ago, PurgatoryGirl said:

Since last night, something has been weighing heavily on my mind. Before having the chance to watch Species, I got a phone call from a supposed literary agent. He wanted to know how far I was in my writing process.

I explained to him that I have been revising and submitting my work for writer reviews and was trying to figure out how to find a literary agent. The man I spoke to on the phone said that he works for Page Publishing. 

Because I never heard of Page Publishing, I will have to conduct research on it to make sure it's not a scam. If it is legit, I can't help feeling excited yet apprehensive all at once.

For the last dozen years or so, I have been wanting to have my stories published. At the same time, I have some family members, that are unsupportive of my work because it's mostly Horror/Psychological Thriller.

Like I said in the past, I have friends who are published authors that say my stories are more Horror than Thriller. My mother and I are the only 2 out of our immediate family that are Horror fans.

Meanwhile, my grandmother is the stereotypical Christian zealot, who has a problem with any and everything that doesn't fit her Christian views and lifestyle. 

If she were to read my Horror Short Story, "The Horrors Of Womanhood," she would probably go apeshit. LOL!

This particular short story is written in 1st person narrative and it's about a misogynistic gynecologist, who loves torturing his patients all because he has deep seated mommy issues. Over the last 7 years, I have thought about how mostly women would react to this story.

On my website's Horror/Thriller page, I published an excerpt of "The Horrors Of Womanhood." My male subscribers found some of the humor in the story, which is a positive.

However, nobody has ever read the entire story, which could lead to female readers being outraged if worse ever came to worse.

Even though there is some dark humor written in the narration and dialogue, my intent is to show how extremely vulnerable us women can be during a personal doctor's appointment, while possibly having a gynecologist who could be a misogynistic serial killer.

A good thing to google when looking up publishers is "publisher name" and "absolutewrite" together. What will come up is a topic in AbsoluteWrite's forum called Bewares, Recommendations, and Background Checks that covers agents and publishers. It's usually not a good sign if a publisher calls you without you sending them anything first. Their goal is to usually hook you into considering paying a steep fee in the thousands to publish your book with very bad formatting/editing at a price above market value that'll keep your story from selling many copies.

[PurgatoryGirl]

7 hours ago, SorceressPol said:

A good thing to google when looking up publishers is "publisher name" and "absolutewrite" together. What will come up is a topic in AbsoluteWrite's forum called Bewares, Recommendations, and Background Checks that covers agents and publishers. It's usually not a good sign if a publisher calls you without you sending them anything first. Their goal is to usually hook you into considering paying a steep fee in the thousands to publish your book with very bad formatting/editing at a price above market value that'll keep your story from selling many copies.

Yesterday I did see an advertisement and filled out some questions. However, I will definitely visit these other sites to double check. I want my work to be done professionally even if it means that publishing will take longer.

Who wants to buy a book with spelling, grammatical errors, and bad formatting? A few years ago, I bought a Horror anthology out of curiosity of the quality and the stories' format looked really amateurish.

In fact, there was 1 author in particular, who had his story published in all lower cased letters. If he was in the middle of an IM chat, that would've been fine.

Not capitalizing at the start of each sentence in a story looks very lazy and unprofessional. Errors like that only adds to people not wanting to take self-published authors seriously. 

Traditional publishers, authors, literary agents, and some book readers don't always have respect for self-published authors because the quality of their writing can be unprofessionally done.

To make matters worse, some of those same authors have massive egos because they don't want anyone to be in control of the quality of their work.

[PurgatoryGirl]

I did some quick research just now and it turns out, that Page Publishing Inc. has a lot of complaints.

https://www.bbb.org/us/ny/staten-island/profile/publishers-book/page-publishing-inc-0121-140703/complaints

[PurgatoryGirl]

Even though I shared this article in the Creative Chatter thread, I am re-sharing it here.

https://thewritepractice.com/a-critical-dont-for-writing-dialogue/