The Ever-Elusive Niche

Have you ever had a time in your life where you were suddenly bored with everything? Or maybe an event completely changed your perspective? We all have, and if you haven’t, you will. The most familiar is the sudden need to change your job. You wanted to be a dancer all your life, but when you finally get there, you decide you want to be an astronaut. You longed for a life in the business world, but suddenly the thought of spending your days in an office makes you retch. Just as in life, this is also true in writing.

My personal experience comes from writing in a genre. My forte in the writing world has always been fiction. Once an author is known for a particular genre, that becomes the whole of their notoriety. They’re the “x” writer or the “y” writer. Some authors transcend this, but it’s difficult to do.

When I was twelve and thirteen, my passion was fantasy. The thought of a world where magic existed and heroes came from the wombs of deities was glorious to me. Unfortunately, the stories I wrote then were beyond help. Looking back on it, I wish I had all of that writing time back. Maybe I could have created something meaningful. However, by the same token, those stories that would have made grown men cry made me the writer I am now. I can’t entirely write them off. But there’s no way in Hell I’d ever read them again.

After a brief, sordid love affair with science fiction, I came to the genre I’m fiddling with now: historical fiction. In this genre, I can create the stories even I would read. And I am a very picky reader. Many find the genre constraining because the author is bound by facts and dates and a predisposed future. I find I’m liberated by it. I can work in an environment that is familiar enough to make me feel at home, but distant enough to make me want to learn more. It’s a lot of effort, but it’s worth all of that.

I know there will be a time in the future where I leave historical fiction behind. Not permanently, perhaps a project or two. It saddens me, but it’s not something I’m going to fight. In fact, I’m going to try my best to embrace it.

This is what I’ve come to realize. It’s not an epiphany that will suddenly bring all who read this blog to light, but it’s something worth noting. These changes that we go through don’t mean that we have a screw loose. These are growing pains. Signs that we are not only free-thinking, but interesting people. We are capable of change, which is more than can be said for some. So, maybe that niche you were hoping for doesn’t really matter.

In the end, I don’t want to be defined by my genre. I want to be defined by the stories I tell and the quality in which I tell them. I think that can be said for all writers. For all people, even. But I’m going to stop getting cosmic and end this post. I’ll have more tomorrow.