FICTION FOCUS
Boundaries? What boundaries?
Writers should be prepared to take creative risks, but how far is too far when it comes to commercial fiction? Margaret James argues against playing it too safe, but recommends a measured approach.
Margaret James
The genre-blenders, the experimenters, the progressives, the shock-merchants – is there a place for them (or you, if you feel you fit one or more of those descriptions) in today’s fiction markets? The answer is likely to be yes, because publishers and literary agents are constantly telling authors they’d love to be offered (and become literary midwives to) the next big thing, whatever it might turn out to be. Of course, the challenge for industry professionals and authors alike is delivering this next big thing to readers who weren’t aware they needed it, but can’t get enough of it now.
Did the reading public need a double Booker Prizewinning, three-volume, fictional biography of one of Henry VIII’s lesser-known ministers? Or yet another children’s story about a boy who has magical powers? Those two mega-selling series resulted in the subsequent publication of a deluge of novels centred on the Tudor political scene and about juvenile wizards facing deadly foes, and reader interest in both these subjects shows no sign of abating any time soon.