Write Your Novel In A Year – Week 3: Getting To Grips With Genre And Tone

Goal setting

1. Decide on genre.
2. Rewrite your working synopsis.
3. Explore the mood of your novel.

Breaking it down

We have looked at beginning your novel and now, in today’s post, we will explore the genre and tone of your novel.

Getting To Grips With Genre And Tone

Through the lens of genre

You may have wondered when I was going to bring up the topic of genre. I deliberately left it until now, because I think if you focus too much on genre right at the beginning of the novel writing process, it can stifle the natural flow of your story.

Yes, it’s great to have an idea of what type of story you’re telling from the start — but by working on your synopsis and character thumbnails, you’ll probably come up with some great unfettered ideas. Some may even suggest a different genre to what you had in mind.

At the start of my story, I knew I was going to write a suspense novel, but I need to sharpen my focus on genre. For me, the psychological element of a suspense is always more exciting than the physical element of it.  I love Eyes Wide Shut, the movie based on the story ‘Traumnovelle’, which explores sexual jealousy and fantasies. So I knew I wanted my story to have an erotic edge. However, I wanted it to play out like a thriller — with an element of pursuit.

What genre most suits your story? How can you align your plot more closely to that genre? My story, at the end of the day, is an erotic thriller — so I felt it was lacking in menace. It needed more tension and suspense. That was something I needed to focus on.  This meant I had to relook at both the storyline and the characters, especially the antagonist.

Bringing the antagonist from the edge … closer to your main character

With this is mind, this week the task is to have another look at your working synopsis. Is there enough in it to satisfy the requirements of your genre?

At this point, try to find three or four key scenes that if someone read just these scenes, they would immediately guess the genre. In the film Fatal Attraction, for example, Alex, the stalker, escalates her obsessive pursuit of a married man after he tries to rebuff her following their one-night stand. She fakes a pregnancy to get his attention, shows up under the guise as a potential buyer of his apartment to meet his wife, and even ‘kidnaps’ his daughter. (Oh, let’s not forget the bunny boiling!).

These three scenes, on their own, show how she’s encroached on his life and is posing a threat to his wife and child — the two people he doesn’t want to lose. There’s a lot at stake for this main character.

Of course, if we use this movie as an example, Alex as an antagonist is superb. Her successful career and casual attitude to sex hide her obsessive and unbalanced nature. She is not a stereotypical ‘vamp’: at times, we even feel empathy for her.

This week look at your antagonist and try to flesh out elements of this character so that they will function better in your chosen genre. Then look at the characters around them — your lead, your love interest, and so forth — and see how you could make them more vulnerable
to the antics of the antagonist, and also what strengths (hidden or otherwise) you could give them to stand up to the antagonist.

The ‘feel’ of your story

Every story has its own mood. How an author creates a scene, builds a character, the pace he or she uses to create tension or relief in the reader, their descriptions of setting — all these influence the tone of a novel.

I’ll give you an example from the film world. The film Basic Instinct, a thriller, has a cool Hitchcockian style, with an icy soundtrack and a detached voyeuristic feel. However, if you read Joe Eszterhaz’s original script, he intended it to have a much rougher touch — with a Rolling Stones rock ’n’ roll edge. Not a single word of the dialogue or the plot changed from script to screen, but the director gave the film his own unique treatment.

While plot is about story, genre is more about tone, I believe. This week you may want to write out a ‘treatment’ of your novel, much the way filmmakers do with a movie. What kind of tone do you want to create? What’s the mood or feeling you want to stir in the reader?

Stephenie Meyer, I recall, used to create playlists of music while writing her Twilight series (I think Muse featured heavily). A good idea is to think of what invisible soundtrack you want the reader to ‘hear’ while reading the book — this will influence the tone of your novel.

Timelock — 2-3 hours

• One hour to rewrite your synopsis
• One hour to rewrite your character thumbnails
• One hour to write out the treatment (Optional)

5 Quick Hacks

1. Read a novel or two and try to isolate the three plot points, or three scenes, that are key to its genre.
2. Make a list of your favourite baddies or antagonists — next to each name write down one or two character traits that you remember about them.
3. Imagine your main character and antagonist in two different locations at exactly the same time — describe how your antagonist would travel to get to your main character and why.
4. Watch one of your favourite movies — pay attention to the mood or tone of the story. How was this achieved?
5. Create a playlist of music that you think would suit your story. Listen to it while you write.

Pin it, quote it, believe it:

‘Genre is a powerful but dangerous lens. It both clarifies and limits. The writer must be careful not to see life in the stereotyped form — but to look at life with all the possibilities of genre in mind.’ — Donald Murray