Fiction Friday | Trying Something New

It gets a little easy sometimes to do the same old thing all the time, doesn’t it?

Prepare spaghetti bolognaise once a week / fortnight? Check. (Hey, it’s simple to cook and the fam like it) Keep exercise to a daily walk-the-dog? Check.  (At least I do that much!) Order the same thing at a restaurant? Well, we don’t want to be disappointed if it doesn’t match up to our usual favourite meal, do we?

I think as writers we can sometimes do the same and play it a little safe. Which makes we wonder what we might miss out on by never trying something new.

I’ve loved seeing authors recently stepping into new genres (hello, Christine Dillon!) or modes of publishing (including one multi-award traditional author venturing into indie land). I don’t think God necessarily places one story (or type of story) on our hearts, so it’s great to take the limits off and venture into new realms.

When I first started writing I tried all different types of genres as I looked for ‘my’ style. It meant I ended up with a computer filled with completed or half written stories in a variety of styles from Regency to contemporary to romantic suspense. When I first got an agent I was told whatever was first published would be what I’d be known for. I’d won contests with my romantic suspense but didn’t want to change my Australian characters and settings to fit a US publisher criteria, so I went down a Regency path instead. And sure enough, I got known as a Regency author (12 Regencies will do that!).

But – honesty time – only writing Regency was getting a little boring. And because the first few books I’d written were contemporary, I missed the verve and excitement of books with characters and settings that felt a tad more accessible and relatable. Thus began the swing from just historical to more contemporary books, via the Independence Islands series, then the Original Six and Muskoka romance series too. (FYI I’m not saying never to another Regency, just after my next one, Dawn’s Untrodden Green, releases in April I’m taking a break for a little while.)

There’s something exciting about trying something new, about switching things up in the choice of settings, types of characters, even language styles (I do NOT miss having to check whether a word was in usage in 1813 or not!). And not just in genres, but in stepping out in faith by trying indie publishing (a super steep learning curve but so worth it!), and other things, too.

One of those things was writing a romcom, Daring Mr Darcy. Not only was writing a romcom (in first person!) a new thing, but it also involved co-writing with my author friend Meredith Resce. This ended up being one of the most fun projects of last year, as we blitzed out a contemporary version of Pride and Prejudice in a laughter-filled fun few weeks. Writing this book was like a palate cleanser. It involved using different writing ‘muscles’ to what we were used to. And it was great!

Last year I also tried producing a reader magnet, where readers get a free book for signing up for my newsletter. Gotta say, I’m so grateful to Lisa Renee for pushing me to do this. I’ve gained thousands of readers in the past year simply through trying this. I’d resisted for years because I didn’t know whether to do a reader magnet for historical or contemporary. Now I know when I indie publish historical I’ll do a reader magnet of a historical story. It works – so I’m so glad I tried something new.

Another thing I’ve recently tried is producing an audiobook. Now I’ve got audiobooks of several of my Regencies, but they were all organised by my publisher, so I had no say in any part of them. But I’ve recently had Muskoka Shores narrated, and it’s now available. Hey, it’s something new, so we’ll see how that goes. But you won’t know if you never try, right?

I recently read Marple, a short story collection based on – you guessed it – Jane Marple, Agatha Christie’s famous female detective. This collection of short stories by contemporary mystery writers was perfect for bedtime reading, with each story long enough to finish before dropping off to sleep. It made me think that publishing a collection of short stories would be something fun to try.

So this November I’m doing exactly that: trying something new, with a Christmas-themed collection of short stories based on my Muskoka books.  Muskoka Holiday Morsels sees some side characters from other books in the series get their own fifteen minutes of fame. I still need to write them, but I’m looking forward to the challenge of producing engaging stories in short form.

Stepping out in various ways keeps us from being stale and stagnating in all aspects of life. Staying active and trying new things is something older people are encouraged to do to avoid Alzheimer’s and such. As writers, it can be a good challenge for us to consider how to mix things up, so the books we write are fresh, engaging, and what readers want to read. (Now, about that romantic suspense…)

So over to you:

If you’re a writer, what’s something new you have done recently or are planning? Is there a new writing challenge you could undertake?

If you’re a reader, is there a new genre you’d like to try? What kinds of things would get you to try a new genre / author / format?