Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
I won’t do that to my readers, the cheap, easy way out. Everything has to make sense, everything has to tie together, everything has to have an emotional component and impact because that is what makes a book captivating.
— Taylor
In this week’s show, Taylor responds to a great question from author C.A. Newsome, who shares her own writing manifesto and asks if Taylor might have one as well. Taylor does not have a written manifesto, but she shares some thoughts on what it might look like if she did have one.
Here’s Carol’s original question, which includes the components of her own manifesto:
An earlier thread about JD Robb called to mind the decisions I made about what I wanted my books to be when I started writing. I never formalized it, but I do have a mental manifesto. Like I will make an ordinary nice guy a more satisfying leading man than a billionaire alpha male, I will not rely on magical fixes (such as ever so convenient informants) to move my plots along – etc.
I’d love for Taylor to share her manifesto. What are you dedicated to putting before the reading public?
Thanks to Carol for the question, and to you for joining us again this week!
If you have questions or suggestions for future shows, we’d love to hear from you. You can leave your suggestions as comments or find our contact information, including our Hotline Number for listener question on the Connect page.
If you want more from Taylor, join us in the Taylor Stevens Fan Club on Facebook.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for THE TAYLOR STEVENS SHOW Podcast on iTunes!
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to us. They matter in the rankings of the show, and we read every one of them.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher to get automatic updates.
Of course I’d be happy to read anything you write, Taylor.
For me, genres are not important. I’ll try anything, and if the book resonates with me, I’ll read it. Why not? I’ve come to believe genres are largely a marketing invention. Do I care whether Stephen King writes a mystery (as he just did) or plain fiction (as he’s done plenty of times) instead of the supernatural horror he’s known for? Not at all. If anything, I wish he’d quit with the supernatural underpinnings — starts to feel too easy of an explanation. But that’s a different story.
Similarly, for Taylor: there is (for example) plenty of magical realism aka urban fantasy out there — doesn’t have to be dragons involved to be publishable, one hopes. Mentioning Jorge Luis Borges should sway recalcitrant publishers :). If the book is good, I have to believe it’ll find an audience. Especially when there’s a bunch of people willing to try anything you publish.
To answer Steve’s question of what my choice of genre would be for you to write, it would indeed be mainstream fiction. What would a Taylor Stevens story look like without the trappings of “thriller”? We want to know!
P.S. Obviously it’s fine to use my name, since I’m posting this comment publicly after all. 🙂
Thank you, Karl, I really appreciate the feedback and also the kudos! I suspect there are quite a number of readers who’ve read my books simply because they are slatted within the thriller genre and I think part of my struggle over writing something different is knowing how many good books never do find their audience. There are just. so. many. good books available and genre can be a kind of reader short cut through the maze which makes it easier to find that said audience. But it really is exciting to know that there are readers who’d read a book just because I wrote it 😀 Thank you for that!