******

Elizabeth-Ann Storey grew more agitated with each sentence. She was sitting in her family’s drawing room, meticulously planning her beach party, a party that would rival the extravagance of her sixteenth birthday, the moment that finally introduced her into the world of high society.

The party was to be held at her parents’ holiday home in Worthing, Sussex during their biannual beach excursion. The house was one of the most lavish in the area (even more lavish than the Petworth, Sussex home E.A. was currently sitting in), but she would have to see to it that her father rushed the servants into making the place look even more luxurious. Thirty to forty people were expected to show up to her soirée, most of whom would be involved in her father’s line of work, textiles. Coincidentally, E.A.’s father Kristopher had invited two of his closest friends and textile partners to Worthing for the summer holidays.

His friends had two things that made E.A.’s mouth water with excitement-they were exotic people from Asia and, since Kristopher had invited his friends’ families as well, they had sons. Since E.A.’s party would coincide with Kristopher’s friends’ visit, he thought it pertinent of him to invite his friends’ sons to his daughter’s party. E.A. could do nothing but jump with glee when she learned of this news. She now felt that because of their attendance, her party would not only be a rousing success, but it would propel her to a level of supreme popularity and influence (as well as hopefully give her something pleasant to ogle at while sipping her punch). It wasn’t every day a socialite could brag that she had non-English guests at their party.

But thinking of boys led her to the thought of her lover, Roosevelt. She sighed heavily; she had forgotten all about him in the excitement.

In terms of appearance, Roosevelt White was as exotic as they came in England in 1756-he was a black man, and his penchant for wearing a white powdered wig made him stand out even further. However, as far as culture goes, he was as English as any white English person. In fact, his English accent was even thicker than E.A.’s.

Roosevelt belonged to an eccentric, wealthy, and surprisingly popular family in the higher circles, considering the origin of their wealth; his grandfather Solomon was a freed slave who gained notoriety and respect by perfecting the weaving loom and, along with his wife, also free, opened a fabric shop, employing other freed slaves. Very quickly, his business grew larger than he anticipated, and in a year’s time, he had become a millionaire.

As Solomon grew older, Roosevelt’s father Morrison took over the company, expanding it to not only cover the interior of England, but other parts of Europe as well. Now Roosevelt and his older sister Donna were employed in the company, poised to take over the large textile empire when their father retired.

Kristopher soon sought out Morrison in hopes of doing business with him. He went to visit the White household and took E.A. along with him-he wanted her to see the ins and outs of making business deals for preparation when it would be her time to take over his company. It was through this business meeting that E.A. and Roosevelt came to know each other.

Back then, E.A. wasn’t known as a cunning person, so her and Roosevelt’s infatuation was initially well-received by his parents. Not so much now; Roosevelt’s parents made sure to have nothing to do with her, and Donna, a protective and motherly type of older sister, had since made it clear to E.A. what she thought of her.

As she looked back on it, she barely remembered how she got Roosevelt’s attention while their fathers were talking business; when in the presence of eligible men, using her feminine wiles was a reflex for her. All she remembered was that she had never seen anyone like him—especially with the way his wig made him stick out—and she became completely enamored with the idea of him (and how she’d be the talk of the town with him on her arm) rather than him as a person. She figured that if she was his girlfriend, she could use his good looks, money, and exotic features to move ahead in society.

As they courted, she could tell that he was a lot more honorable than her. She had initially seen him as a prize she had won, and she was, frankly, quite proud of that fact. Meanwhile, he saw her as a confident, vivacious woman, someone he was lucky to have attracted due to his reserved, congenial nature. He had figured that she usually didn’t go for men like him, and he was right; she usually went for more roguish, unpredictable men, men who probably were too unreliable to make good husbands.

Even as she could see him falling more in love with her, she reveled in the fact that her plan to use him as a talking point was working. She was the only person in her circle to date a man of color. She smirked slightly when her friends would run up and ask her what it was like, and she would put on a show, bravely telling them that he was no different than any other man in Sussex—all that was different was his darker complexion. On the outside, she would appear as a bleeding heart; on the inside, she’d be snickering with devilish glee at the attention she was receiving was keeping her a talking point.

The kink in the plan was that she had actually begun to fall for the actual Roosevelt and not just the idea. His nice attitude and chivalrous nature had made her feel like a lady. Each time she thought of stopping the game and cutting ties with him, she couldn’t bring herself to do it on account of his feelings, not to mention the fear she had of not being popular.

She went back to her list, the pencil in her hand needing sharpening. She sighed. Even though she was toying with a man’s emotions just to use his stature, she thought, at least she wasn’t in love with a servant boy. That was her young friend Amelie’s problem.

Amelie Vance was two years E.A.’s junior, but the two of them had grown up together as if they were sisters. Both E.A. and Amelie’s fathers had started in the fashion business together—while E.A.’s father went the textile route, Amelie’s father Alexander went the route of couture shoemaking. One of his ancestors was reportedly a cobbler for King Henry IV, so Alexander felt it only natural to make shoes for a living.

As far as friends go, Amelie was one of the best. She was sweet and could disarm even the most defensive person. The only fault she had was the fact that she was in love with the family’s stable boy, Emilio Cuarón.

Cuarón’s family worked for the Vances as long as E.A. could remember. Emilio and Amelie grew up together. During their childhood, Amelie’s parents thought it wouldn’t hurt for a child of lesser stature and a child of the well-to-do to be friends since they figured the children would eventually grow up and into their stations in life. That didn’t happen. Instead, they fell in love.

E.A. rolled her eyes at the thought of her friend and her friend’s boyfriend. Amelie could not bring him to her party. E.A. thought back to the last party they attended. In order for Emilio to blend in, Amelie had given him expensive dress attire to wear, complete with a powdered wig. E.A. had thought the whole scene was laughable, even though she had to admit he looked good in a proper suit and found herself staring at his well-toned calves, among other things. Aside from seeing Emilio’s well-toned body in knickers and tights, the whole scene served as an example for E.A. as to why Amelie and Emilio weren’t supposed to be together; there was too much of a difference between them socially for them to ever make in society. Emilio was a person who worked with his hands, someone who hadn’t ever had any kind of proper tutoring. Amelie was a person who had her life handed to her, a person who had every opportunity given to her. E.A. had hoped that Amelie would grow out of this phase, but it would seem that a bit of gentle prodding was in order.

E.A. looked down at her completed list filled with invites, party supplies, and types of punch. All she needed to do now was schedule an appointment with her favorite dressmaker and study up on the new hairstyles from France. Everything else could go wrong at this party and Amelie can go ahead and make a laughing stock of herself and invite Emilio, but E.A. was going to make certain that she would be the last thing people remembered.

Keep reading…

***

Monique Jones is a senior at the University of Alabama at Birmingham majoring in journalism and minoring in film. She runs Moniqueblog.net, an entertainment site specializing in movie reviews and movie analysis.

For your viewing pleasure, the first chapter has been reposted below, with the kind permission of the author. Just be warned: the story does contain some profanity.

******

Chapter 1

I had never been more alone than at the top of those steps, yet my inner sense was one of total contentment.  I turned to marvel at the view from my new home – a vast expanse of lush grass surrounded on all sides by buildings with matching red tile roofs and resplendent sandstone bricks.  To my left was the arresting sight of the Rocky Mountain foothills.  Their countless peaks were glowing orange from the intense rays of the late-August sun, providing stark contrast to the deep blue sky.  The air was bubbling with the aroma of pine trees, while the only sound to be heard was the playful warble of finches in their branches.

It had taken years of hard work and careful planning to reach that day, and yet the past felt so much further away than a twelve-hour flight.  Exactly what would the coming year have in store for me?  More hard work?  Undoubtedly.  Good times?  Certainly.  Great friends?  Absolutely.  Promiscuous sex with a bevy of hot, young American girls?  I could only hope so.

Removing my sunglasses as I entered the dark building, my eyes slowly adjusted to the cavernous reception area with a carefully aligned row of ten or more tables.  Behind those tables sat a similarly well-ordered line of girls, each with a beaming beauty-queen smile full of brilliant white teeth that had my pupils constricting once more.  Through the glare I could see one other person bravely approaching the lion’s den and decided to head for the table next to his.  Safety in numbers seemed to be the order of the day, as I saw every single bleached row of fangs follow me while I struggled with my suitcases.

‘James Arriaga,’ I overheard the other guy say to his designated set of gnashers.  Before I could hear his reception, I was hit by the shockwave of my very own greeting.

‘Welcome to the University of Colorado, and welcome to Cheyenne Arapaho hall!’  My set of teeth definitely had a set of lungs on her too.  She also spoke in the kind of ear-bleed inducing accent I had naively hoped to never encounter.

‘Hi, I’m Ross Cooper,’ I replied, once the ringing in my ears subsided.

‘Oh my gosh!  You have the sweetest accent!  Where on earth are you from?’

‘I’m from England.’

‘No way,’ was the deafening response.

‘Yes, I’m afraid so.’  I strained a smile whilst praying that a busload of fellow new students hadn’t just walked through the door behind me to witness the humiliation.

‘OH MY GOSH,’ she beamed.  I saw her eyes peer over my shoulder, and soon became aware that a busload of fellow new students had just walked through the door behind me to witness the humiliation.  ‘I’ve never met anyone from another country before!  This is amazing!  Do you even have electricity in England?’

Did she really just ask if we had electricity?  Could I have mistaken her accent?  I quickly tried to think of other words that could sound the same, but drew a blank.  Nevertheless, I thought I had better give her the benefit of the doubt.

‘No, we don’t,’ I hesitantly offered.

‘Wow, this must be really weird for you then, even just being in here with all these light bulbs!’

Oh my gosh, she really did say electricity.  I had to think quickly to follow that one up.

‘Ah, I’d been wondering what you called those tiny candles in the glass balls,’ was all I could manage.

‘Well, let’s get you fixed up with your room then, Ross.’

She began to work through her paperwork and then retreated to the back of the room to recover some more documents.  The guy who had been next to me throughout the whole embarrassing affair turned to introduce himself.

‘Hi, I’m James.  Pleased to meet you.’

‘Hi, yes I overheard your name earlier.  I’m Ross, pleased to meet you.’

‘I overheard your name too, and the rest of it!  Welcome to America, Ross – the land of the free, and the home of the ignorant.  Don’t worry though, we’re not all like that.’

‘That’s good to know.  So where are you from?’

‘Blackfoot, Idaho.  I drove down today.’

‘You drove?  How far is that?’

‘Oh, only about seven hundred miles, and I did set off pretty early this morning.’

‘Shit, I’d think twice about a two-hundred-mile drive back home.’

‘Ah, you’ll get used to it soon enough.  Everything over here is so spread out, so I guess long journeys are pretty normal.’

Our conversation was interrupted by James’ allotted assemblage of pearly-whites.

‘So, there are your keys, and here are details of your roommates.  Neither has checked in yet, so you’ll have the place to yourself.  Chance to grab the best bed!’

‘Thanks,’ said James.  He took the keys and looked over the roommate sheet he had been given.

‘Nice to meet you, James,’ I added before he left the desk.  ‘Hopefully I’ll see you around.’

‘Yes, good to meet you too, Ross,’ he grinned while walking off to his room.  ‘I’ll be sure to save the second best bed for you!’

My first lesson in UK-US language differences was a harsh one.  Having been told my room was on the first floor, I laboured up the stairs with my two large cases and rucksack only to realise that my room number was nowhere to be seen and the corridors were, in fact, women only.  A few more sensible and quieter comments about my accent from a particularly attractive lady lightened my mood, however, as she explained that ‘first floor’ actually meant ground floor.  As much as I wanted to continue enjoying her company, I eventually stumbled back down the stairs and found the door to room 186.

‘I thought I was gonna have to start on this without you,’ said James, waiting for me with an impossibly large bottle of whisky and two paper cups.

‘Yes, just a bit of confusion about which floor our room was on.  Not to worry though, I did manage to have a brief sightseeing tour with an incredible girl in the hall above us.’

‘Well, that definitely deserves a drink then.’

James poured as I brought my cases into the room.  It seemed that we had a much bigger space than those I had briefly glimpsed upstairs, which had two desks and two beds in the same room.  Ours was one of the few triple rooms, with a study area containing three desks in a U-shape and then a separate bedroom off to the right with a single bed, a bunk bed, and wardrobes.  We were at the very front corner of the building and had a terrific view of the playing fields and the Rocky Mountains.  As I took my belongings through to the bedroom, I could see that James’ bag was already on the single bed.

‘So,’ I gestured towards the bunk bed, ‘I have to decide whether I prefer being on top?’

James laughed.  ‘I thought you Brits were supposed to be reserved?’

‘You’re right, of course I should go on top – anything else would just be too kinky.’

‘Dude, settle down,’ he exclaimed while passing me a cup.

‘So, where are all your suitcases?’ I asked, noting that there was only one small holdall on his bed.

‘They’re still in the car.  Do you mind giving me a little help bringing them up?’

‘Not a problem,’ I replied, downing the cup of foul liquid in a single, ill-advised mouthful.

‘Well, at least the stereotype of you guys being heavy drinkers is right then.’

‘You’re just lucky I’m English and not Scottish.’

We headed back down the hall and through the reception area where the crowd of new students was subsiding.  As we passed the tables, James motioned towards the dental technicians.

‘Hey, Ross, maybe you could score a date with that girl this time?’

I hadn’t really paid much attention to her looks during what would become known as the ‘electricity incident’, but this time I did notice that she was, in fact, rather facially challenged.

‘Maybe after that bottle of yours has been emptied,’ I offered rather callously.  ‘I suppose I could always ask her to keep the lights off.  You know, because I’m a bit freaked out by the glass candles?’

‘Yeah, you might be onto a winner there.’

My pace quickened and we walked back out into the sunshine and down the steps towards James’ car.  It was a red Ford Mustang that looked a little past its best, but nevertheless appeared to be his pride and joy.

‘So, what do you think?’ he asked expectantly.

‘You drove seven hundred miles in this?’ was not the kind of response he had probably anticipated.

‘Hey, this is American engineering at its finest.’

‘If that’s the case, then I think your engineering industry might have a problem.  Just open the boot and let’s get your things out.’

‘Just open the what?’

It took me a moment to think back through the phrases I had absorbed through many years spent watching American movies and sitcoms.

‘Oh, sorry, the trunk.’

‘Boot?  And you say that we have problems.’

James removed the bags, and we began to make our way back inside.

‘So I presume this is your first year here?’ I asked.

‘Yeah, it’s my freshman year.  I’m majoring in Engineering.’

‘Oh, cool.  Maybe you could work for Ford?’

‘Yes, maybe,’ was the ironic retort.  ‘So how about you?’

‘Well, this is my second year – I’m doing a Physics degree back in the UK, but the course includes a year abroad.’

‘That’s awesome.  I’d love to do something like that with a year in the Basque country.’

‘The Basque country?’

‘Yeah, it’s a part of Spain where my family are originally from.’

‘So you speak Spanish then?’

‘Sí!  My first name was actually Jakome, but it got changed to the English version when I was young.  My friends actually call me Jak.’

‘Oh right then, Jak it is.’

‘So what made you come here to Boulder for your year abroad?’

‘Well, I’ve always fancied living in America and, of the choices I had, this seemed to be the best location.  I’ve only been here for less than an hour, but already I just love the atmosphere and the views – both of natural beauty and natural-looking beauties.’

‘Yeah, I must admit I’ve been impressed on that front too.  So I guess you don’t have a girlfriend back in Britain then?’

I hesitated.  ‘Er, I’m not really sure.’

‘You’re not sure if you have a girlfriend?  What’s wrong with you, man?’

‘It’s kind of complicated.  I mean, there is a girl, but we were only together for a few months before I left, and then we didn’t really talk about what would happen when I came here.’

‘So you just left her for a year without figuring out if you were staying together or breaking up?’  It did seem rather strange when put in those terms.

‘I suppose so, yes.’

‘Man, that’s crazy.  If I had a girlfriend, I’d be flying back every weekend for some action.’

I clumsily changed the subject.  ‘So I wonder when our other roommate will arrive?’

‘Yeah, what’s his name, Todd Johnson?  Well, it says he’s from Colorado, so maybe he’ll stroll in pretty soon.’

We arrived back at the room and proceeded to unpack our luggage while chatting some more and slowly working our way through the whisky.  It seemed like Jak and I had much in common and it was a relief to have a kindred spirit as a roommate.  We were actually both fairly similar in appearance – around five feet ten inches tall, short brown hair, not strikingly ugly, not strikingly handsome.  We seemed to enjoy the same sense of humour and liked to talk about women – perhaps a little too much.  At the age of nineteen, though, I think we could be excused.

The mysterious Todd Johnson didn’t arrive that night, but it turned out that our entire corridor of around fifteen or so rooms was pretty quiet.  It was only Friday though, so we assumed that Todd and everyone else would turn up over the weekend ready for lectures starting on Monday.

The remainder of the day soon passed, and we were both ready for bed around midnight.  With the slightly misguided combination of jet lag and cheap liquor in my system, it wasn’t long before I fell fast asleep.

Waking the next day in the heady heights of the top bunk, my pounding head was a rude introduction to life in Boulder with its elevation of over 5,000 feet.  I had read the advice about drinking plenty of water and not too much alcohol, and was thankful that the ‘I told you so’ comments of my mother were thousands of miles away.  Jak seemed to be suffering similarly, as I heard a groan from his direction.  I moved to the edge of my bunk and looked down towards his twisted figure against the opposite wall of the room in his single bed.

‘Morning, Jak.’

‘Ohhhhhh, morning dude,’ he croaked back at me.

‘This altitude’s a bit of a pain, isn’t it?’

‘Ohhhhhhhhhhhh.’  He began to sit upright and cradle his head delicately in his palms.  ‘I’m used to the altitude, but just not that much alcohol.’

‘I didn’t think we drank that much?’

‘Maybe not much for an Englishman, Ross.’

He began to open his eyes with a look of excruciating pain cast across his face, and then gingerly craned his neck towards me.  His expression of near-death was quickly exchanged by one of utter shock.

‘HOLY FUCK!  WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?’ he yelled as his body involuntarily bolted upright.

‘Well, that’s not really the reaction I look for first thing in the morning,’ I replied, somewhat bemused.

A third voice suddenly burst forth.  ‘Ah, hello!  My name Kazuki Mori!  I your roommate!’

I quickly swung my head down to look at the bunk beneath me.  I now also yelled, ‘HOLY FUCK,’ as I saw a portly and naked Japanese man spread-eagle on top of the bed.  He was proudly displaying an erection of, it must be said, quite magnificent proportions.  ‘Where’s Todd Johnson?  Did you eat him?’

‘Todd is dead, so I here!’ Kazuki said with an unnerving ear-to-ear grin.

‘Did you fuck him to death?’ Jak helpfully contributed.

‘Good morning, day is wonderful outside!’ was the innocent response.

Jak looked at me with an expression that said “You jump on him while I fetch my Swiss Army knife”.  I silently replied back with a glare that translated to “No, you fucking jump on him”.  Diplomacy now appeared to be our only hope.  It was time to demonstrate some of that levelheaded spirit that we English are renowned for the world over.  I looked our intruder straight in the eye – well, it was difficult not to – then looked him straight in the eyes and took a deep breath.

‘Now, listen to me and listen carefully.  First off, we are both rampantly heterosexual, so you’ll have no joy with that thing in here.  You might as well put it away before you have someone’s eye out.  Secondly, the police will be looking for you by now, so the best thing you can do is leave here and turn yourself in.  Oh, but pop some clothes on first, there’s a good chap.’

‘I from Japan!’ wasn’t the answer I had expected.

‘Look, buddy,’ Jak now joined in, ‘just get the fuck out of our room, NOW!’

‘My name Kazuki Mori!’

The tension was at its peak.  Our nerves were frayed and our arseholes were twitching with grim expectation.  My heart skipped a beat as our room phone suddenly began to sound its bells of hope.  Jak’s eyes met with mine, and we tacitly acknowledged that it could be our last chance.  With the phone situated evenly between the bunk and the single bed, Jak would have to be quick to beat this ruthless, naked, erect killer.  He sprung out of his bed and picked up the receiver in one hurried manoeuvre.  Kazuki sat motionless.  Perhaps he had lost his nerve?

‘Quick,’ Jak implored down the phone, ‘there’s a Japanese guy in our room, and he’s big…VERY big…what?’  There was a foreboding pause.  ‘You mean?  Oh my god!’  Jak put down the phone with a calm look of resignation.  Perhaps it had been Kazuki’s accomplice, telling Jak that the room was now sealed along with our eye-watering fate.

‘What, what, WHAT?’ I asked of Jak.

‘That was reception.  Apparently Todd Johnson died a couple of months ago, and we should expect a Japanese exchange student called Kazuki in his place.’

‘My name Kazuki!’ came the enthusiastic response from our new roommate.

Download the book.

***

“Readers respond to every genre intensely, if it’s a genre that appeals to them.” – Laurell K. Hamilton

The public might not know art, but it knows what it likes. In Genre Fiction: Introduction and Genre Fiction: Categorizing Generally Popular Pulp, we looked at how genres can be categorized. This week I want to look at what specifically sets the autonomic category — Action/Adventure, Suspense, Thriller, Erotica, and Religious/Inspirational — apart.

An autonomic response is the body’s reaction to stimuli, and is for the most part unrelated to the conscious mind. Neurotransmitters and hormones control the most basic drives and needs, and they function as emergency systems in the background. Thoughts of danger provoke adrenaline surges and the heartbeat and breathing rush to allow for fight or flight responses; thoughts allied to reproduction in the deepest depths of the psyche trigger sexual arousal; peaceful images provide a cocktail to help relax the reader.

Autonomic responses are not associated with deep meditative considerations.

If an author is able to provide an environment with just enough color and detail to bring the reader in, they need only concentrate on creating stimulating images and situations. The storyline can be thin, the characters can be superficial and their surroundings sketchy, as long as the words used to convey the trigger images are well selected or well known. Avid readers who are familiar with these genres can be relied upon to fill in the details as they go. There is often a solid body of information already understood within the community of dedicated genre readers.

Because the autonomic responses are closely linked to strong emotion, vivid descriptions of autonomic changes are often written into stories in the Emotional category. Dilated pupils, salivation, sweat, trembling, rapid heartbeat; all describe the outward signs of an emotional reaction, but the stories which are read primarily for the enjoyment of straight, induced autonomic response rarely bother to delve into the emotion itself.

For readers who are not willing to cede some reading values for the sake of the promised reward, or who do not enjoy the kind of journey offered, this category might not be recommended. For those who do concede and enjoy, the reward is well worth the read.

Human physiology provides its own pharmacology, and the set of genres represented here quite literally give their dedicated readers a charge. Some people jump out of a plane to get an adrenaline rush. Others read a Thriller, Action/Adventure, or Suspense drama for the same effect.

The sub-genres below are vague at best. I stopped trying to categorize because there are simply too many combinations of theme and subject — they are nigh on infinite. One writer classified 30 sub-genres for Action alone and each can be divided or recombined.

• Action/Adventure
• Superhero
• Action hero
• Military
• Quest
• Suspense
• Above plus:
• Fear
• Thriller
• Above plus:
• Politics/espionage

On the flipside, Religious, Spiritual and Inspirational stories have the opposite effect. Intended to be calming, reassuring and uplifting, well written Inspirational stories provide their fans with a rush of dopamine for that slight euphoria; a slurp of acetylcholine to relax skeletal muscle and slow the heart rate; and a dose of MAO inhibitors (anti-depressants). A whole pharmacy of feel-good in one story.

People who love these books do so for good reason, but the results are not as easy as popping a pill. Lovers of spiritually-centred fiction generally have a deep conviction which precedes the reading. As with any other category of Pulp fiction, if you do not enjoy the concepts; if you do not want to accept the moral strictures; and if you are not willing to go with the author toward a predictable goal, you will not access the intended reward. This category may not be for you.

• Religious/Inspirational
• Gentle/family
• Cults/alternative spirituality
• High moral values
• Fables/cautionary tales
• Young adult

 
And then there is Erotica. Sexual arousal is one of the easiest autonomic responses to trigger, but as with any genre, some are better written than others. Erotica spans the leagues between a bit of suggestive spice in a short story over coffee, and seriously hardcore pornography. Where any one piece of fiction lies can often only be judged by the reader.

Of all the formulaic genres in Pulp fiction, Erotica is least judged for its shortcomings.

Right or wrong, it has become ingrained in the collective consciousness that ‘women do not like pornography because it has no story’, while their men have no questions at all about the thoughts, feelings or motivations of any character involved. Or the lack, for that matter. A house, a pub, a garden — the surroundings are white noise. The same people who read strongly themed Erotica cannot understand another’s obsession with Romance. Horses for courses. Drugs of choice.

Depending on personal preference, Erotica might be:

• Erotica
• LGBT
• Straight
• Fetish
• Mild/Medium/Hot

 
One person’s erotic fantasy might set someone else bowing to the porcelain, which in itself says a lot for the power of suggestion, but as with all fiction, if you like it, reading has its rewards.

People choose a particular genre because they know what they will get. The complaint against formulaic fiction becomes self-defeating when you realise the reader has chosen that genre precisely because they know exactly what it will entail. It might not be complexities of plot, or characterizations, or world-building they are looking for. As long as the reward they seek is where they expect to find it, the rest becomes inconsequential.

All of the various genres covered are well represented in webfiction. Are there authors you read who can, in a few words, create images which move or excite you? Is there a fast-paced action sequence that comes to mind, or an erotic image you have recalled long after you finished reading?

Next week we’ll look at the Emotional category, where the best and worst can be found.

Reader Recommendations

We invite readers to recommend their favorite webfiction by either tweeting with the hashtag #WebFicWed or adding to the list below! Short stories, completed novels, or ongoing serials — anything goes. This week’s Top Web Fiction top 5 are automatically added.

Put in the story name and link. Not your name!
Do NOT add sites with which you’re affiliated.

In other news

We mentioned WeSeWriMo last week, but it’s not only for authors! That’s right: some authors will be posting their serials throughout August as they write them, so you’ll be able to read along! Two examples that come to mind are M. Jones and MCM — check out their sites for a teaser of what’s to come!

In the Brave New World of webfiction, there are a dedicated group who build, run and stock the shelves of web directories and ‘zines. The formats change, the genres vary, but each one is the result of hours of unseen effort; each one created for the purpose of bringing you, the reader, easy access to the wealth of fine independent online fiction.

This series of interviews is designed to introduce you to some of them.

Online Novels is a favourite for lovers of good Romance eFiction. Susan also lists a wide range of popular genres, and as well as her dedicated support for other independent authors, she lists a number of promotional novels.

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Ergo: Please introduce yourself. When and why did you decide to create Online Novels?

SC: Hello — I’m Susan Crealock, the webmaster of Online Novels. A couple of years ago I wrote a novel (under another name because I don’t want my granddaughter reading it!) and got the book listed on several online novels sites; it occurred to me that I was pretty much at their mercy, not because I thought they’d deliberately drop my book, but web sites come and go, so I decided to start my own online novels blog; it will be two years old next month. When I began listing books I thought that 75 might be a reasonable number to give the site some credibility, but I got carried away; today there are more than 1200 novels listed on the blog.

Ergo: How and where do you source your authors?

SC: Authors write and ask to be listed, the majority of my authors are “indies”.

There’s also a huge number of sources on the internet: Lulu and Public Bookshelf have both given me permission to link to their books and use their covers. Then, in no particular order, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Sony, Amazon (Kindle), Smashwords, Harlequin, Suvudu, Feedbooks, ManyBooks.net, Obooko, Scribd, HarperCollins, Wowio, Simon & Schuster and Twitter; I’m probably forgetting a few.

Ergo: Do you have any genre preference in the works you list?

SC: I find that I tend to download mysteries more than any other genre; I don’t (knowingly) list porn, poetry, short stories, children’s literature or graphic novels.

Ergo: Do your readers have a genre preference?

SC: Yes! Romance, romance, romance. This genre is overwhelmingly the most popular with general fiction the least.

Ergo: Even if there is no general preference, do you find a tendency for authors who write particular genres to submit work to your directory?

SC: I don’t think so; the submissions are fairly even across the board.

Ergo: What formats do you list?

SC: All — online read, PDF, and all the popular e-book formats. There is a tendency for the older sites to offer books for online reading only, but that is changing rapidly with the growing popularity of electronic readers. Authors now realize they have to offer a book in as many formats as possible.

Just in the last couple years I’ve noticed an enormous change in the sophistication of book promotion — video trailers, accompanying audiobooks, music tracks, and professionally designed novel covers to name a few. E-books are unquestionably the future of reading and this is an exciting time to be an independent author.

I’ve been asked to indicate in Online Novels the formats in which the books are available; this is a great idea, but I already spend a huge amount of time maintaining the blog (just ask my husband) and adding another feature would send me over the edge.

Ergo: Have you found a ready supply of high quality fiction?

SC: All the sites I named above are excellent sources; each offers some good books and some not so good. I try to exercise discretion.

Ergo: Can readers find access to the work of popular or well known print authors among your listings?

SC: Many publishing houses offer free, promotional books for a limited time in conjunction with the release of a new book by the same author, and these are frequently books of high quality by well-known writers.

The only downside is that these books usually have geographical restrictions and are available only to U.S. customers. I don’t list authors like Jane Austen, Tolstoy or Conrad since Project Gutenberg already offers all of the classics.

Ergo: Do you service independent authors only?

SC: No, as I mentioned above, I also list promotional books, but “indies” are the majority.

Ergo: Do you have any editorial input/overview of the work you list?

SC: Meaning do I list everything that comes my way? No, definitely not. Generally, if a book is available for only a short time, I’ll list it without reading. For the sites like Smashwords and Feedbooks, if I see something that interests me, I’ll read four or five pages and then write to the author asking if I can link to the book.

When I note rampant grammatical errors or an utterly boring beginning, I click on the screen’s upper right-hand “X” and look at something else, which isn’t to say there aren’t a few books I regret having added. Solicitations from authors are a slightly different case; knowing how much work goes into the writing of a book, I really hate to turn anyone down.

Ergo: If you use a rating or ranking system, have you found a correlation between the rating and the popularity of work listed? [I mean here, is work which is rated higher viewed more by readers? Is this causal, or does it represent an endorsement of the ranking as a means for readers to reliably select higher quality stories?]

SC: I don’t have a rating system; in a few cases, when I’ve really enjoyed a book, I’ve mentioned this in the listing, but I don’t think this has helped to promote the book, unfortunately. Maybe my taste is too bizarre.

Ergo: What other directories or ezines are you affiliated with? Give them a nod.

SC: Both Amazon (Kindle) and Harlequin, as well as others, have affiliate programs, but I prefer to be independent and free to run my blog as I wish.

Ergo: Now we have a basic outline of the role you would like your directory to play. If there are points you would like to make, links you would like shown, anything, in fact, that you feel is of interest to our and your readers, please feel free to elaborate.

SC: More than half of Online Novels’ readers come from outside the English-speaking world; obviously they read English (or do so with an online translator), since they’re coming to my blog, but I would like to expand the listings in French, Italian and Spanish (no German, Russian, etc. — I have to be able to read what I add).

Finding these books is a challenge and, in the long run, it may be more trouble than it’s worth, but since I’ve started listing these titles, I’ve seen a steady increase in foreign language readership, so I’ll give the experiment a few more months before deciding whether to make it permanent.

Ergo: Finally, we would like you to recommend one or more authors from your list whose work you would like to see featured.

SC: The best part of maintaining Online Novels is corresponding with authors! I do have some favorite books that I’d like to mention: The Last Days of Las Vegas by Roy Hayes, A Foreign Education by Craig Alan Williamson, Torbrek and the Dragon Variation by Lexi Revellian, the Rowena stories by S.D. Youngren and The Noble Pirates by Rima. As soon as I send this email, I’ll think of 10 others, but these are the ones which occur to me first.

******

A glance at the comments page at Online Novels shows that it is popular not only for its comprehensive coverage of genre, but in its clear, uncluttered layout. Susan’s intention to list work of high quality has meant that readers also appreciate knowing they are unlikely to be disappointed by their selection.

It is absolutely a site to visit if you have a rainy weekend to fill.

I would love to give Susan a plug for her own fiction here, but it seems it is top secret. Ah well, I don’t think she is the only one to keep schtum.

So how did this get started?

Some of you, hopefully most of you, may know me as that completely annoying person who runs fluffy-seme.net. A few months ago I had an experience that I found both deeply touching and extremely frustrating: I met a fan of my writing in real life. This person preceded to turn to her friend and spend 15 minutes talking about how totally awesome one of my serials was, taking pauses only to badger her about reading it. Apparently this is not the first time this person has taken it upon herself to be my personal promotion machine.

Here’s the catch: this same fan has never once commented on anything I’ve written. Ever. So despite the willingness to tell everyone else on the planet what she thinks about my work, she has no desire to tell me… at least not in comment form.

At first I found this odd, but then I thought about my past life as a fanfic writer. The pensive cries on every board/community/posting ground since the beginning of time: why aren’t more people commenting on my story?!?! And why aren’t their comments better?

Common sense tells us that people will comment if something is good. If no one is commenting, that’s because no one really likes it. But those of us who’ve been in the reader’s position (basically all of us) probably can think of many things we’ve read, enjoyed and just couldn’t muster words for.

So I went back to fluffy-seme.net and started pitching a new strategy: let’s ditch comments, let’s create a new feedback system that readers will love using instead of one they groan and drag themselves through. Problem is… well unless you’ve actually been in the writing trenches throwing chapter after chapter into a seemingly empty abyss you don’t really appreciate how ill-suited comments are for the world of fiction. “But it works for blogs!” I heard over and over and over again, an assertion I was unable to counter because there simply was no information on internet behavior. It was the last frontier of anthropology and no one had any data at all.

So I decided to collect the data myself.

Purpose of Research:
Survey was conducted to examine the effectiveness of comments as a feedback system for fictional written content published over the internet.

Respondents:
420 people responded to posts on fanficrants, Weblit.us, Web Fiction Guide, Comic Fusion, and Twitter. 54% were from the US, 10.5% from the UK, 7.6% from Canada, 5% from Australia, and the remaining 22.9% were from a variety of other countries. 42.6% of respondents live in major metropolitan areas, 44% of them in suburbs or rural areas (13% could not be determined)

Respondents were asked to identify themselves as readers or writers of online fiction content. 40.9% identified as readers, 18.5% identified as writers, while the remaining 40.6% claimed to do both equally. For my analysis I refer to these groups as “pure readers”, “pure writers” and “mixed” respectively.

Content Types:
The survey looked at four content types specifically and tried to establish patterns of behavior within each group: Fanfiction, Original Fiction (webfiction), Webcomics and Role Plays.

Results:

1. The Readers
Here’s the big news: readers hate commenting.

I figured they would, but frankly I was surprised by the DEGREE that they hate it. The most telling results were the reasons survey respondents filled in themselves: people don’t comment because they don’t want to take the time to, because they’re lazy, because they would rather work their way through all the parts available and comment once than post a comment to each part separately. All of these reasons suggest that readers find commenting an unwelcome chore rather than a fun way to interact with content.

Respondents also highlighted an important reason why comments work for blogs but not for fiction: It seems odd to post a comment on a story that’s old. Comments are real-time reactions while stories — even with live writing, CYOA, and polling games — are essentially static. Comments work for blogs precisely because one does not have to go back to post 1 in order to understand, enjoy and comment upon the most recent update. This is not the case with fiction.

Pure readers have more difficulty expressing themselves than even occasional writers: 49.1% of readers identified this as a major reason for not commenting versus 19.2% of writers and 38% of mixed.

These readers are less likely to respond to guilt or bribery, but more likely to comment if they sympathize with the struggling author: 13.8% would comment if they felt bad for the author where only 2.6% of writers would.

2. The Writers
Pure writers, on the other hand, are natural networkers: 51.3% identified themselves as very likely to comment when they know the author, versus 35.5% of pure readers and 42.7% of mixed. They are also more likely to comment when they are asked by another writer or when they are hoping to get comments on their own work.

Beyond their self interest though, pure writers are a bit more ’survival of the fittest’ than pure readers or mixed: they are less likely to comment to support under-represented genres.

3. Webfiction Readers
In general, webfiction readers are webfiction writers. They were in fact the ONLY group where the majority of respondents identified themselves as writers. For all other content types (except Role Plays), readers outnumber writers 3 to 1. In webfiction there are only about 1.27 readers per writer.

Because webfiction readers are writers themselves, they are more likely than any other group to send a heads up to an author when they spot a typo. They also comment more often: 69% commented on average. Webfiction authors may envy the pull of fanfiction and webcomics, but these formats appear more popular because they attract large numbers of “lurkers” or silent readers who post a comment only once or twice, while webfiction audiences are smaller but more likely to discuss the work with the author in the comments (32.6% versus only 20% of fanfiction readers, 26.5% of webcomic readers and 32.3% of role players).

4. Webfiction Writers
Webfiction writers are dedicated to webfiction. They were the only group that preferred writing something other than fanfiction (73.7% write their own original stories vs. only 48.9% who write fanfiction).

Despite numerous essays on the topic, webfiction writers really are not all that interested in making money off their writing or getting noticed by traditional publishers. They are slightly more likely to find places that can offer these possibilities appealing than writers in other content categories, but their principal concern is exposure, exposure, exposure. Webfiction authors want to be read by people they know in real life and by people they don’t. Most added comments that reflected a more pragmatic approach to the publication of their writing: sure making money and establishing a legitimate publishing career would be nice, but many have promised this dream before and few have delivered. In the end writers understand that the only true path to success is readership.

5. What motivates active commenters?
Interestingly, active commenters are not interested in cultivating discussion about the work (unless they are webfiction readers, in which case they are slightly more interested in it). Their motivation isn’t that different from other commenters: they’ll comment if they love what they’ve read. Therefore, what separates a frequent commenter from an occasional commenter is a willingness to articulate the fact that they would like to read more of the story. Less frequent commenters may feel this way, but they are more comfortable with leaving it unsaid.

Conclusion: What this means for webfiction
A few weeks ago Ergofiction did a couple of series on underrepresented genres in webfiction, echoing an all too common critique: that webfiction is (perhaps unfairly or unrealistically) heavily slanted towards certain genres. Series that cannot be classified as Scifi/Fantasy seem to struggle to find footing with a webfiction audience. While hardly conclusive, I believe these results have shed a little light on exactly why that might be.

Webfiction is an audience filled with rivals. In some ways this — like a large scale writing group — can be an excellent tool to hone talents and receive thoughtful critiques, but in other ways the lack of readers without their own agenda hinders the growth of the format as a whole. As webfiction authors devote themselves to their craft and their own stories and characters, they are less likely to take chances on stories outside of their interests and perhaps (though the research collected no data on this) outside of their personal network of friends within the webfiction community.

Since comments are still the primary mode of feedback through which an author judges her worth, this can make the webfiction community seem clique-y and conformist, even if this is not the case. It can also skew perception of what stories are good, what stories have commercial potential and what genres are appropriate for webfiction at all. One webfiction author noted during the survey that at times it seems that webfiction readers only read series similar to the ones they themselves are writing.

By in large, webfiction authors write because they believe in the story they are creating. While 8.2% of fanfiction authors and 11.9% of role players admitted that they would give up on a story that didn’t get comments, only 6.3% of webfiction writers felt the same way. Webfiction writers are, however, slightly more susceptible to the influence of comments: 83% say they are motivated by them (26.9% of them extremely motivated) and in general webfiction authors agreed with greater frequency that they could figure out what their readers wanted from comments and that their comments were helping them improve as writers.

A few days ago on Novelr I restated my opinion that in order to succeed the webfiction community needs to stop talking to writers and start talking to readers, start bringing in more readers. And aside from the fact that — yes — this is way easier SAID than DONE, one could argue that more writers in more diverse genres would bring in more readers, wouldn’t it?

Except, given what the data shows, feedback and connection with a readership is the most important thing for writers. So recruiting more writers and cultivating more genres without the readership first requires large numbers of extraordinarily stubborn talent who are willing to publish their work as webfiction without any encouragement or acknowledgement from the existing community. And yet what is the alternative? I’ve seen what happens when good intentioned people try to read/review genres and serials they are not interested in: it gets ugly fast and no one benefits.

Eli James is one of the more eloquent and insightful webfiction voices around; his blog offers thoughtful analysis of online publishing. While he rarely writes fiction, his microfiction Pavlov’s Dogs was published a while back here on Ergo and is definitely worth a read. Today Eli discusses why he’s so dedicated to promoting webfiction.

I realized recently that there are two things about my work that don’t seem to make much sense. The first is a confession: that I am a failed fiction writer. The second is that I write a fairly respectable blog — Novelr.com — for writers who are doing just that. (I’m also working on a publishing startup, but I’ll save that for later). This paradox puzzles me, and so when I was asked to do this piece I pounced on the idea to write about it, just to see where it goes.

Before I start, though, let me explain what I mean by ‘failure’. I don’t mean to say that I’ve failed because I’ve tried, and then got rejected or something. Oh no. That didn’t happen. I failed because I stopped trying. I no longer write fiction. I am the worse kind of fiction writer possible: the kind who has failed for lack of trying. Or for lack of practice, if you will.

I stopped shortly after I started my first piece of web fiction. That was in 2004. It was on Geocities, and I did the HTML and stole the images. A year later I started another serial, this time on the Blogger platform. When I finished it I thought to myself: “Well, I had to invent most of the rules while posting that, didn’t I? I wonder if anybody’s figured out the right way to do this blog-fiction publishing thing.”

Nobody had. They were either not talking about it, or not experimenting, or they were doing both very quietly. I figured it would be a good idea to collect the best ideas about writing fiction for the Internet, to help writers who might want to go down the same path as I had. So I began to write about those ideas. I stopped writing my serial. Novelr began to take up all my spare time — that is, all my writing time — where before had been solely for writing fiction.

Something very strange happens in your head when you begin to write about ideas, and only ideas. I don’t mean writing ideas as in arguing for a position — I mean writing about the best ideas; the ones that have most truth in them. Most of my spare time, in fact, I spend looking for truth. In practice, what this looks like is that I sort out random answers to Novelr questions (e.g.: why do people read web fiction; are there better ways of presenting a chapter?) and then arrange them according to how true they are. It’s very tiring stuff, and nothing at all like the imaginative work you do when you’re writing good fiction.

I suspect this is why good journalists rarely do novels, and good novelists rarely write serious investigative non-fiction. If you like reading, like I do, go give both a try and compare. Novels and essays require very different kinds of writing, and therefore: very different kinds of thinking. If you could peek into the brains of these writers, you’d probably see grotesque muscles in the non-fiction department; skinny arms and legs in the fiction department, or vice-versa. (The ones who are able to do both are, I suppose, prodigious god-men who burn brilliantly and die young.) ^[1]

Which begs the obvious question: why do I keep doing what I’m doing? I could, after all, sit back to read web fiction (I do a lot of that, especially when there’s something else I’m required to do). Or I could go back to writing it.

But the funny thing about helping writers move online is that your work never really ends. Writing Novelr can only do so much. Sooner or later people get held up by tweaking HTML, or wrestling with blog-engines, or writing code. Writers I know probably wish the Internet were programmed in English, because it’s what they’re best at. But it isn’t. And I’m trying to make this better – with some friends – over at Pandamian. We write code so that writers don’t have to. ^[2]

I’m doing what I do because web fiction gives me hope. My dream is that one day, when publishing is completely digitized, writers will have more power and control than they did before the shift. So when I finally start exercising my fiction muscles again, it would be in a denser, richer, more accessible book-world. Because all writers should be but one technological step away from a potential audience. And all readers should be one step away from cheap, good books. That’s something I think is worth fighting for.

Read it online here.

Genre: Scifi/ Action/Horror.

Status: New chapters weekly.

Warnings: Detailed violence & harsh language.

Reviews

WFG reviewers agree that “the scale and scope of the story can only be described as epic” — the world-building, characters, and descriptions are highly detailed and believable.

A Peek Inside

Van Kaen’s flesh sizzled as it made full contact with Eden’s blazing body, but he did not falter. With blinding speed, his right hand shot to his head, grabbing onto a stalk of electric-blue hair and ripping it out from his scalp.

Eden stared up in confusion, desperately trying to free herself from the chokehold and stop Van Kaen’s arm at the same time, but it was too fast. The Dragon’s arm came down in a blur, the blue razor slicing through Eden’s shoulder and severing her right arm from her body.

Blood spurted freely from the new cavity in Eden’s body as her arm hit the ground, and she stumbled backwards, unable to properly register what had just happened.

‘My arm…my arm is…’ she stared at the bleeding stump in shock, thinking of nothing else but absence, pain, and imminent death.

Van Kaen watched as the blazing energy around Eden’s body began to flicker and fade, and he thrusted the triangular blade forward, cutting through the huge opal stone that blocked the passage ahead. Saffron followed through, slicing a piece of rock easily as big as three men into four parts as he crisscrossed his two swords.

“Hold on…” As rubble rained down through the passage, Madeleine stared ahead. “Isn’t this…the Boar’s chamber?”

“Look behind thyself,” Saffron spoke. “True majesty oft is missed by
the naked eye.”

Vance spun around, and sure enough, elevated on a platform just above the entrance, stood a massive shrine. Sure enough, due to the milky whiteness of the room, it would be impossible for anyone entering the room to see the difference in height from the short outcropping of the platform and the true ceiling that covered the entire room.

On top of the platform was a golden sculpture of a bird with long wings spanning the width of the wall, perched in the ivory like some prehistoric predator. It seemed more monstrous than an eagle in appearance, and had long, shining talons that glimmered in the dim light of the chamber.

“What is that?” Vance whispered. He peered further at the statue, and could see a golden door stuck to the wall below the bird’s wings.

“The supreme beast, Garuda,” a creaky, ancient voice spoke.

Vance looked around frantically, feeling no psynergy in his mind. Suddenly, he watched as Madeleine lifted up her arm and pointed to the center of the statue. There, sitting cross-legged on the head of the Garuda, was Zhang Guo Lao. He was dressed in long, flowing white robes bordered with bright gold, and a long staff with five golden rings sat across his lap.

“Zhang Guo,” Rose called out. “Grayson has destroyed everything. Why are you still here?”

Zhang Guo was still. “Roufas…Grayson…who controls what is not important. We must be moving only.”

The quintet was stunned.

“What…?” Madeleine whispered.

“It does not matter whose hand brings about the end.” Zhang Guo stood, brandishing his staff. “The fact remains: the universe must die.”

Intrigued? Read more…

Read it online here.

Genre: Mystery/ Drama/Intrigue.

Status: New chapters Wednesdays.

Warnings: Some harsh language.

Reviews

There’s a plethora of reviews, describing Independence Day as “deliciously intriguing: it’s a gripping murder mystery with an eclectic set of suspects”.

A Peek Inside

“We have to stop this,” she informed, her back to him as she stepped back into her dress.

Silence. Dead silence. Julia, frustrated that he would not even justify that with a reply, turned around furiously to find him surveying her feminine form. The look in his eyes was purely of lust, and it nauseated her. She turned back around. “Stop leering at me like that! I said–”

“I heard you,” he informed. “And you’re right.”

Somehow, she’d expected more argument out of him than that. “Okay,” she whispered. “Good. I’m glad we agree on that.”

Julia said nothing else, only fumbling clumsily with her zipper as her thoughts raged out of control. She didn’t think it would be that easy. She thought he’d try to argue with her about it again. She thought he’d say something trivial and trite, but charming enough to convince her to stay just a little bit longer. And…he didn’t. For reasons Julia didn’t even want to understand, that disappointed her, though she did her best not to let it show.

Quietly and without Julia noticing at first, Jeff positioned himself behind her and began to zip up her dress. Once he was finished, he brushed her hair aside and gently kissed the back of her neck. She wanted to bristle back in horror and reprimand him for doing something so presumptuous, but instead only closed her eyes. It felt so natural, just like something Brett would do. Except, it wasn’t Brett…and it wasn’t natural at all.

Jeff leaned down to whisper in her ear. “You’re right. You’ve always been right. I just couldn’t see it before.”

She began to turn around, but Jeff grabbed her shoulders to prevent it. “Just listen to me, baby,” he whispered. “Listen. You — you have a great guy at home. You’ve got a great life. I don’t wanna see you make my same mistake, and I don’t want you to throw that away, okay? Don’t throw that away, babe. Please.”

Silently, Julia nodded. The agony in his voice gave her goose bumps, and at once, she realized that her guilt over the situation was obviously no match for his. “Jeff, I’m sorry,” she whispered, suddenly overcome with emotion and shame.

“So am I,” he replied simply, as he reached around her for his keys. “You…you can let yourself out. I need to get going, okay?”

She turned around to face him, allowing a solitary tear to fall. “Okay,” she agreed, with a weak nod.

He reached out, almost as though he was going to wipe her tears, before he obviously thought better of it. “Take care of yourself, okay? And…” he thought for a moment, obviously debating whether or not he wanted to say this final part, then shrugged. “Just…just remember what I told you.”

At first, Julia was thrown by that statement, and thought to ask what he meant. Then, their eyes locked and she knew. Wordlessly, she nodded. He did too. “I gotta get going.”

Intrigued? Read more…

“The novel is not so much a literary genre,
but a literary space, like a sea that
is filled by many rivers.” – José Saramago

Last week in Genre Fiction: Introduction we learned that Genre fiction is popular and Category fiction is divided, and putting them together in a box is unwise. History teaches that it has always been so, so this week we will pull them apart and look to the future.

The simplest way I could categorize the genres was to begin with the point that all fiction studies the human condition from some perspective, and therefore the individual genres could be collected into groups which are concerned with the internal or external environment.

The reader is drawn with the characters into an imaginary world, and shares their experiences and environment. The very best authors are those who can intentionally elicit autonomic, emotional and intellectual responses; and then also those that allow you to see, hear, taste and smell the world they create. While this is true of all fiction, categorization is most evident when the overarching intent in the writing is to produce one particular response, and to meet a particular need.

One particular need. A Lamborghini is an ideal car, unless you want to take four children to soccer. A Hummer is not a bad car; its qualities are simply unappreciated by some drivers.

So I propose the following four categories: autonomic, for stories which are written with the primary intention of stimulating the subconsciously activated functions (e.g. heart rate, respiration, perspiration, and sexual arousal); emotional, for stories with the primary intention of stimulating the emotional responses (e.g. fear, grief, hope, horror, and love); intellectual, for stories which are written specifically to engage the deeper thought and mental processes of the reader; and environmental, where the physical and social landscape in which the story takes place is the primary focus.

A breakdown of these four categories by genre would be as follows:

You and I both know what we like to read. Quality. We like a good story. Agreed, but that could be where we part company.

I have given up offering books to a dear friend who, incidentally, has terrible taste in fiction. We think alike on most subjects and are of similar education and cultural background. Yet she offers me Ken Follett to plod through, with minute details of every single stone used in fifteen years of building a cathedral. I, on the other hand, offer her the genius of Stephen Donaldson, and she groans, “Can’t they just win for once?”

She likes the very plain language of Follett and storylines uncluttered with an individual’s history or inner dimensions. I like the verbosity of Donaldson and the exaggerated depth of every image, from emotions to trees. She loves the pure historical detail. I love the philosophical debate.

Both are bestselling authors so others obviously give credence to each side of the argument. It is foolish to insist everyone should drive a Lambo, when what some want is a Hummer.

The building blocks that make a novel have not changed in the centuries they have been available. Character, narrative structure, storyline, landscape, theme and conflict all remain; but the complexity required of each block has certainly fallen away. Language itself has been dumbed down, as literacy levels in the developed world fall.

Texts crammed full of references to classic and classical Literature are wasted on two generations who have not been taught the classics. It is 50 – 60 years since Latin and the ancient classics were widely learned by students. Vocabularies are shrinking at Orwellian rates; not Newspeak, but unspeak. And both readers and authors apparently condone the loss. Clean prose is synonymous with simplex; purple with complex. We value beige stick figures on a flat earth.

In the developing world, however, literacy levels are rising fast, and with them the expectation of access to the same standards of fiction we have enjoyed for three hundred years. Print infrastructure has not kept up, while digital media has spread all across the globe. People who do not speak western languages want to read, learn English or use electronic translators. It is not hard to imagine how much of the intricate detail is lost to a reader struggling against these odds. Simpler language, simpler framing, singular inferences, and minimal use of literary devices all make for a more satisfying read for a huge part of the audience. Simple has become desirable.

Then there is reader expectation itself, and that is where the ugly question of formulaic Genre fiction rears its head. For some readers, the payoff is all that is required. Reading is only a means to an end, so there is no part of the story structure which is of greater significance than the effect. This is most evident in the autonomic and the emotional categories, where there is little need to provide any deep mental stimulation.

If action heroes and romantic heroines are always the same basic character, the devoted reader does not need to reacquaint themselves; they can anticipate and deduce as much as they need to know. After all, it is not the character they are following, it is their adventure or their emotional rollercoaster which matters. Readers want the hero to prevail against evil, and they expect the heroine to be adored on the last page. Stories which do not provide the expected ‘hit’ are rejected.

I am not suggesting that there can be no depth in these stories. In fact action and relationships are two of the most basic requirements in every story. Every category contains genres and sub-genres with works that run the spectrum from precise formula to unique or original renderings. When all the boxes are ticked — well written, complex characters, gripping emotional resonance, evocative visual and sensory description — individual works and authors obtain classic status.

It remains true that when stories are written for a particular market, and designed to provide a particular payoff, the characters, settings and themes are window dressing. What matters most is the plot. It is the same basic plot, and following it will deliver the same payoff, every single time. Guaranteed.

José Saramago said a novel was a sea filled by many rivers. Many ideas, many colours, many treasures, and some are much deeper than others. It is not important whether you want to dive deep or just paddle, as long as anyone who wants to can get wet. At risk of extending too far, there is no joy in drowning when you are out of your depth, and even the best of swimmers like to lie back and float.

Next week we will look at the autonomic category (Action/Adventure, Suspense, Thriller, Erotica, and Religious/Inspirational). Do you have a favourite in one of the genres? Is there something you love which illustrates quality fiction, enjoyed for a single purpose? And are there any autonomic webfiction examples that you could recommend?