advice Archives | Ian M Rountree

One of the most insidious problems fiction has to deal with is the issue of Genre Dodging.

Simply put, Genre Dodging is what happens when authors ignore an element necessary for their stated genre to function. Like missing an opportunity for the first female victim in a horror movie to run in obviously the wrong direction.

When you remove a key element of a genre, even with good intention, the entire narrative suffers.

This happens all the time. We’ve got lots of examples. Whether it’s having vampires that can survive sunlight, or another form of applied phlebotinum – it breaks the rule of cool pretty thoroughly.

What you get, when you try to dodge your own genre too thoroughly, is something too far from the box. The quality of any genre-based work lies heavily on interpretation of that genre, not necessarily in making if better, worse, or pear-shaped.

I have to deal with this working on the Dowager Shadow.

When I built the world that the story takes place on, I very intentionally turned a few elements of the fantasy genre on their sides. I didn’t remove them (which is a key element in genre dodging), but I did twist them a bit. When you think fantasy, you’re liable to think warriors and magic users, dwarves and elves. If the book doesn’t have any of these, is it fantasy? Maybe. Or maybe it’s strategic. The trick is that those four things, while recognizable, are not pillars of the genre. Not all fantasy has elves. Not all fantasy has magic.

But all vampires ought to be unable to walk in the sunlight, right? And, while we’re at it, if science fiction doesn’t have awesome tech, is it actually science fiction or just fiction?

Where else does this apply?

Blogging? If you’re a blogger without comments on your site, are you just publishing?

Twitter? If you don’t discuss anything with anyone, or lock your tweets, what happens to the chances of gaining a following?

If you’re a business person, and don’t actively build your network and create relationships, where’s the longevity of your business?

Building a world – whether it’s fictional planets, a business community, or a personal network – requires addressing the pillars that hold up the kind of world you’re building needs to function as a well-oiled, recognizable machine.

Are you missing any key elements in a non-strategic way? You might be Genre Dodging. And it’s not usually a good thing.

Photo by Shane Adams.

Tonight, Ann Handley guest hosted #blogchat – so I’ll warn you right now, these notes will not be complete. Ann’s a prolific tweeter and a very engaged person, so I’m not surprised at all that the chat went swimmingly, and was very busy.

So, here’s a little background. Ann is Twitter’s front-person for Marketing Profs, a marketing resource concern. She writes her own blog at, of course, AnnHandley.com, and is publishing a book later this year with CC Chapman called Content Rules.

That said, here we go!

The official subject was “Creating and Managing Group Blogs” which is fairly hot-button these days, given corporate blogs, and massive news blogs like HuffPo, Engadget, Mashable and so on. Getting started is often easier than staying started – so it was good to see the advice come out on this.

First: Creating a Group Blog

First question from Mack Collier – How can a company tell if they should have a single-author blog, or a group blog?

Ouch. Good way to start. A lot of the discussion here reflected last week’s chat about developing a voice, or identifying authors on company blogs. The real killer term from Ann herself was (to paraphrase) “Frame of Approach” – which speaks volumes about her own approach to content. Consensus follows; there’s a big (BIG) gap between directed writing and the general approach of a group blog from an editorial point of view.

I asked what “top three” steps a group should take before setting up a blog and launching. Got some fairly good responses;

from @PushingSocial – @ianmrountree – #1 decide problems to solve, #2 identify perspectives to offer, #3 assign perspectives to the champion in the org #blogchat

from @jb140 – @ianmrountree I’d say first & foremost you need to have a writing strategy of what keywords you want to use if for in SEO #blogchat

from @pheffernanvt – @ianmrountree 1. platform/blog description 2. agree on categories/topics per blogger, 3. editorial calendar with schedule, process #blogchat

An interesting range, actually – I think I was expecting more planning, less perspective. Still, I agree with most of it; content strategy IS planning IS SEO, IS so much of blogging.

Onward!

When I got back from my jaunt into reply-ville, the chat was talking about editorial mandating.

@Nedra – Daily Fix is a community – how did MarketingProfs manage that?
– By being a part of the community.

Next: Managing Groups in a Blog

@MarketingProfs: Cultivating community: By IDing people who are active. One of my best tactics is to lurk in the comments, see who’s already there.

Who’s “already there” is a big deal. We’ve seen how important this is all over. Ann also mentioned “Social Prospecting” which is such an awesome idea – tapping active commentators to contribute, finding out where else people are active – looking for the good writers and asking for the join is a big deal and can be aided by simply making yourself available.

On making it easy for them to contribute:

@MarketingProfs: At the risk of name-dropping, that’s how Arianna Huffington got George Clooney to blog. (Made it super-easy.) #yesshetoldmethat #blogchat

Sound notation, given the crowd.

Finally, a personal note. Communities cannot become echo chambers. There has to be discussion and collaboration in groups, not sycophancy; without like perspective, communities cannot function. Riddled with sycophants, there are two options; spiral of descending quality, or sudden enigmatic explosion of popularity followed by a spiral of descending quality. Playing into the curve of praise is a bad idea for one person – even worse for groups.

I’ve missed things – I know I have. What did I miss? Share your thoughts, by all means. We’re in this together, right?

Participants’ List: TweepML Participants’ List for #blogchat July 11th, 2010 – @marketingprofs

What the Hashtag: Transcript for #blogchat July 11th, 2010

ADDENDUM!

Mack shared this list of tweetchats and it’s dreadful and awesome. Bookmark it!