Do you feel you've found your writing niche?

I wrote a full length MG manuscript and queried it before I realised I was supposed to be writing YA.

I've always been a huge MG/YA Fantasy Lit reader, but the way I write was fundamentally wrong for MG. For me, writing from 3rd person didn'twork because my stories rely a lot on inner character development. Trying to write MG from 1st person, the characters always sounded too old for their age.

YA gives me a lot more flexibility. Teenagers are diverse in terms of maturity level, introspectiveness and interests. I love the freshness of the world at that age, the discovery of self ...

And fantasy. I think I will forever and always have to write fantasy! It's really hard for me to even make it through a contemporary lit book - no matter how good everybody tells me it is. I read Historical, Paranormal and Fantasy. I don't think you can write what you wouldn't read!

I don't know if I'll really be confident that I'm writing what I should write until I've got a few published books under my belt, finding a solid readership. Proof is in the pudding, you know?

And even then. I certainly hope I'll find that niche writing contemporary YA, which is what I'm trying to get published with now, but at the same time, I know me, and I'll want to wriggle out of that and try other things, too. I have a few paranormal ideas scribbled in my back pocket, and I like to think the right middle grade and/or picture book idea for me will come along some day.

I'd say I wrote for six years in my current stint before I accidentally wrote a YA/NA novel, and its reception was good. I liked that feeling so I wrote two YAs in a row and pulled in sixteen contract offers between the two. One of them took the first place grand prize in a YA novel writing contest sponsored by a publisher(The Girl They Sold to the Moon). Even an advance was offered as well as publication, with special promotion and marketing offered--lead title.

I think, I hope, my niche is YA. And this is really a major shocker to me. I've been writing adult spec fiction for 36 years, having just recently stumbled into the YA pool. I think I might belong there. I do feel my next book will be a YA or an NA. I guess it's a nice place to get trapped in.

Tri

Everything I write has horror and/or surreal elements. It doesn't matter which genre or age range it is, those elements will be there. However, mostly I switch between sci-fi and fantasy, because I prefer exploring larger concepts than ones which fit neatly into the real world (I've tried to write contemporary a few times and my brain just automatically added aliens or something similar). YA and MG seem to be the age range I prefer, but I can write stories aimed at older audiences.

laurie17 said:

Everything I write has horror and/or surreal elements. It doesn't matter which genre or age range it is, those elements will be there. However, mostly I switch between sci-fi and fantasy, because I prefer exploring larger concepts than ones which fit neatly into the real world (I've tried to write contemporary a few times and my brain just automatically added aliens or something similar). YA and MG seem to be the age range I prefer, but I can write stories aimed at older audiences.

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I'm a spec fiction nut myself. I switch from SF to Fantasy, to Ya, and then to adult thriller. I'm all over the genre and category map, and I've realized that this can be a silent killer. Uhg, argh and all that...

tri

I'm so stoked, I stumbled across a great picture book idea! I've always wanted to try that out and now I really might.

Adult Fiction especially the Action/Thriller type with just a small amount of suspense added in. When I examine the reason it is more complicated since my reading habits/interests are extremely varied. Maybe due to the vast amounts of diverse subjects that can be used in fiction writing it is that constant flow of new ideas and changes that appeal the most to me. Allows me to research and delve into areas and explore experiences that could actually occur if the characters were real people.

I have written 2 YA Paranormals, a Dystopian, and 2 contemporaries. All different genres but with one common theme: they are ALL thrillers. So, I would say thrillers are my comfort zone/niche. I have not yet had success with them in terms of landing an agent but I love thrillers and the creative process that goes into making them. That being said, my two current WIPs are a straight up contemporary and a horror. And I'm LOVING both of these projects very much. Especially the horror. So, who knows what my niche will be in the future. Eventual success could dictate it for me, but my first love is and will always be thrillers of any genre.

It depends on how we're defining niche. The thing that makes me write is "What if the world were different?" and I don't see that changing. I haven't settled definitely on an age that I write for -- my characters have the annoying habit of growing up as I keep throwing problems at them, and my current WIPs have, as main characters, a ~22yo grad student and her ~14yo sister, so...YA? NA? "Crossover"? I'm trying to take the position that, once the readers have the reading level for it, stories shouldn't have to be age-specific.