Writing popular fiction by Dean Koontz

Author:Dean Koontz
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: #genre
ISBN: 9780911654219
Publisher: Writer's Digest
Published: 1973-10-15T07:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FIVE Gothic-Romance

In my third year as a freelance writer, the science fiction market temporarily dried up, due to editorial overstocking at several of the houses with the largest monthly science fiction lists. Since I was selling far more science fiction than anything else, I was caught in the pinch. I was learning the suspense form, but had not yet had great success with it, and I was several years away from writing the big, serious novels I'm now concentrating on. I needed new markets, fast. The previous year, I'd dabbled in erotic novels, as a sideline, but I did not feel like returning to that category and, besides, it was not flourishing as it once had. What to do?

For a year, an editor friend had been urging me to try a Gothic novel since the form is perennially one of the most popular in the paperback field. I declined, principally because I didn't think I could write believably from a woman's viewpoint, but also because I simply did not like Gothic novels. I felt they were so formulized as to be mirror images of one another, and I didn't see how I could write in a field for which I had no respect. When the science fiction market remained tight, however, I finally tried my hand at a Gothic. I finished the book in two weeks, attached a female by-line (half the Gothics published today are written by men, but the by-line must always be female), and mailed it off. The editor read it, made a few suggestions, and bought it for $1,500. That's $750 a week; not a fortune, but a pleasant enough income to make it worth most any genre writer's time.

Three months later, I wrote my second Gothic, again in two weeks, and received a $1,750 advance. My third Gothic, a few months later, took me one week from first page to last and earned another $1,750 check. Within a single year, taking only five weeks away from my serious work, I made $5,000 from my Gothics, enough to relieve immediate financial problems and let me get on with my more important work.

Herein lies the great advantage of writing category fiction. Financial worries are the most common causes of writers' blocks. If a writer cannot pay his bills, he usually cannot create. He either has to take a second job or a part-time job (if he is already a full-time freelancer) until his bills are paid and the tension relieved—or he must set aside his serious work and write something that will turn a fast dollar. Since he can probably earn more money, more quickly, by writing a Gothic than by working as a clerk, he is foolish not to take advantage of his talents. I know of writers who say they will not "prostitute" their talent by writing anything just for money. When they get desperate to meet the bills, they take a job for five or six months until they're financially solvent again, then launch into full-time freelancing once more.

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