CHANGING GENRES IN FICTION – RISKS? REWARDS?

By Nancy G. West

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Have you thought about changing fiction genres and writing something different? You’re comfortably creating in your zone, and an idea emerges about a book you really want to write, a book totally different from those you’ve been writing. Are you ready to plunge in?

This happened to me—and I couldn’t ignore it.

I was happily creating a series of Aggie Mundeen Rom-Com Mysteries, and I love them. Aggie is fearless, preposterous, and funny, her romantic interest is alluring, although he is discombobulated by her sleuthing methods. The settings are places in and around San Antonio, Texas, that I know and love. 

Yet, I couldn’t help but notice the effects of our national 50% divorce rate. Many parents wait to divorce until kids are in high school or college, believing they are adult enough to understand. So I set out to write a novel from the eyes of a teen and adults to answer four questions:

1. Is it true older children can better handle parents’ divorce?

2. Do people’s  reactions depend on age? Intellect? Strength? Courage?

3. Can teens and adults grow strength from divorce?

4. Are teens the scatter-brained humanoids often depicted in media, or are they getting a bad rap? 

The book had to be a thriller, I couldn’t give up the delights of creating suspense and solving mysteries. It had to include humor, albeit more subtle. And it had to include inter-generational characters to show that maturity doesn’t always depend on age. I dove in.

In Risky Pursuit, high school senior Decker sees his about-to-be-divorced mom with a scruffy stranger, follows him to a dark house, and hears him attack the occupant. The assailant escapes. Decker follows the victim to the hospital and, through their mutual love of baseball, they become friends. Decker fears the assailant will return, so he devises a plan to expose and stop him. If his explosive plan doesn’t work, he and his loved ones will be destroyed—a suspenseful drama with characters you won’t forget.

There were questions I was too fragile to contemplate until the book was finished. Is the novel YA, new adult, YA crossover, adult? For me, it’s all of those. For the publishing industry, if protagonist Decker is 18, it’s a young adult book.

Would a publisher risk offering a YA crossover, or would the book be automatically pegged as YA?

Could I create real characters from three generations that readers would relate to? 

I thought of Little Fires Everywhere, Ordinary Grace, All the Light We Cannot See, To Kill a Mockingbird, and House Rules, and decided that while it was presumptuous to set my sights so high, these books, their authors, and their multi-aged characters,  were my heroes.

So I plunged in. Granted, my approach to changing genres was seat-of-the-pants. I learned a few things in the process that I recommend to anyone contemplating a change: Find and read articles on reader expectations for your new genre. For example, rom-com mysteries are cozy mysteries with romance. Readers do not expect on-page graphic sex or to read about a bloody murder depicted in gory detail. To make it a rom-com, the amateur sleuth has a romantic interest, usually someone who has different ideas about how to solve a crime. Their conflicting approaches provide the comedy. 

Readers of young adult books, who I’ve learned can be ages fourteen through eighty plus, 
have different expectations. RT Book Review describes the young adult mystery genre as follows: “This genre, often abbreviated as YA Mystery, is targeted towards young adults, typically those between the ages of 12 and 18, but its appeal extends to readers of all ages. The genre is characterized by its focus on mystery, suspense, and intrigue, often featuring young protagonists who find themselves embroiled in mysterious circumstances or puzzling situations.” Fortunately, Risky Pursuit includes these elements. Yet, I never thought of main character Decker Savage as a detective. Sometimes you get lucky. 

Point-of-view for young adult books can be omniscient, where the reader views scenes from above, like a narrator, and can pop into anyone’s head. For young adult novels, the POV is usually in third or first person for a more intimate relationship with the main character. Risky Pursuit is in third-person close POV (also called limited third person), so we know Decker’s thoughts as he sleuths, and his reactions when he’s threatened and attacked.  

While POV can be instinctive as a writer develops a story, one should know the various options, especially if the story isn’t working. Write it in a different POV and gauge the effect. 

So, study your probable genre, then go ahead and take the plunge. If your work isn’t a perfect fit for the new genre, but your instinct tells you to write it a certain way, do it. Many writers have done that and produced legendary books. 

Have you taken the plunge? Were your risks different? What was the response? 

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Nancy West is the author of Risky Pursuit, Melange Books, April 2025.