Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Can clean (or cozy) books be successful?

I'm counting on it! ; >)

I love to read and will read almost anything (almost) but over the years I've realized I don't like reading a book that leaves my stomach in knots from stress or fear. Life can be stressful enough without adding fictitious drama to it.

With the Scinegue series I've tried to write books about things that could really happen (probably wouldn't happen, but could) but without capitalizing on the violence and/or sex or just plain horror that sometimes really does happen in real life.

Okay, so I just lost a bunch of readers right there who are looking for just those things that I'm trying to minimize in my books. And that's okay. We all have different tastes. What I'm hoping is that there are others out there with tastes similar to mine. People who want to read stories that aren't squeaky clean with unicorns and rainbows (huh? guess that's how I picture something REALLY happy ; >) but clean enough that they aren't stress inducing.

***I've found myself getting a little emotional with the ending I've written for The Forest, the 3rd book in The Scinegue Series. But...I don't think I'm stressed and I really don't think the writing will cause stress for anyone else, even though it is kind of involved. At least it is for me...

I can't wait to release The Forest so I can get some feedback on how others are affected by it. Will anyone be stressed by it? Touched? Bored?! (Yikes! I hope not.)

I'm writing stories that I like to read and that's what makes writing fun. I'm so happy to share them with others who enjoy them too!

Do you choose to read or write clean fiction? What are your reasons?

4 comments:

  1. I only write clean fiction and that's because that's what I want to read. I've found since I started reviewing other people's books on a regular basis that I never want to read anything with explicit sex or violence in it again and I can't really understand why anyone would want to. I now refuse to review anything 'unclean' and have stopped reviewing for a major site because the authors don't tell you if the content is offensive. Now I won't ever pay for a book that isn't by an author I know to be 'clean'. Surely I can't be alone in feeling like this. There MUST be a market out there.

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    1. I agree that there is a market out there. I think it's just a matter of connecting the right books with the right people. I've been hearing about The Fussy Librarian lately and how they only send you books with the level of violence, etc. that you select. I'll definitely be taking a look at it.

      Thanks for your reply!

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  2. Like you, I prefer to both read and write clean fiction. I don't mind a bit of bad language in the books I read as it's part of real life and real people, but I don't use it in my own writing. But I absolutely cannot cope with graphic descriptions of violence and terror, nor do I like explicit sex, so I think there are lots of people out there who feel the same. The sensational and sensation overload of much modern fiction is, as you say, very stressful. I cannot get horrific images out of my mind if I read them, so would prefer not to!. Good for you! I would guarantee that if a book is well written, it shouldn't need the graphic descriptions. After all, Colin Dexter wrote a large number of Inspector Morse books, and he made sure his character didn't like graphic details either so he didn't have to write them in! He was successful enough - I think... :-)

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    1. "I cannot get horrific images out of my mind if I read them, so would prefer not to!" Me too! It sounds silly but it took me many years before I realized I didn't have to read books that were stressful to me just because they were popular ; >)

      I agree with you completely, a well written book is enjoyable and I'm going to go look at Inspector Morse books right now!

      Thanks for replying!

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