This week’s Ask Me Anything…You write both M/M and F/F. How are these two genres or markets different? And what are your top 5 book recommendations in each?
I guess firstly I don’t think of myself writing M/M or F/F per se. I think about myself as writing ‘queer romance’. I know that’s a pretty technical difference; but it does affect how I market my books. Some authors I know have different pen-names for the different romantic pairings or genres they write in; but I made a conscious decision that a) it would be too complicated for my chaotic self to maintain and b) it would make it more difficult for me to actually write. The reasons for a) are self-evident; and b) is because of my particular process I think.
Certainly historically I haven’t been a plotter. I do plot more now…I often begin a story by writing a blurb. I then move on to character sketches and perhaps location sketches. It’s all a bit free-form though and I’m not very good at sticking within the lines I’ve drawn for myself. I like to have the freedom to shoot off in a different direction if a plot idea comes to me or a character seems to require that. I sometimes begin with the idea that someone is one gender/sexuality and as the story unfurls it becomes obvious to me that they are different from the way I initially imagined them. Walter from The Quid Pro Quo is a case in point. Initially he was trans; and then I hit a historical issue with him being in the army on the cusp of the 20th century where he’d have found it hard to have remained undiscovered. So I tried very, very hard to make him cis. But he wouldn’t have it and I had to fudge the whole joining-the-army thing to accommodate him.
Author wisdom has it that M/M readers are voracious consumers who spend a lot of time in KU; and that F/F readers are hard to win over but loyal once you have. I honestly don’t think I have enough experience to be able to comment on either of those things; but I do know that I don’t feel I fit precisely in to either of those categories. I do use the letters as a shorthand for readers to know about my characters at first glance; but I prefer to call my books with M/M pairings ‘gay romance’ rather than M/M romance. I don’t feel they are high heat enough to be ‘proper’ M/M if that makes sense?
I try and pitch my books as being about LGBTQIA people rather than any particular stripe of the rainbow and I do think that affects the way readers perceive them, and probably me as a writer too. I have a free story for subscribers who join my newsletter and to begin with that was a M/M offering. Last year I changed that to be a poly story with sapphic/non-binary and M/M relationships as I felt that better reflected my catalogue. I think it gives people who don’t know me a better idea of what they are going to find in my books and that can only be good.
I know not everyone likes to read and write across gender and sexuality pairings but it’s what I’m happy writing and that’s really important to me. Being true to my own identity is something I came to quite late and I am very conscious of it, although I have no truck with the idea that one can only write characters and genders from personal experience. It’s perfectly possible to write any character you want to, the only responsibility you have is to do it well. I like the variety that brings to my work and I guess identifying as non-binary, pan and grey-ace, I sit firmly in the meh, whatevs part of the spectrum. It’s nice to be able to write from and about different perspectives.
So this is where I sit and why, I guess!
Instead of answering the second question about my favourite books in the M/M and F/F genres, here are fifteen books I rate with LGBTQIA main characters and they are all excellent. They are in alphabetical order by title and are mix of different identities. Some of them I’ve blogged about in my #AmReading posts over the last few months, but I do hope you find something new here!
- A Matter of Oaths, Helen Wright
- A Treason of Truths, Ada Harper
- Ariah, B. R. Sanders
- Astreiant series, Melissa Scott
- Bad Judgement, Sidney Bell
- For Real, Alexis Hall
- Harrietta Lee series, Stephanie Ahn
- Home Within Skin, Jem Zero
- Miss Claus, J. R. Hart
- Penhallow Amid Passing Things, Iona Datt Sharma
- Queen City Boys series, Ajax Bell
- Sharing a Pond, Alex Whitehall
- Silver Moon & Blood Moon, Catherine Lundoff
- The Covert Captain, Jeannelle M. Ferreira
- Werecockroach, Polenth Blake
If you have an #AskMeAnything question, do drop me an email or pop in to Lester Towers to ask.
Bad Judgment is soooo good, holy wow, I need to re-read that!
Yeah, I REALLY like it.