I recently sent a submission, the terms of which required me to inform the publisher of the genre of the work I was submitting.  So once again, I fall at the first hurdle.  Now, this is not a plug or a ruse to get you to read The Circling Song (although you’ll notice I’m not stopping you) but I would be curious to know what other people think about which genre to assign to it. 

I could, of course suggest that it’s “genre-free” and so is classed as “Literary Fiction” but I don’t think that would work. Not because it isn’t superbly crafted but because, far from being “genre-free” it may well be “genre-saturated”.

You see, I have trouble with genres.   When I was a boy, had anyone asked me, I would have replied that, to my knowledge, there were two genres: fiction and non-fiction.  As I grew older, I realised that this was foolish and that, in fact, fiction could be subdivided into “comedy” and “tragedy”.

Then I learned that this rule was not always hard and fast and that you could have, in either of these, a practically infinite number of genres: Romance, Adventure and Mystery.  I did say “practically”.

There were, of course, fables, ghost stories and other “tall tales” to delight and intrigue but these were not genres, as such – merely aspects of the other three.  As an aside,  I think growing up in the rational, technologically confident nineteen fifties and sixties meant that any ghost stories I read turned out to have rational, technological explanations for spooky goings-on.  I had yet to encounter the full frontal Gothic romances of Poe, Lovecraft, M.R. James and others and, when I did, I was often struck by the sheer foolishness of them – except The Monkey’s Paw …(shivers)

Science fiction was popular, of course but we were steered away from the pulps and encouraged to read the more “literary” works of such as Wells and Wyndham, which were still classed as “adventure” or “mystery”.

If there was anything that signified a genre it would have been the location of the setting of the story.  So there would be westerns, jungle tales, sea stories, outer-space stories, war stories, and what-have-you. 

War stories could be set in the present, the recent past, the distant past or even the future.  The present would be unlikely, unless you count the cold war, in which case the protagonists would be spies so that would count as “adventure”.  If they were set in the past, it would most likely be the fairly recent past.  A “war story” always meant that it was set in World War II. Anything between twentieth and eighteenth century would also be adventure and only when the combatants donned armour or tights would it be classed as “historical”.  Togas etc would be “Tales of Greece and Rome” and before then, would be “biblical adventure”, whether it was biblical or not.  Anything involving helmets with horns and wings were “legends”.  Stories of future wars (not that I can remember any at that time) would have been called science fiction adventures.

The Circling Song plays out in Flanders between 1914 and 1918 and the main character is a soldier in combat.  There are accounts of a number of actions including the battles of Loos, Passchendaele and the Somme.  So that makes it a war story, doesn’t it? 

But isn’t early twentieth century now classed as “historical”?  And, during the course of the  story, two of the other main characters fall in and their relationship is a fundamental feature of the plot.  I wonder if that makes it a romance?  Certainly, in the original sense of the word, it is a romance but in the more modern sense, too, romance figures prominently.  I suppose I might get away with “historical romance” were it not for the core plot.

I had recognised some time ago that it was mere chance that kept Einstein out of the trenches and I often wondered how many brilliant young men – geniuses, perhaps -  had died in the mud of Flanders, their promise unfulfilled.  I know that, at this crucial time, mathematics and some theories of physics were beginning to scrape away at quantum mechanics and wondered how the world would be now if some form of unifying theory had been postulated by one of these young men.  

My main character, Henry Lawrence is one such.  His way of perceiving the world is governed entirely by mathematics and his understanding of the order to be found in the chaos of war leads him to some unlikely and startling conclusions that will impact on the lives of all the other characters and, indeed of everyone in the world.  This, I fear, is science fiction.

So what did I put on the submission?  Well, it wasn’t “Historical, Romantic, Science-Fiction, Wartime Adventure Mystery in Epistolary Style…” 

But should it have been…?

Doing a spot of research, I found myself reading something in one of the “Game of Thrones” books.

Before I go on, I must make it clear that I don’t like fantasy stories.  I read The Hobbit, as a child of about twelve and enjoyed it but have never got more than a third of the way through Lord of The Rings.  In fact, I still call it “Lord of The Rings” and not LOTR which tells you all you need to know,  just as the first half-dozen pages of Harry Potter told me all that I needed to know before closing it with a thunk that rattled the casements. 

Yes, it’s me, I know.  I just can’t get on with it.  But this post isn’t a diatribe against fantasy; I just didn’t want comeback about me being a fantasy philistine who has no respect for the genre but you see, I can understand the silly names, the Victorian Celtic/medieval romanticism and that fact people can chop one another up and no policeman will call.  It's true that I find the magic harder to deal with and don’t get me started on dragons but none of these things pulled me up short.

No, what struck me was that the “highborn” – yes, he uses that word – characters speak like they’re caught up in a bad Shakespeare pastiche and the “lower orders” sound like South Yorkshire pitmen.

Curiosity drove me to a number of fantasy forums where I found this matter being discussed.  Some respondents took a view that it was about time that modern speech was employed in more fantasy novels.  Much as I admire this iconoclasm, I can’t see the “puissant Legions” of fantasy fans rushing to embrace such a development.

I wondered about this when I went back to George R.R. Martin (J.R.R. Tolkein – geddit?) and discovered him using colloquial English for his rude mechanicals.  They say things like “Bugger” and “Sod” – Remember how refreshing it was to see Pratchett’s Discworld characters using such language?  The incongruity was part of the conceit but  if bona fide fantasy writers are doing it, it’s almost beyond satire.

Both Pratchett and Martin signify a character’s lack of formal education and general lower classness in their use of vulgar terms (and I use “vulgar” in the sense of “common” rather than “crude”) but this cliché doesn’t hold much water either.  I have little doubt that the royal family (Gawd bless ‘em) exchange frequent buggers, sods, and bloodys on a day-to-day basis and probably the odd fuck to boot.  They may well steer clear of twats but then, who can blame them for that?

No, it’s this assumption that trolls speak like West Ham supporters; and wizards like John Milton’s less talented cousin Alf.  
As I say, I'm perfectly aware that there are very many fantasy writers who reject the KJV language of some of the earlier exponents of the genre but lines like “…It is well thou hast work to do here”… from one of the “Earthsea” books, or the awful…

And the fire with all the strength it hath,
And the lightning with its rapid wrath,
And the winds with their swiftness along their path…

…from “A Swiftly Tilting Planet” by Madeleine L'Engle, have not yet been entirely cast into the pits of the outer darkness.  The irony, of course,  is that it would be those South Yorkshire pitmen (had Margaret Thatcher not ethnically cleansed the region) who would most likely to be “thee-ing and thou-ing” - as my mother used to say -  because, in South Yorkshire,  the use of second person familiar is firmly associated with the ill-educated.  I well remember having it beaten out me at school.  My brothers, (no less well-educated but far more resilient that I), retain, I'm delighted to say, that wonderful and tragically fast-fading idiomatic mannerism. 

Now back to that idea I was working on, in which trolls riding dragons dragons lay siege to a Yorkshire pit village.  It will be called “Wrath-on-Dearne”.

You know how they always tell you that it doesn’t matter how much your family and friends like your work because they are your family and friends and so, will usually rave about your books and, if not, they will at the very least give you the benefit of the doubt?

Well; they lie.

I have a friend who downloaded one of my books and read it.  I say “read”; he didn’t finish it because, as he told me, he lost it during a file transfer and couldn’t recover it.  I said not to worry, I would send him a gift voucher and he could download it again. 

‘Oh, no need,’ he told me, ‘I’m sure it’ll turn up in some folder or other.’ 

‘No trouble,’ said I,  ‘I’d really like to know what you think of it.  I’ll e-mail it to you later tonight.’

The smile froze on his face and he said that it was O.K.  Really.  Don’t bother.

It was then (because I’m fairly quick on the uptake as you can tell) that I said, ‘So, you weren’t enjoying it then, ha ha?’  

There was still a part of me that hoped I’d misread the signs and was waiting for him to say something along the lines of, ‘Oh no!  I didn’t mean that!  I mean, I’ll gladly pay for another download.  Gosh it’s so gripping.’  I waited in vain.

‘Frankly,’ he told me, ‘I just couldn’t get into it.  Your sentences are too long with so many clauses that I got completely lost and had to re-read them several times.’

‘There are too many commas, aren’t there?’ SAID MY WIFE!! 

‘Exactly!’  said my friend, with a triumphant jab of his finger.  As I stared open-mouthed at my very own Agrippina,  my pal warmed to his theme.  ‘I couldn’t follow the story,’ he announced.  ‘And, is it meant to be contemporary?  Because if it is, it’s very archaic.  For one thing, I’ve never heard a journalist referred to by their last name for about thirty years.  You use far too many unnecessary words, as well and there are an awful lot of descriptive passages.’

Eventually, I found my voice.  ‘Ha ha, Please don’t hold back.  Say what you really think.  Ha ha.’

On the motivation behind my wife’s putting the boot in, I cannot speculate but on the reasons for my friend’s candour, I may hazard a view. 

He is a fellow writer so I could convince myself that it was simply professional jealousy that made him so… honest.  I could imagine that he wants to stall a great rival talent that threatens to overwhelm his meagre offerings with its immense scope and power;  his Salieri to my Mozart;  his Gaugin to my Van Gogh.

I must accept, however, that it’s probably his Beatles to my Gerry and the Pacemakers…

(sings “Ferry Across the Mersey” ad lib to fade out…)