Why you shouldn’t switch genres halfway through.
how you can stay focused on the genre you are writing about. not changing it.
There’s one thing you should avoid when writing a novel, that’s changing your overall idea and switching genre halfway through your first draft to something completely different.
And instead of rewriting the beginning to correct the change, you try figuring out a way to combine both ideas into one story. Trying to “make it work” hoping the reader won’t notice.
Trying to stitch together two different ideas into one, leading to a “Frankenstein novel” doesn’t work. The reader will catch on to this right away and will stop reading.
In fact, it probably won’t even get past the literary agent. They see this sort of thing all the time.
In this blog, we will be learning why you shouldn’t switch genres halfway through…
WHY YOU SHOULDN’T SWITCH GENRES HALFWAY THROUGH
Table of Contents
What some call “Frankensteining your novel”. What does it mean to Frankenstein a novel? It means you start off writing about let’s say for explain a police detective mystery in Mexico who’s trying to solve a murder. But halfway through you come up with a “better idea”.
An action story of a man in London England trying to solve a mystery of a stolen painting. You’ve gotten bored of writing a mystery novel and switched genres to an action novel.
But you find yourself three hundred pages into the story of the man in Mexico and you don’t want to rewrite the three hundred pages so you try figuring out a way to “combine” both stores into one.
Trying to figure out how to get the detective from Mexico to London, trying to tie the murder mystery genre into the action-driven genre stolen painting idea. The problem is the atmosphere of the novel has now changed. The goal is now changed.
The main characters’ “wants and needs” have switched suddenly. The locations have now changed. A mystery novel is now action catching the reader off guard.
THE MISSION HAS NOT CHANGED
Can you change location in a novel? of course. James Bond is forever traveling the world throughout his stories, but the goal/genre does not change.
He’s still a spy on the same mission no matter what country he’s in. The bad guy is still the same. The mission has not changed. It’s not about changing location that’s the problem, it’s the overall feel and goal of the lead character.
Why does the “franksteining of a novel” happen? In the end, it comes down to laziness. The writer has written many pages of a story and now wants to write a new one.
But does not want to rewrite the first because it’s “boring”. They have no energy to rewrite so they try to combine the two stories.
BUT NOW YOU HAVE TO STICH THE TWO STORIES TOGETHER
And it may not be massive changes you’re trying to Frankenstein together, it could be something as simple as an adventure novel about adults investigating something only to switch over to teenage kids solving a crime. You started off writing about adults but halfway through you came up with a new amazing idea.
But instead of going back and changing the first few chapters of adults, you decided to keep it and switch over to kids. But now have to stitch the two different stories together. Trying to justify the switch. But in the end, it comes across as awkward.
Just as bad, after starting their novel some writers will acquire new information and want to include it into their story, even if it has no place in it.
But they want their information in anyways. They’ll try to “shoehorn” the newly acquired information any way they can. Causing a problem with the flow. Leaving the reader confused. They have the mindset of “I spent a lot of time researching this information, I have to include it.”
They end up doing so much work “stitching the new material in” and trying to make it work, it only leads the reader confused as to why it’s there.
NOW THE STORY IS MOVING ALL AROUND
For example, if a writer sets out to write an epic novel on Ancient Egypt and spends months researching Ancient Egyptian’s lives and writes 10 chapters but by the 11 chapter, they’re inspired to change the novel into life in modern-day Egypt.
They’ll look at their first 10 chapters and have no desire to rewrite everything. Plus they look at all their research and won’t want to discard it thinking it took too long to collect. So they’ll find a way to stitch the two novels into one.
They’ll try taking all their research into Ancient Egypt and find a way to work it into their new novel. But what they end up getting is a confusing novel that leaves the reader wondering what on earth is going on. A story bouncing back and forth from modern-day Egypt to the past.
This happens more than you think in Hollywood movies. Where a writer has written a script and another writer takes over changing parts of it, keeping some and changing others.
This makes the whole script a mess. The audience is confused as to why the atmosphere and theme keeps jumping around.
LEAVING THE VIEWER CONFUSED
What they need to do is rewrite the entire script. But what they end up doing is Frankensteining the script by stitching one part to another trying to make two completely different storylines work together.
Basically taking two scripts and making one movie. When movies go through many rewrites this ends up happening. The movie loses its center. Loses its tone. Leaving the viewer confused as to what’s happening.
You may not even notice you’re combining two stores into one. As you write you might find your story drifting into a new area. A different feel.
Someone might read your book when your finished and point this out. Saying the goal of the lead character has completely changed halfway through. You replaced the star of your novel with someone else.
Leaving the reader confused as to what’s happening.
THEY HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH EACH OTHER
Now you have a choice, go back to the beginning and make all the changes needed (including a possible full re-write) to match up with your new story. Or try Frankensteining the two stories together.
Trying to figure out ways to match up chapters that have nothing to do with each other. Trying to Frankenstein your novel can end up taking more time than simply rewriting it.
It can lead to more headaches and stress than simply rewriting the beginning of your novel to match up with the end.
THE READER IS CAUGHT OFF GUARD
All novels have to flow. One theme, one goal, a lead character with a character arc. But when you change genres halfway through you rattle the reader. They started off reading a romance novel only to have it change to science fiction halfway through.
The story was about a princess living in a castle and suddenly their now in outer space battling aliens. The reader will be totally caught off guard.
As the writer, you took your romance novel and science fiction novel and tried stitching the two together leading to a very odd novel, trying to justify why a princess in a castle is now in outer space. Your tried tricking your brain into thinking this could happen.
You think of ways to make it seem natural. Taking what should be two books and making them one. Because you don’t want to go back and change the beginning.
HOPING THE READER WILL NOT NOTICE
Imagine spending time writing a novel and end up spending more time trying to stitch your first draft with the completely different second half only to have it rejected by a literary agent who could tell right away what you were doing. All that time wasted.
When you could’ve saved your time by focusing on writing one full novel or two separate ones. It’s next to impossible to combine two different storylines hoping the reader won’t notice.
Imagine if you went to see a horror movie in the theaters and halfway through the cast started singing. All of a sudden it’s a musical. You’d be shocked, confused, wondering what’s happening.
Movies do not switch from comedies to horrors or dramas to musicals. You finish what you start.
NOBODY LIKES REWRITES
Nobody likes rewrites, you have little energy for them. Most writers love the rush they get from writing but having to rewrite kills the passion. So when they look at all the chapters they have to rewrite they immediately feel bored.
So instead of going back and making the necessary changes, they try tricking themselves into keeping the old and new. Believing they can fix them together into one, and no one will notice. But if you do this everyone will tell. It will be the first thing pointed out to you when you let someone read your work.
The difference between a professional writer and an amateur is rewrites. A real writer knows rewrites have to be done, sometimes two, three, or more.
An amateur writer wants to write once and move on. But if you want to be successful and not a dreamer you need to be dedicated to the rewrite. It may not be fun, but it’s needed to make a great novel everyone wants to read.
One that will become a literary classic, read hundreds of years from now.
you might be interested in these blogs:
IF YOU CAN TELL A JOKE YOU CAN WRITE A NOVEL
WHICH PART OF YOUR NOVEL DO YOU START WRITING FIRST?
SEEING THINGS THROUGH A LITERARY AGENT’S EYES
