Choosing A Genre

How does one know what genre to write?

This was the first Book  It is my testimony of how God changed my life.

Then I wrote Always & Forever

This is a romance novel, with paranormal elements.  I had an entire series plotted out.

I was on my way to being a Christian Writer.  Then someone wrote a review and called me a Paranormal Writer. I like the sound of that.

Then:

Zombies  entered my life.  I wrote Zombie Zoo

I wrote 5 stores of Zombie Zoo and then wrote the series Me VS Zombies

I was on my way.  I was selling E-Books, getting royalty checks and was on my way.  Then I sort of got burned out on the series.  I have 10 premade covers for a new Zombie Series, but just didn't know how to make it stand out from Me VS Zombies .

So I went back writing Christian Non fiction books, for a year or so.

I started blogging and just wanted to stay home and write.

So here I am, sitting in my room, blogging and writing for the past 9 months.

I have a rough draft of 3 stories that is a Series The Way.

I was going to do a rapid release next year, since each book is connected to the last. 

There seems to be something missing in the books.  I like the characters.  I like the story.  It is Christian based, on the last days before Jesus comes back.  Right before the Rapture.

The last week God told me what to do and what was missing. 

Christian Romance.

The Cross would make a great Christian Romance:

Then I kept reading about Tropes.  Which I had no idea what that was.  I found Karen Winter on Amazon and she wrote 500 Tropes and Hooks for Romance Writers.  I bought the Kindle Version and yesterday.  I went through the Tropes which I thought would fit into my stories.  I can make this series, each book a Christian Romance.

Why didn't I think of that earlier???

What is a Trope?  You might ask.

If you watch hallmark movies or read any romance novel, you will notice the plots are all basically the same, just told in a different way. 

Watch the Hallmark channel now, with all the Christmas movies on now, and find the pattern.

Example of Tropes:

old flames reunited
enemies becoming friends
marriage in trouble
Heroine goes back home, reunited with high school sweetheart.

So, since  I have the rough drafts complete.  I like all my characters.  I like the town.  I am just going to add romance and see if I cannot make it into a Christian Romance.

Romance Novels sell.  Readers eat them up. 

While I was working on my series, I had no idea what category the series would fall into to.  Woman's fiction?  End of Times? 

If I make it into a Christian Romance, I will have a category and will know that there are readers out there waiting to read my book.

I have 4 books in rough draft.  Don't judge me.  I like all the stories and the characters, but something was missing.  But what???

For me it is direction, an audience, a category. 

So I recommend this Book.  Romance Tropes & Hooks  by Karen Winter. 

It has it a reference book that I will continue to go back to with each book I write.

So what genre do you write in???????

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