Fantasy - Dark or Light

I would agree; it is a bit of a mouthful.

I wonder what Swords and Sigils would be classified as? It's not dark fantasy, but there's going to be a fair bit of action, magik, and teenage angst (only one of the main characters; not all of them). I don't quite feel that it's high fantasy, either.

I'm kinda going for a slightly Victorian/purplish feel to the writing. Not as purple as Dickens, say, but not really modern, either. Maybe a bit like Connan-Doyle? Not sure about my success rate.

I tell people that I want to write dystopic urban fantasy, but that's only very loosely what Addergoole is. I think I've settled on dark fantasy with a hint of the erotic.

~Lyn

For Peacock King I'm aiming for fantasy with a hope at dark fantasy but enough comedy and happy ending to not send the story into total despair. I'm also gonna nudge the story into a sidebar of steampunk, except less punk and more clockwork. (Which could be considered a sideline of SF, but PK's definitely not conflicted over whether it's fantasy. SF is just allowed to play in its pool.) Science advancing, but not with a trade-off of less magic. (I think without a reason given for it, that trope is pure malarkey.) I don't really go for high fantasy and started off in tropish, dramatic, sometimes-parody fantasy (Slayers).

The fantasy genre is so broad, and that really charms me. I can read fantasy set in any time period, with the plot centered around so many different themes and moral conflicts. What draws me to it is that fantasy seems, by definition, limitless. I like that potential when I approach something to read.

Just a note from the benevolent dictator:

I kinda want to focus the conversation here pretty narrowly: on marketing, promotion and cross-promotion of weblit. There are TONS of places to discuss the writing itself. I don't want to seem all high-handed, but I am hoping we can do this and not degenerate into yet another writing site.

Thanks, and please be kind to your dictator when you respond.

"Talk about your genre and/or your form--essay, memoir, short fiction, novel, serial, etc." ???

Not sure what this sub-forum is intended for, then. nn;

Yeah, it's probably me being a cranky bitch; I've felt like hell the last couple of days.

BUT! It might be good to see who else falls into your "niche" for purposes of cross-promotion, and to bat around ideas to reach people in your niche.

Just a shot in the dark - but maybe how you're catering your marketing to fit that genre?

ETA: Or, yanno, what our benevolent dictator said. >_>

That's cool. I was using the SF thread as a barometer and thusly confused.

Part of my fishing about for why I like to read fantasy was leading into why we all do, and thus, why readers do, and how to reach them, etc. I said somewhere else in the forums here that genre is a useful tool for readers to find what they want to read. It is an easy way of finding a target demographic - which is basically the group of people who are most likely to want to read your work. We're mentioning a lot of sub-genres of fantasy here. I don't think they're all totally official and some might not be embraced by the masses, and there's definitely some crossover with SF. However, there are probably a few common threads that define fantasy literature. (The literature in question may also have threads of other genres, and that's great, because then you have cross-appeal.)

The one I was going after is that I think fantasy is defined by a sort of limitless nature. It can have swords and sorcery, it can have urban cowboys, but something in it is fantastic and not of the norm. So if someone's looking to read fantasy, they're looking for an element of the fantastic, yes? So how do you appeal to this outside of your writing itself?

Remember, marketing and promotion is about the world outside of your writing, and how you want to invite that world IN to read your writing. Until they start reading the text of your work, they've got to get through some hoops. They have to find a link to your site (via text link w description or via graphics or via comprehensive listing like WFG), they have to be compelled to click on that link, they have to look at your site and go to your story, and then they have to read that story. A lot of any webmaster's problem is traffic management, but that's universal. Fantasy writers need to attract fantasy readers and then keep them long enough on their site to read their fantasy work.

1. The link. Is your promo text appealing to fantasy readers? Does it appeal to other genre readers as well? If you're crossing genres this second question is especially important. If you have a graphic, does it have fantasy reader appeal? You should know this, because you are likely a fantasy reader. You should remember the fantasy novel covers that have attracted you the most strongly. To that end, try to think of back cover/flap text that's made you investigate a book further and start browsing it.

(Protip: don't use over-used tropes in your text unless there's something unique in the text as well. "Explore a fantasy world without limits" can be a million stories and is fairly forgettable. "Explore the mind-beinding, syrupy world that exists on top of a giant flying pancake" is unique and uh, fairly absurd at that. nn; Actually, feel free to use that idea, then post the link so I can read the story. )

I'm uh, kinda burning out here, so maybe I'll just leave it at the initial link/ad that you use. I do promo design for a living anyway so this is my bag, as it were.