What Defines the Stories We Publish?

Resisting Hyper Genre-Fication to Make Space for Surprise

There’s an odd and, frankly, annoying trend afoot in publishing. One that, if unchecked, stifles creativity and makes it nearly impossible to give readers something that surprises them, something they didn’t know they wanted until they read it. 

Perhaps you guessed it: I’m talking about the micro-niche-hyper-genre-fication of fiction that is running rampant not only in “The Big 5” publishing houses, but also among many indie authors, who are running after trends in the market in an effort to take advantage of this month’s preferred cash cow. 

Today I want to talk about how this came to be and why we at Wood Between Worlds Press are resisting it.

Following in the Footsteps of the Inklings

Before we address the heart of the matter, a bit of background: As many of you know, WBW Press came into existence as the natural fruit of my work at the St. Basil Writers’ Workshop, where we’re striving to mentor a new generation of Inklings. 

(Applications are open now through the end of February, so please be sure to spread the word to your writer friends!). 

Since St. Basil’s is trying to attract and cultivate the kind of writer we’re publishing at WBW Press, I want to spend a little time talking about what I mean when I say I’m interested in cultivating a new generation of Inklings. 

This phrase as a mission resonates with a lot of people, but what exactly does it mean? Does it mean we’re being intentionally old-fashioned? Seeking epic fantasy founded on romantic heroism, or else high-brow literature enjoyed by a small set of educated people who are “in the know”?

Hint: it means none of these things.

So what did the Inklings do that makes us long so deeply to bring it back? 

The Rebirth of Enchantment

I’ve been listening to a wonderful podcast by Justin Brierly called “The Surprising Rebirth of the Belief in God.” Brierly points out that the larger culture is experiencing a cultural reawakening to the story of Christianity, an awakening that is very different from the brain-forward apologetic approach to Christianity that sprung up in the wake of the new atheists. Brierly cites conversions like those of Martin Shaw and Paul Kingsnorth, who are engaging the larger culture in a manner reminiscent of the Inklings. 

In fact, one of Brierly’s podcast guests, Michael Ward, argues that what the Inklings started never reached its full fruition. Think about it: Tolkien never managed to write more than The Lord of the Rings and a few short stories, and while lots of Tolkien-esque fantasy followed, no one successfully assumed the mantle after he died. Meanwhile, Lewis engaged a massive audience with his mythos-centric defence of Christianity, but his mission more or less died when he did.

However, Ward points out that now is the time for work following in the legacy of the Inklings to catch fire. Our world is ready for re-enchantment.

I certainly think this is true. The Inklings engaged both the old and the new, the mythic and the material, the apologetic mode and the storytelling mode of Christianity… and something very like that is bubbling up in our world again today. And this movement isn’t tied to a particular place, to a particular type of Oxford-educated don, or to a particular genre. It’s a zeitgeist. 

All of this sets the stage for what I want to talk about today: the problem with genre as it is treated in the traditional publishing world. 

The Problem with the Genre-Fication of Literature

Genre is insignificant when it comes to telling a good story. Genre is necessary not to the reading public, but to the buying public, to readers who search Amazon for specific genres so they can get a quick hit of the same experience they got last week. 

Because of this, publishers are catering to reader demands by giving them increasingly hyper-specific genres. The further and further genre-fication of literature, especially in speculative fiction, has become so ridiculous that we now have silly, hyper-specific categories like “Viking Amish vampire romance cyber punk mystery” so that readers can anticipate exactly the kind of reading experience they’ll have before they crack open page one.

AI, of course, helps further the genre-fication of literature. You can ask AI for a very specific reading experience, and it will find it for you on Amazon.

The problem?

For writers, genre-fication limits the creative impulse to tropes and storytelling modes that are easily packageable and marketable. For readers, searching for stories with hyper-specific parameters means that you likely won’t be transformed by what you read, nor does such a reading experience help you transcend the mundanity of the experience you’re currently living in. 

This kind of reading experience is like eating sugar or processed carbs. Amazing in the moment. Possibly deadly in the excess. 

The really great stories resist genre. They invert genre. They transcend genre and surprise you with something you didn’t know you needed until you read it. 

Smashing Genre Paradigms

When it comes to the publishing vision of WBW Press, I want to smash genre paradigms. I sincerely believe that there is a large and healthy group of people out there who want the surprising and unexpected experience of reading books that don’t conform to hyper-specific genre demands; people who want to experience again the surprise and delight they felt as children upon encountering new worlds they didn’t even know existed. 

I’m not talking about Narnia or Middle-Earth knock-off portal fantasies. I’m talking about a completely different way of telling stories, a completely different genre we don’t even know exists, a story that harks back to old stories but in a way we’ve never seen before. I want to be open to the possibility that there is a writer out there who is both technically competent enough and has an interesting enough story to be able to surprise us in this way.

Modern Publishers Aren’t Set Up To Take a Chance on Something New

And believe me, that is not the kind of story most modern publishers are looking for. These publishers are run by massive conglomerates that have to meet bottom lines, and the gatekeepers are often young editors, many of whom have not had time to develop their own particular style or taste. Given all this, and given the sophistication of AI in an age of mass information overload, it’s hard for modern publishers to take a chance on a story that’s different, a story that might not hit predicted sales numbers.

But as we know, it’s always the genre-breaker, the new way of seeing story, that then becomes the cultural paradigm for the next generation. 

Star Wars harks back to Buck Rogers, but it isn’t a repeat. Star Wars is sci-fi, but it’s also fantasy and myth. Star Wars fits into so many genres, and it also transcends those genres. And look at the cultural influence it’s had–it became a cultural juggernaut, and no one could have foreseen it. In other words, someone had to bet on a crazy idea for it to become the upstart that became the next behemoth. (It’s interesting to note that this original Star Wars legacy has died; it’s become a victim of its own success, playing safely with money-makers that work but with increasingly diminishing returns.)

Wood Between Worlds Wants to Surprise You

Wood Between Worlds Press is uniquely positioned to be able to take chances on this kind of story. We don’t have the bottom line demands of massive conglomerates or corporate overlords. We’re experimenting. We’re playing around with stories and with styles. We want to see what resonates. 

And we’re making a bet that there are enough people out there who are willing to give us a chance, knowing we demand quality but are open to being surprised. Because who knows? Maybe some of our writers are on the path to creating the next great stories that will really shake people up.  

I honestly believe this can happen.

We’ve signed three new authors (look for official announcements soon!), and I’m considering several submissions by St. Basil Writers’ Workshop students. In the meantime, we’ll also be publishing short fiction on our Substack. 

In all of these initiatives, we’re looking for the surprising, genre-breaking gems, transcendent stories that appeal not to a specific subset of the population looking for a quick hit in their favorite niche, but to everyone, children and adults alike.

So please consider going on this journey with us, a journey to recapture the surprising joy of transcendent stories that can’t be published anywhere else.