Norwescon 34

This last weekend I attended Norwescon 34 and feel like such an oober! :-) I had the best time, met some of the greatest people, and learned a lot... I just never realized there were writers workshops there! I thought it would be fun to go see people dressed like Klingon's and fairies.

The first day I got there too late to go to the panels for writers, but the next day I tried to hit every one I could. Not only did I get to meet published authors, but I also got great advice and feedback from them. I have to say, I am so excited and happy I went.

Of course, all my friends, including my husband, thought I wanted to go 'for' these writing events. So when I announced to them that I found all these writing panels, they looked at me like, "is she nuts, or kidding...?" Sadly, I fit nicely into the nutty category. But oh well! :-) I got to attend, and that is the best part.

The authors offered absolute pearls of wisdom. For as long as I have been sending queries, it is only now that I have learned my story is sci fi with light romance. I thought it fit more into the paranormal genre, NOT SO MUCH! :-) I had been totally wrong. It seems the online sites for getting genre info. don't go into much detail.

For instance; I wrote about a person who can see ghosts, but because she doesn't interact with them and they are explained scientifically, the novel is sci fi. Another main part of the story is about falling in love, that is just not the main part. So romance is part of the genre,  just light romance.

I am so thankful to all the authors who worked with me this past weekend, thank you all so much! :-)

Picking a Genre

After many months of researching, I have decided that there are many different ways to market the same piece of literature...  At first, my story was based on high school students and I had planned on marketing it as YA.  But the age bracket just wasn't right for the subject matter, so I re-wrote over half the novel to fit college students just about to graduate and embark on the journey of adulthood.  This changed the genre to NA (New Adult for those of you who don't know what that is yet).

Here is where things get sticky...

My story has multiple components. For instance, a large part of the storyline is about things paranormal, and other parts (though they are in current times) are sci fi, and yet, these things do not make up the entire manuscript.  What it is mainly about is a character's journey of self discovery.  She is deciding who she wants to be in life.  The only catch is that the paranormal and sci fi events help her in her choices.

Since the story is about the college student dealing with day to day life as well, falling in love, rejection, graduation, jobs, places to live, friendship, doesn't this also make it fit the mainstream fiction category?

HELP! :-)

Agents and books on writing classify my novel differently.  Just depending on what they see in it...  Does anyone have any ideas?