Diana J. Gabaldon'd books contain elements of romantic ficiton, historic fiction, mystery, adventure, and science fiction.
Linda S. Howington is a best-selling romance/suspense author under her pseudonym Linda Howard.
Jude Deveraux has written stories set in post-Revolutionary America, nineteenth century Colorado, and nineteenth century New Mexico. She has written several time-travel romances, and her latest novels have had a contemporary setting. Many of her more recent books feature paranormal storylines.
Julie Garwood is the writerof over twenty-five romance novels in both the historical and suspense sub-genres.
What I noticed is that they’re not writing straight romance novels, they’ve taken this genre into lots of other areas: the hottest one at the moment still is vampires and the paranormal, but also suspense, mystery, adventure, science fiction and more.
Laura Kinsale, another top writer in the romance field, says it this way on her site: “A romance novel can be more. More fascinating characters than you ever anticipated. More unexpected depth. Emotion to engage your heart and your mind. Stories that keep you awake and words you will remember long after you close the book.”
You can see this happening in other genres, too. The old rule that you should avoid this because the bookshops won’t know where to shelve your book is disappearing as fast as the bookshops themselves.
It’s still a benefit to be known for writing in one genre, but within that you have much more leeway these days, and that has to be good news for writers as well as for readers.
(The things that make for a good story apply to every genre, and the people who knew how to create a great story spilled the beans. I've assembled those beans, er, that writing advice, in Your Creative Writing Masterclass, published by Nicholas Brealeay. You can get it from Amazon and other booksellers right now.)
