In 199X, I sent a story into Marion Zimmer Bradley’s then-prestigious fantasy magazine. I eventually got back a form rejection notice with a handwritten note from the Great One herself, explaining, “Werewolves are done, over. No werewolf fics, please. Same goes for vampires.”
I take a little comfort that the Paranormal Romance explosion was a few short years away then, and it would herald a tectonic shift in reading and publishing. I love PNR for that. I hate PNR for that, and I’ll get to my reasons why soon.
Granted, my story sucked. I still have it, and yes, it does suck. But my biggest problem with that rejection letter? There were no werewolves or vampires in the story. One shapeshifter not remotely human or lupine, running around in a world that wasn’t Earth.
Fast forward two decades or so. PNR has dug itself deep into the SFF and romance readerships, and for good reason. But it’s also a victim of its own success, especially regarding shapeshifting characters.
They’re a genre unto themselves. They are an avalanche. Some are extremely well-written and fun. Some are just tedious trope-fodder. No matter what real or imagined animal/alien species they might become when they’re not slumming as humans…they all get lumped into the reader-writer-agent-publisher hivemind as…
Werewolf.
I blogged about this a little over a year ago.
So when someone tells me “Sorry, shapeshifting is just not my passion”, I have to sympathize. I understand.
The shapeshifters of romance have stolen the thunder from the shapeshifters of SFF, in much the same way that Twilight’s glittery Vampire 3.0 trivialized into automatic parody the vampires of Victorian and Pulp days.
My own attitude as a reader has probably contributed minutely to that shift. I write a few shapeshifters, and I still can’t stop my little internal whine whenever I now see another writer’s were-creature book. Because I’m also probably thinking, “Oh god, not another werewolf story.” A terrible disservice to some amazing writers I’ve met and/or read, across the years.
So to remind myself once more: Fur + Paws + Sentience still doesn’t equal Werewolf.
“Fur + Paws + Sentience still doesn’t equal Werewolf.”
LOL and then it does. Have you ever read Eve Langlais Freakin’ Shifter series? So much fun!
I have not. I’ll check them out. But I have to be honest, the subgenre has become so bloated that I’m gunshy and really picky about contemporary shifters in romance. Beta read too much awful contemporary shifter romance and AU fanfic over the years. I have a test: I look for an explanation – any explanation! – of the conservation of mass and energy. Even in fantasy. If the author can’t even bother with that, I tend not to read more.
Thank you for posting your insights, as I believe they are quite timely. I’m currently pitching the first (and drafting the second!) in a three-book adult urban fantasy series about a female werecat living in modern day Chicago. With her Navy career in ruins she goes underground to foil a plot to kidnap her family and frame the male human lover she is forced to leave behind.
I’m reading on a number of agent websites “no vampires, no werewolves” or “show us something different” (speaking of urban fantasy). I had thought “werecat” was different enough but in light of your assertions above I’m now not so sure. Got a few nibbles early on this past Twitter pitch season but the last couple pitch parties have yet to yield likes. Several standard slush pile and pitch party requested queries are still outstanding, though.
A number have either been rejected or the allotted “no response means no” time has passed. Trying to gauge the commercial potential of a work like mine, especially whether publishers and the agents who work with them intend to sell to said market. I know my book’s audience out there and I will find them. Figuring out whether publishers/agents are interested in same will weigh heavily into future consideration whether to self-publish. Thank you in advance for whatever thoughts you’re willing to share!
MJE
To get an idea how swamped the Paranormal Romance and Erotic Romance fields are with shapeshifter characters, you only need to take a look at this article from 2012, over on Heroes and Heartbreakers. Their point was that there are a lot of non-werewolf shapeshifters. Three to four years later, there are even more…some to the point of absurdity (and well beyond.)
The situation is scarcely different in more mainstream SFF. That’s *why* agents are rolling their eyes. You and I are in the same difficulty, if we want to showcase any kinds of shapeshifting characters: if the field is swamped, we have to really focus on our writing. This has two beneficial results. It can lift our work above at least 90% of the rest of the slushpile, possibly convincing agents and editors along the way. And if/when we turn to self-publishing, we’ve created a product that is worlds better than a lot of other self-published authors who didn’t hone their skills.
It’s then that self-marketing kicks in, which is something I’m still learning.