Pseudonyms and Genres

As I might have mentioned, I am published under a different name (in a different genre - historical) and this has made me think quite a lot about the issue of identity. Not about deep and meaningful subjects like existentialism and ontology, but about the nature of why writers publish different genres under different pen-names.

In my case, I suppose I wanted to keep the genres very clearly separate both when published and in my mind. Others have said that if you write romance and then all of a sudden publish a graphic horror novel, you will alienate both readerships. I'm not sure if this is true or not, and might experiment with it at some stage to see if it is the case.

Pseudonyms are also a way of allowing an author to reach different audiences independent of one's previous work. Stephen King did this when he published under the name Richard Bachman, and it's probably what J. K. Rowling should have done when she published The Casual Vacancy.

My favourite genre is scifi-horror, growing up as I did on a diet of The Invaders and The Twilight Zone, and it is with a sincere affection that I try to add to the genre. I do have other interests, stemming from academic work I have done, and this is why I have published some historical fiction, and I think I will probably publish more, if I can, over the years.

Another genre I love from a "reader" (or viewer) perspective is crime, and I am really keen to give it a go, but I find I have trouble with this genre. I have tried many times to write a crime novel and they have all ended in failure. Part of the issue for me is that the American new wave of crime fiction introduced too much emphasis on science and forensics and also a weird obsession with serial killers and graphic violence, especially towards women, presumably citing Hammett and Chandler as forefathers.

What puts me off this genre now is that the nature of the crime has changed. Once, a murder was sufficient, or a blackmailing, and then good writing and an interesting plot was enough, but now everything has to be about a conspiracy, usually at government level. Also, where once a murder against an individual sufficed, now the crime must be against society - a mass serial killer, a trafficking ring, etc. It's no longer good enough for a murder investigation to play out at a golf course - no, now they must play out on a much broader canvas and take in several countries and usually have strong elements of organised crime.

I'm not sure why this is. It goes back to our old friend the conspiracy theory, whose salience in fiction I have promised to write about before and do so again here. It's no longer enough for the vicar to have killed the organist because he was being blackmailed for stealing the charity money. Now the vicar has to have killed the organist because he saw him holding a black mass with the French President as part of a secret society whose goal WILL CHANGE THE WORLD FOREVER. etc etc.

So, with this in mind, I'm not sure if me and the crime genre are suited to each other. I respect and enjoy the stories of Conan Doyle and Christie (famously hated by critics of course), also Simenon whose Maigret books are very good, although I have only read the French versions and perhaps this lends an exotic feel to them that is not present in the translations. But I still harbour a dream to write a crime novel...