The Courage to Experiment with Genre

“Stay in your lane” sounds like sensible advice when you’re trying to find readers. But what happens when your story refuses to stay in one?

In this Indie Life contribution, Kendra Pecci shares the journey behind Focus on Deception and how indie publishing finally gave her the freedom to tell Stella Meyers’ story her way. Sometimes the answer isn't choosing the right lane. Sometimes it is building your own.

“Stay in your lane!”

We’ve all heard the advice. Pick your genre carefully, because once you publish in one genre, that’s where you’ll be for your entire career. Write books that meet genre expectations, because if you break convention, readers will turn on you (read: give you the dreaded one-star review).

In a world where everyone is competing for attention, it helps when readers can trust they’ll get their happily ever after in a romance, a ticking time bomb in a thriller, or a mystery to solve in a whodunit.

Sticking to genre conventions makes marketing easier. And since nothing else about writing is easy, staying in our lane feels like something we should do.

The Trouble with Conforming

I struggled for years to choose what genre would best suit my story about Stella Meyers, a single mom living a double life: PTA mom by day, thief by night. I originally wrote the novel as women’s fiction, emphasizing her budding romance, her relationship with her mentor, and the tough choice she makes to break her own rules to help a friend.

I queried the book in 2011 and received multiple full manuscript requests, but no agent offered to represent me. The feedback consistently told me the story was a thriller. Raise the stakes. Put her daughter at risk. Put in the ticking time bomb. Then send it again.

My heart sank. Stella would never put her daughter at risk; that’s not who she was. I didn’t want to make the stakes personal and destroy her world. Instead, I shelved the manuscript and stopped pursuing publication for over a decade.

Finally, desperate to get Stella’s story into the world, I heeded the experts’ advice and rewrote the book as a thriller. I gave Stella Meyers a terrifying problem with global consequences, and only she could solve it. It was a page-turner, full of tension and drama that kept you guessing who did it until the end.

The result? I hated it.

Raising the stakes improved the story, but the new version lacked the context and nuance I wanted to explore: what might happen if a woman—even a criminal—kept that part of herself despite being a mom. I wanted to talk about the reason she chose this double life, how it sustained her. And I knew no one would ever empathize with Stella if they never saw her succeeding as a thief before I pulled the rug out from under her.

It was probably better suited for traditional publication in that form, but it wasn’t the story I wanted to tell. I never queried that version, and I almost gave up on publishing.

Indie Publishing Empowers Writers

That’s when the lightbulb went off, and I made the decision to indie publish Focus on Deception. I’d never considered it before, having grown up with traditional publishing as the only option. I feared I might not feel like a “real” writer, or readers might dismiss it because I’d published it myself.

With indie publishing, I could write Stella’s story the way I wanted, even if it was difficult to know how to shelve it.

I had a tough conversation with Stella and let her know I was about to cross a line and put her daughter at risk. In the end we agreed this was the only way to tell her story, and Stella made me promise not to make her look stupid. The risk had to come from outside, not her ignorance.

The final version of the novel begins as women’s fiction, showing Stella succeeding as a thief, being a friend and mother, with a new romance on the horizon. Then it shifts to a psychological thriller with a villain who preys on Stella, and finishes as a thriller with an explosive plot that keeps you turning pages to the very end.

Now readers get to know Stella, and understand what it costs her when everything goes wrong. Indie publishing was the best decision I ever made.

Setting Expectations

As an indie author, you choose what to write and how to write it. Once you write your story, your job shifts to marketing. Here again we are empowered as indie authors: we control the messaging.

Market your book to set reader expectations. Write a blurb that finds readers who will love your story, and repels ones that won’t. Send your newsletter and announce to your fans you’ve got something different for them.

I market Focus on Deception as Women’s Suspense. The blurb shows the story has romance, motherhood, heists, and a blackmailer who turns Stella’s world upside down. And it’s working! Reviewer R. Liles said it perfectly, “It had a little bit of everything including suspense, romance, family and friendship.”

Readers appreciate the full version of Stella’s life, the in-depth look at her life of crime and her role as mother and friend. They like the romance and the PTA moms who drive Stella insane. They gladly go on the ride with me and never look back.

Make Your Own Lane

“Stay in your lane!” can be good advice. Readers love romance stories with a happily ever after or thrillers with a ticking time bomb. And publishers can market those books easily.

But indie authors don’t have to follow convention. We control the writing, the publication and the marketing.

It took three versions of Focus on Deception to finally tell Stella’s story in a way that pleased me, Stella, and readers. And it only happened because I chose to indie publish.

Have the courage to write the story you want to write, the way you want to write it. Build your own lane.

About the Author

Kendra Pecci lives for the thrill, both on the page and in real life. She writes Women's Suspense novels for readers who love complex, independent heroines who live life on their own terms.

Focus on Deception is available on Amazon, KU, or can be ordered anywhere books are sold.

Website: www.kendrapecci.com
Social Media: @Author_Kendra_Pecci on Threads, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok

Closing Note

Kendra’s story is a powerful reminder that genre can be useful without becoming a cage. Readers need to know what kind of experience they are stepping into, but authors also need room to follow the story where it wants to go.

Sometimes the most interesting books are the ones that refuse to fit perfectly into a single category.

Maybe the real challenge isn't staying in your lane. Maybe it is having the courage to create one that feels like your own.