Sarcasm is lost on cats . . .

Frodo, the wonder kitty

Our cat Frodo likes to jump up into the bathroom sink whenever we turn on the spigot to stick her paws in the water. It's a bad habit we indulge by, in fact, turning on the water for her. Then, to communicate the pain and suffering she's causing us by hogging up the sink, my husband and I say things like:

"We hope we're not getting in your way, Frodo, trying to brush our teeth."

Something clever like that. Clever, perhaps. Effective, no. Sarcasm isn't an effective way to communicate when your audience is a housecat.

Sometimes as writers we forget the audience we're writing for. Much as we don't like to be constrained by formulas--I don't write formulaic romance, I always say--if we want to be published, conformity might be a smarter course of action than writing something that isn't easily categorized, then wondering why it's not readily publishable.

As part of their course work for the MFA in Creative Writing at Wilkes University, some of former classmates closely analyzed books in different genres to observe the use of technique or other literary element such as character. Such an intense examination can be very useful in helping to discover how the book you're writing either conforms, betters, of verges too far afield from the body of work in that genre or sub-genre.

I find revision the equivalent of a mental triathlon. Yet, in order to make a couple books ready to shop, I'll need to consider what category into which they can and should be slotted, rewriting them and their queries accordingly.

Because sarcasm is lost on cats.