Are there any topics unsuitable for a novel?

[jeffjohns]

Just asking for curiosity more than anything more concrete but are there topics or themes that a novel should stay away from?

I can’t think of anything off the top of my head but are there any?

[Matthew Brown]

The very short answer is: No. There are no unsuitable topics.

The longer answer is that it depends on your readership. If you have invested the time building up a following you should be aware of the hard limits of the readership.

[Jason Latnar]

What’s a hard limit?

[Matthew Brown]

A fandom has two types of limits.

A soft limit is something that will upset, offend, or annoy the fandom. They will complain and post angry blog posts about how this is the worst thing ever. However, they will still tune in each week. We see this in action almost every time we get a new doctor in Doctor Who.

A hard limit is something that will make the fandom walk away and never come back. For example, if the Doctor Who writers decided to kill off the doctor and turn the show into a slice of life police procedural without any aliens, time travel, or monsters at all.

If you have written a series of children’s adventure stories and fancy writing an erotic adventure the chances are you would be better off publishing it under an entirely different name to avoid killing the sales of your children’s books. That would be an example of a hard limit.

[Jason Latnar]

That makes sense. Thanks for sharing.

[jeffjohns]

That is what I thought. I had to check though. Just to be sure… Sometimes I have wild hot doubts about all sorts of things.

[Bob Bobson]

It depends on the type of novel you want to write and who you think will read it. Handled in a sensitive way almost anything can go into a story. Anything at all.

[Author]

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