Writing Meme Day 8
8. What's your favorite genre to write? To read?
This is a fun question!
I like mixing and bending genres. I've never been that grounded in any genre, either as a reader or a writer. I like wholly realistic fiction (I'm counting identical septuplets as "wholly realistic" in this context; no magic was involved anyway) and I also like magical stories. I've never been a big fan of traditional fantasy -- what I tend to call "medieval fantasy"; though I adored Lord of the Rings because of the themes, I don't feel compelled to go read more stories about worlds like Middle Earth. I'd rather seek out stories that have "ringbearers" like Frodo; that's what really got me about that story. But yeah, as far as fantasy goes, I prefer "contemporary fantasy," where it's set in a world much like ours but that has a slight fantastic twist that serves to emphasize something that can be still be applied to the real world.
But yeah, actually, though I like this question, I dislike genres a lot because it feels like you have to make your story fit into a predefined niche in order to market it. I think that discourages a lot of creativity and twists on stories. That's unfortunate.
A fun mix of genres comes into play in my World's Fair story. I hope I can just call it literary fiction and be done with it, and I do think the literary fiction world would have a place for it. But it has historical fiction, a modern-day segment that feels kind of YA-ish but isn't aimed at that audience in particular, and a sci-fi future in it, and all of it ties together. (Or I hope it will eventually, anyway.) Someone who would like one segment might not like another...but the work of David Mitchell (Cloud Atlas, Ghostwritten) gives me hope in this respect. Cloud Atlas has segments that are completely unrelated, genre-wise. (It makes fun of several different genre stereotypes, actually. I was super-impressed with the author's ability to pull that off!)
Altitude is a story that will be seen as fantasy -- and indeed, it IS contemporary fantasy -- but (like a lot of fantasy, really, especially Pullman's His Dark Materials) it's fantasy that's meant to be a direct commentary on real world issues. Allegory rather than escapism, you know? But yeah, that's true about a lot of fantasy.
As for what I read, I read almost everything. Fiction, nonfiction, literary fiction, popular fiction, political drama, political analysis, science writing, science fiction, history, historical fiction, memoir, psychology, ancient Greek drama, kid lit, et cetera, et cetera.
Anyway, I hope I can write stories that pull at will from whatever genre they wish in the future.
Time to run and catch a bus now.
This is a fun question!
I like mixing and bending genres. I've never been that grounded in any genre, either as a reader or a writer. I like wholly realistic fiction (I'm counting identical septuplets as "wholly realistic" in this context; no magic was involved anyway) and I also like magical stories. I've never been a big fan of traditional fantasy -- what I tend to call "medieval fantasy"; though I adored Lord of the Rings because of the themes, I don't feel compelled to go read more stories about worlds like Middle Earth. I'd rather seek out stories that have "ringbearers" like Frodo; that's what really got me about that story. But yeah, as far as fantasy goes, I prefer "contemporary fantasy," where it's set in a world much like ours but that has a slight fantastic twist that serves to emphasize something that can be still be applied to the real world.
But yeah, actually, though I like this question, I dislike genres a lot because it feels like you have to make your story fit into a predefined niche in order to market it. I think that discourages a lot of creativity and twists on stories. That's unfortunate.
A fun mix of genres comes into play in my World's Fair story. I hope I can just call it literary fiction and be done with it, and I do think the literary fiction world would have a place for it. But it has historical fiction, a modern-day segment that feels kind of YA-ish but isn't aimed at that audience in particular, and a sci-fi future in it, and all of it ties together. (Or I hope it will eventually, anyway.) Someone who would like one segment might not like another...but the work of David Mitchell (Cloud Atlas, Ghostwritten) gives me hope in this respect. Cloud Atlas has segments that are completely unrelated, genre-wise. (It makes fun of several different genre stereotypes, actually. I was super-impressed with the author's ability to pull that off!)
Altitude is a story that will be seen as fantasy -- and indeed, it IS contemporary fantasy -- but (like a lot of fantasy, really, especially Pullman's His Dark Materials) it's fantasy that's meant to be a direct commentary on real world issues. Allegory rather than escapism, you know? But yeah, that's true about a lot of fantasy.
As for what I read, I read almost everything. Fiction, nonfiction, literary fiction, popular fiction, political drama, political analysis, science writing, science fiction, history, historical fiction, memoir, psychology, ancient Greek drama, kid lit, et cetera, et cetera.
Anyway, I hope I can write stories that pull at will from whatever genre they wish in the future.
Time to run and catch a bus now.