On Writing Fanfic Part 7: Romancing the Genre

[tsukinofaerii]

Genre is one of those places where fanfiction differs most sharply from published fiction. By its nature, published fiction has standardized genres. In Fandom, we tend to create genres on demand, creating a vast maze of options that mostly have to be intuited. For all of that, there seems to be surprisingly little focus on genre division. This

Comments

[anonymous]

I thought this could be interesting but unfortunately, this runs on the thought process that if you blend two nice things together in the food processor, you'll get something nice and worthwhile.

lol

And you're terribly lacking in ethos in general.

Don't bother responding, because you're not dumb, you know where to find me (and by that, I mean my physical address...yeah, that takes off quite a bit of the ring)

[tsukinofaerii]

I can't believe I'm taking this seriously, but... Just a few things.

1) You fail reading comprehension. Encouragement to try mixed-genre is not the same thing as "all genres go great with all other genres".

2) Look up "ethos" before using it in a sentence please. Especially when using it in a sentence which is attempting to be insulting.

3) No one I know both IRL on and LJ is weasely enough to be this asshole-ish behind my back. All of the assholes I know would say this to my face, and would own their words.

4) STFU please. (tips hat)

[muccamukk]

I was solmnly swearing that I wasn't going to comment first this time, because I always comment first, and it makes me look like such a fan girl. (Or rather narcissistic, given the lovely shout out above).

I think, in the future, I shall just risk looking like a fan girl. Because you're putting a lot of work into these, and I really do appreciate them.

I'm trying to decide if I ever choose a genre before I start. I guess I've done cyperpunk a couple of times, but they all seem to turn into Weirdly-Humorous Action/Adventure Romances no matter what I do. Unless I'm writing gen. Then they're just Weirdly-Humorous Action/Adventures. And they all seem to have evil wizards in them. Maybe that's why I'm having such a hard time getting this latest fic launched: no evil wizards.

I liked the break down of subgenres. I hadn't seen that clearly explained before.

Valtyr has suggested I put unionised ceteceans in my A-Team bildungsroman. What genres/tropes would those be crossing?

[tsukinofaerii]

lol You always comment first because you are fast! ♥ But I'm happy to put it together. :D

You could designate an evil wizard? It's just that it's an undercover wizard, Undercover even from the readers!

... Okay, I've got nothing.

Generally, I end up picking genre first if I'm doing something very specific-Halloween stories, fluffy pairing fic, Srs Bsns fic, etc. Other than that, it just sort of happens. :o!

I was surprised that I couldn't find references for subgenre! D: I had to wing it! ONOZ!

...

(heads to Google to look up those words)

...

Depends on how you unionize? Pern has sentient dolphins, but they were the product of tech. Technically, you could use magic, but it's the A-Team... Talking Animal trope in a Coming of Age story...

(facepalm) Wait, I missed the obvious answer. Valtyr suggested it. That means it's crack by default.

[muccamukk]

It's the A-Team so I may just pretend that Hannibal is the evil wizard. Life is so much easier in comics fandom.

Well, Valtyr also prompted the unicorn one, which is admittedly cracky, but, I hope you will agree, is not total nonsense.

I take some amount of pride in making total crack ideas into Weirdly-Humorous Action/Adventure Romances.

[valtyr]

All lies. I told you of a fic with a cetacean union in it, and you declared you wanted an A-Team crossover. I was just present.

I would be very awesome, though. I want Underwater BA.