I was just courious whether or not any of you write in one specific genre only, or if you write any story that you think has potential? I ask because someone once told me that I should stick to one or two genres to sharpen my skills in those fields, but I didn't take his advice. I don't limit myself to one genre. As long as I like the story idea I have I write it (or attempt to write it) no matter what the genre is. What are some of your thoughts on this?
Posted by Spaceman (Member # 9240) on :
Write what you want to write, otherwise you'll kill your muse. You'll sharpen your skills with whatever you write. the genre question isn't one of writing, it's marketing. That's another topic.
Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :
I started and stuck with science fiction because I read science fiction. "Read" should be past tense---I read (present tense) a lot less of it than I used to, and a lot of that old stuff to boot. But I read (past and present tense) a lot of other stuff, and sometimes wonder whether I should try my hand at some of that.
But I'm not compelled to write anything else the way my brain compels me to write science fiction...
Posted by ChrisOwens (Member # 1955) on :
Does SF&F count as one genre?
[This message has been edited by ChrisOwens (edited January 10, 2007).]
Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :
Well, they've always been kinda lumped together as a marketing concept...I grasped "science fiction" right away, but was reading "fantasy" before I grasped the difference. (It was, oh, almost two years before I realized there were other magazines besides Analog.)
I'd have to say they're more or less a two-in-one genre. But debate would really stretch this topic away from what genre somebody should or shouldn't try to write in.
Posted by RillSoji (Member # 1920) on :
I'm pretty stuck on SF&F. Can't get enough of it, can't write enough of it. It lets me make up things!
Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :
The problem with genre isn't one of writing skills, but of general knowledge. It's true that SF/F writing is going to make greater demands of your exposition skills, Romance is going to stretch your vocabulary of terms describing intimacy, Westerns or other period fiction will require a great deal of factual knowledge about the chosen setting, and so on. But each of these skills is useful in all the genres. A total incapability in any of them will definitely hurt your fiction, no matter what genre you choose.
Genre is a market division. Generally the people who buy SF have already read a good bit of SF, Romance readers buy lots of romance novels, the same is true of any other genre. The primary market for each devotes a good chunk of their leisure time to reading different stories set in that genre. This means that they know a lot about what is part of the genre and, just as importantly, what isn't part of the genre.
The most immediate danger for SF and Fantasy is the total cliche story idea handled by someone who has no idea that it's ever been done before. The more likely danger for some of the other genres is complete failure to grasp the intangible basics of the genre. Both dangers can only be avoided in one way, you have to become a serious part of the audience for the kind of story you're telling. Moving from the catagory of "I once read a romance novel I liked" to "I've read a lot of romance novels" realistically involves reading hundreds of romance novels. I might have an idea for a story that seems like a romance to me, but I'm not going to read a hundred books I'll find fundamentally boring just so I can sell it to a real romance market. I'll just toss the romance in as a sub-plot of my post-apocalyptic SF novel.
Oh, horrors, I've diluted the genre. It's not "pure" SF if my characters develop human feelings for each other. Serenity is a western because...um, something about guitar music and being set in a post-civil war era. Whatever. Just as you use all the different writing skills in each genre, you can tell any story in the genre with which you personally are most familiar. Odds are, it will end up in that genre anyway unless you make a conscious effort to avoid it.
Don't make that effort, it will only hurt the story you really care about.
And why would you be doing it anyway? To help you fit in better to a genre with which you probably have little experience as a reader. Which leaves you flying blind with respect to things that just about any fan of that genre could tell you, and which they will tell you when you try to sell them your book. Or, more likely, they'll just not buy your book.
Basically, the thing to avoid is trying to aim at any particular genre at all. You should just write a story that you would like to read. Every time. Which may be what you were suggesting, but it's hardly a new idea.
Posted by luapc (Member # 2878) on :
Fiction is fiction. If it's a good story idea, I write it, and worry about where it fits later. If it's unsellable after it's done, then so be it. Honing writing skills has nothing to do with sticking to a particular genre. Writing and reading are the only way to improve writing skills for fiction, in my opinion. The more you write and read, the better you'll get, and the more diverse the subjects and genres, the more diverse your writing will become. So embrace the differences between genres and let them give you inspiration into unique fiction, because the story is really all that matters.
Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :
I've heard several accounts of writers who "wrote what comes naturally" and then were afterwards accused of writing science fiction. (Kurt Vonnegut comes to mind, though I thought his account was a little disingenuous.)
I'm not sure I buy into that theory. I wrote science fiction because it's what I read [past tense again]...as far as I knew, then or now, it was science fiction because it was published by science fiction editors.