 Fantasy: October 01, 2014 Issue [#6580] |
  Fantasy
This week: Subgenre Slaw Edited by: Jay's debut novel is out now!  
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These aren't the editorials you're looking for.
(sorry. Guest editor here. Can't help myself.)
This month:
Subgenre Slaw
I fought the slaw and the slaw won, or: how to make multiple genres cohesive to strengthen your fantasy fiction-- part one. |
| ASIN: B01FST8A90 |
Product Type: Toys & Games
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Amazon's Price: $ 24.95
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So, recently, I've spent some time ruminating on the divide between many genres and subgenres.
Not quite like we do "genre" on here-- the "genre" suggestions on Writing.Com are sometimes genres and sometimes more like styles, or themes, or other descriptors rather than "genres" per se. (Dark, say, is a great specification that isn't really a specific genre so much as it is a descriptor added for accuracy in categorizing mood and so on. One of the cool things about WdC.  )
For those of us writing and reading speculative fiction (as opposed to literary fiction), the divide is somewhat inexact-- often our fiction is simply called "genre" fiction and nothing more. On the other hand, within genre, it can be equally confusing to take apart the different sub-classifications and give them some kind of meaning. It's definitely possible to compartmentalize a genre book down so far as to get perhaps overly specific.
And then there's what I sort of jokingly think of as the Subgenre Slaw, which is where that awesome cross-pollination starts to occur. This is where I think a lot of the most innovative and interesting things come from. In particular, I think it is awesome to use unexpected genre combinations to get surprising results.
Just looking at the books on my coffee table (and shelf, and desk... Yeah I have a book problem) I can see a whole bunch of interesting mash-ups. Take science fiction, horror, and ghost stories and you have Adam Christopher's The Burning Dark. Alternate history, zombies, politics? Cherie Priest's Boneshaker. Detective noir, dark fantasy, with a healthy dollop of weird-- Jeff Vandermeer's Finch. Action-adventure heists with dragons in them? Steven Brust and his myriad Vlad Taltos books. You get the picture. 
Clearly, these genres work well together. What other collisions of genre have you enjoyed?
Next month, I want to talk more about how to use the Subgenre Slaw to add a little more depth in your own genre work. Until then,
Take care and Write on!
~jay |
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| Well, since this is the first of a two-parter, I don't have any feedback this time around, but I'm looking forward to coming back next month! I look forward to hearing from you. |
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