It’s A Genre Thing
Up until 2018 pretty much all I ever wrote was non-fiction. I must have written some stories at school but all I remember is at one stage being told off for only reading non fiction books. These were likely to have been about birds, horses, skiing, aircraft, cricket and science stuff. Nevertheless my teachers weren’t entirely happy.
Next came my apprenticeship for grown up life – seven years of university study, all the text books I had to read and all the essays, research papers and analyses that had to be written. While these were often hard and required a lot of research and thought, they were by and large enjoyable.
Then came the world of work! From writing articles on air traffic management systems through to airline emergency procedures, contracts and letters of advice. All of it non-fiction, but the element that I enjoyed most about my work.
Anyway, it was therefore something of a surprise and an unexpected pleasure, that just felt right, when in 2018 I started writing fiction again.
It all started with a challenge: I was supposed to be writing about technological advances in agriculture, but I literally kept falling asleep. I just wanted it done and while the research interested me the whole process of writing it down for my audience didn’t. So an editor suggested that I write it as a fiction piece as well. Now there was a challenge which just had the be taken up! It was harder than I thought but that’s good and meeting that challenge is all part of the enjoyment.
I have always enjoyed a broad palette of film, TV, theatre and novel genres but my own fiction has drifted towards mystery thrillers. I don’t actually know why, but does that really matter?
Reading and writing fiction is liberating, and I think this genre particularly so. Everything in life is a mystery just waiting to be explored. Everyone you meet or just see has something to hide, something to say, even if just in your own imagination, and it’s up to you to work it out and take your reader on the journey to resolution. How cool is that?
So tell me, what genres do you like to read the most? And, what’s your favourite thing about that genre? Let me know in the comments below.
Comments: 6
Both actually! Neither ‘most’. What I need most is my ‘searching’ intellect engaged, but the tome must have heaps of ‘colours’ in order to keep it so whether it is or it isn’t fact-based fiction or something altogether ‘else’.
A broad taste. Good to hear Griffin (or whoever you are – your email address is false).
Thrillers, murder/mystery, spy
I like the intrigue and trying to work out who did what to whom before being told. I like twists in the plot and the unexpected. It has to be well paced and the characters believable.
Hey Karen, nice to hear from you. A nice broad spectrum and yes, believable characters are the key to keeping those pages turning.
Hello Imogen;
I started with pure sci-fi, but shifted to fantasy after reading the Hobbit… with the exception of reading short stories and the books in my group for the 100 DB Challenge, I stuck with that genre. I do listen to some detective stories on audible and all the Jack Reacher stories (should be his own genre.) A recent new area I have enjoyed is a variation of Steam Punk called Gaslamp Fantasy, The Wayfarer, by KM Weiland, and the variation that includes the Grimnoir Chronicles by Larry Correia.
Hello Patrick,
One of the beauties of good fantasy is the ability to totally dissociate and scare oneself and know in the end that it’s all in the mind – that it can’t possibly be real!
Have you read any of Trudi Canavan’s trilogies? I particularly love the Black Magicians Guild and the Traitor Spy Trilogies. Totally immersive. Not yet dipped into Jack Reacher, but thanks for the reminder… definitely on the list.