Changing Genres; Spice
Up Your Writing:
Are you a writer? Or a lover of books? What genres speak to
you? What types of stories do you most like to read? When I was younger I loved
books about small town girls and older time periods. My two favorites were Anne
of Green Gables and Little House on the Prairie. When I was a bit older I
became a fan of the epic fantasy genre, The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, Harry
Potter, Narnia, The Pellinor series and The Golden Compass are some of my
favorites. When I started writing seriously again as an adult, it was this
fantasy genre that sparked my imagination. This is why I wrote my own fantasy,
The Elven Quest series. However, The Burden of Destiny: Elven Quest book 1 was
not the first novel that I had written. In high school while taking a creative
writing class I wrote my first novel, Benchman,
which was not fantasy, it was a coming of age story about a teenager in the
city that befriends an old man. It was hand written in the two notebooks shown
below. (Someday I’ll type it out and do something with it. 😊)
Now, I realize that it is a good thing not to always stick
to one genre but to try writing in different styles. However, if you are
publishing your books you may not necessarily want to publish every style and
every story you write, especially if you are well known for one specific genre.
But, I do think it stimulates different parts of your brain and imagination
when you try writing in different ways.
For a while now I have had a story idea
in my head that was actually inspired by a song. I hadn’t started writing it
because it was not in my fantasy genre, but one day I did sit down and write
it. I am part-way into it now and I have to say, it feels strange to not be
writing a fantasy story with the characters that are now like my own friends.
But it is not a bad strange feeling; it is more of an exciting strange feeling.
It is a bit of a challenge. I feel like I have no clue where these new
characters will take me or whether or not we will become friends, but I hope we
do. It makes me feel like I am shyly observing them from afar wondering if they
will invite me over to hang out with them. J I am interested to see
how their story ends. I also do not know whether this will become a full novel
or a novella but I feel like I am just going to wait and see where it leads.
I would also love at some point to write several short
series of children’s books, mostly because my son is three and he loves to read
and I would like him to read and enjoy “Mommy’s books” J is that selfish of me?
I just want to inspire him. I hope that he will continue to enjoy reading and
writing as much as I do. He has a fantastic imagination and I could see him
writing good books of his own someday.
I think for readers, at times it can be unnerving when you
see an author that you love for one specific style of books suddenly write
something else and you think, oh boy, I
don’t know…I love their writing but will I love this? It’s not the same.
That is always nerve wracking and sometimes you do love their new book, even
though it is different but sometimes you may think, yikes, stick to what you did well. Either way though, you have to
give a writer props for trying something new and putting themselves out on a
limb. It is not easy, at any time in life to step outside your comfort zone, so
do not look down on people when they have the guts to do it okay? I have three
examples of authors that did this and the books of theirs that I read. One was
Nicolas Sparks, he usually writes predictable romance novels and often they
have at least one death in them as well as love. I was very into his books for
a while. I used to read them as soon as they were published and I loved his
romantic style. Then one time he published a book called Three Weeks with My Brother, which was a true story about a trip
that he and his brother took together and it also discusses his family and how
he grew up a little bit. When I read the back of this book I had that wary
feeling, this was not a romance at all; it was a true story. Would I like it? I
wasn’t sure, but decided to give it a chance and I am glad I did. It ended up
being my favorite Nicolas Sparks book of all time.
The Second example is JK Rowling; she wrote a murder mystery
called The Cuckoo’s Calling using the
pseudonym name of Robert Galbraith. Generally, I like murder mystery novels, at
least a lot of the time I do, not always. When I found out that this book was
written by JK Rowling I was curious, I am a huge Potter fan, but how would she
handle a murder mystery? I bought it and read it and unfortunately was not a
fan. To me the story was too slow and the writing style was so different than
her other writing that it put me off, but as I said above, it was brave of her
to step out of her comfort zone and try something new so kudos to her anyway.
The final example that I will give is by novelist Stephen
King, he is extremely well known for his creepy horror stories and the movies and
miniseries based off of them. Personally I liked Rose Red the miniseries.
However, Stephen King also wrote the novella The Body, which was the inspiration for the coming of age movie,
(and one of my favorite movies,) Stand By
Me. Again, this is an example of someone writing a story that is outside of
their normal genre and I think that it worked in his case. The Body/Stand By Me, is a fantastic coming of age story, it makes
you laugh, cry and quote the lines. It also makes you want to call up your old
friends just to say “hi”. My favorite line from the movie is the last line, “The Writer: [typing on computer]
I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve. Jesus,
does anyone?”
So, for my writers out there, do you have experiences of
your own you can share? Have you ever tried stepping out of your comfort zone
and writing in a different style? I suggest trying it, even if you never show
it to anyone, it challenges you in a good way and helps to polish your writing
even more. And for the readers out there, what have you read by authors that you
loved that was different than their other writings and did you like it or not?
I am always impressed that the writers try regardless of the outcome. Until
next time dear readers remember, writing=happiness ;)).
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