I’ve had so little discussion with other people about my writing that when people actually show interest or ask general questions, I either get super excited and talk until long after they stop caring or I have no idea how to respond. Primarily, I write for myself, and so when it comes to explaining anything to other people or addressing the “theory” of my work, I don’t quite know how to explain/discuss it.

The most common question I get is “What genre is it?” and it’s always met with me fumbling and stumbling over my words trying to figure out what box to put it in for them. It wasn’t until going to university that I thought about what kind of genre I write in or that my works are in, and the only time I have ever sat down with the thought “this is the genre I’m writing in” was for an assignment for my genre class. I very much write how I what and what I want, which made it hard to work with writing theory when I started the degree. I had a huge complex about the work no longer being mine or in my style, if I have to force/conform it to another style. I still don’t believe that I have to write a certain way because the way I write currently is part of me, but I do understand the importance of studying writing theory and knowing when to cater to the rules.

“What genre is it?”

I never used to know what genre I wrote in because I felt like I was writing in a lot of different categories and so I would often say “a little bit of this” and “a little bit of that”. From what I know currently, my favourite genres to produce work in are fantasy and magic realism. Though I still don’t sit down with a genre in mind, these are definitely my “go-to” genres because I have always enjoyed writing stories that fall under those two categories. I love worlds that I completely bloom on my own, but I also like twisting the real world slightly to write in.

I’m not afraid to tack on a few different genres when I explain a piece to someone. One of my recent works is called BNE and I describe it as “historical fantasy that starts in the present”. I usually have to explain it a bit more to people but I no longer fret over whether I should describe it as “historical” or “fantasy”. Genres overlap all of the time and I really don’t know why I thought I had to pin it to one category.

It is interesting to think about what genres I write in, and also important when looking into what audiences my work will suit (my biggest problem with audience is that I always toe the line between PG and M). Studying genre and thinking about it a lot more than before has really helped show me what I’m comfortable to write in and what I haven’t really explored. I’m not shifting my focus to write in the genres I don’t usually write in, but I’m thinking of ways to start dabbling in them to gain more awareness of the different genres and practice writing in a larger variety. Many of my works might have elements of romance or history or horror etc. but they generally focus on the magic realism/fantasy. I want to explore different forms and genres of writing and try my hand at most of them, without resorting to burying it underneath fantasy or magic realism. By that, I don’t mean I can’t write a romance novel with fantasy, but I mean that I have a tendency to just shift back to what I’m comfortable with whereas I should be exploring other genres properly and trying to give my best with them.

Something like romance has been hard for me to try and do in the past because I look at the romance genre as “romance focused” (I know that sounds stupid but bear with me) and for me, a story that literally just revolves about a romantic affair sounds like the most boring thing ever. I’m sure this just stems from my lack of reading in the romance genre (although, ironically, I love Shoujo manga, even though I hate romance novels). or maybe I’ve just started off on the wrong foot with romance novels and didn’t look at the better ones. If Sense and Sensibility is romance, then I enjoyed that. But I’ve always thought the romance was the sub-genre and didn’t really care about it in terms of being swept off my feet by the… I don’t know where I’m going with that, but I think you get what I mean. Sense and Sensibility was a sassy drama where I just wanted Elinor to be happy! I literally didn’t care about anything else in the novel except Elinor. I just wanted people to stop making her life hard, I didn’t even really care about who she ended up with, the romance part was one of the worst parts.

I’ve just Googled it and Sense and Sensibility is indeed a romance novel, which does make sense when I remember more than just wanting to scream at Marianne. I persevered with that novel because I wanted Elinor’s happy ending (I had vowed to burn the book if there wasn’t one for her). I think my idea of romance is a lot narrower than what it actually is due to commercial romance novels that I don’t enjoy (or just hate the idea of). There seems to be a lot of conflicting ideas about what the genre is, I think I might just leave it alone for now. If this post is coherent, at least know that the path of writing it wasn’t. There have been so many points where I’ve had to pull up Google for the same question because I realise the more I write about it the less I know.

In short, if you ask me what genre I write in, I might stutter. I’m getting better at reflecting on genre in theory and practice but there are still so many things that make me just blink and go “huh?”

For now, I am comfortable in fantasy and magic realism, adding a dash of other genres into the mix and hoping the cake bakes nicely. There are hundreds of ways to make a cake and even more ways to write a book.

Thank you for bearing with me until the end of this chaotic thought process. Until next time, happy writing!