  Fantasy
This week: Melding Subgenres 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:
Melding Subgenres
Making different genres work together! Continued from part one.
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So, continuing from last month, let's look at some more ways to combine genres within fantasy and other speculative stories.
Romance
Well, there are lots of ways to combine romantic elements into fantasy and science fiction without necessarily making the story into a fully romance-focused piece. For me, the distinction is that the focus of the story is still something other than the romance-- that the romantic elements are like a seasoning which helps to round out the characters and make them more believable and real.
In fantasy and other speculative fiction, it's my opinion that you want to be cautious about the various "tropes" which can creep up in your work, and romantic elements can be especially rife with cliched interpretations which should be retired. (Among them the well-intended but tired "princess in need of rescue" and "dashing prince to save the day," for example.) Find fresh ways to incorporate these elements which feel true to your characters. And no copouts here-- just because it's easy to write to a stereotype or old characterization doesn't mean it's a good idea.
Mystery
To me, mystery, like action and adventure, goes hand in hand with fantasy and speculative fiction. More so than in some other genres, we read speculative fiction looking for answers-- And often those answers are surprising and unexpected revelations about what it is like to be ourselves. Use elements of mystery as part of your worldbuilding to help draw the reader in and keep them involved in the story. Slowly revealing more information as the story goes on has the added benefit of creating intrigue.
Additionally, you can use elements of mystery -- whether procedural, or whodunit, or so on -- as part of the overall story structure. You can set a mystery in many different contexts, and fantasy is no exception. Again, this is a place to be cautious about stereotypes and tropes, but it's also very rewarding to find ways to incorporate plot elements from a wide range of sources.
Horror
I'll point out that I personally believe horror to be a subset of speculative fiction, but it also works exceptionally well as a subgenre for other types of speculative fiction. There are elements of mystery there as well, too, though they're less pronounced. In my view, creeping dread, paranoia, and the unknown can add a lot to a fantasy or science fiction story. Tied in with the desire to 'solve' the mysterious elements is some fear, and that can be an important emotion to evoke in your readers.
One trap to avoid here is that if you overuse these elements, it may scare off shyer readers who may not want to delve too deeply into the eldritch, but if it's what your story merits, I say, go for it! Find ways to use your readers' emotions-- we read in order to charge our emotions, do we not?
What others might you suggest for our readers? I'll be back as a guest on this newsletter in December and I'd love to continue the conversation then!
Until next time,
Take care and Write on!
~jay
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Feedback from "Subgenre Slaw" !
Elfin Dragon-finally published writes:
In this particular newsletter you asked, " What other collisions of genre have you enjoyed?". I think the most interesting "slaw" I've enjoyed had to come from Robert Heinlein who wrote "Job: A Comedy of Justice". That book was a strange mix of fantasy, science fiction, religion, politics, and I'm not sure what else. But he made it work.
Ha, yes, Heinlein was very good at tweaking existing genre expectations and adding in other flavors to keep things interesting!
Jeff  writes:
I adore the term "subgenre slaw!"  I'm always conflicted about subgenres and how much to classify my work. For some people just calling it "science fiction" (or "speculative fiction") is enough. But to others, they're like, "Yeah, but I mean, is it dystopian cyberpunk or post-apocalyptic splatterpunk?" And yeah, not all of the WdC genres are genres in the traditional sense. "I'm going to write a military story!" could mean a variety of different genres or approaches to the story.
oh, yeah! Many times the "genre" definitions on here are more "themes or settings" or other useful information, but it can be hard to nail an exact classification, sometimes. |
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Fantasy: October 29, 2014 Issue [#6633]
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