The Genre Proposition

I realize that the delineation of genres can be a very complex thing. Because we live in a time where experimentation with genres is so broad, it can be quiet a task to really define a genre as singular.

Joss Whedon personified this perfectly with his “Firefly” series, where he took two unrelated genres and fused them together. Western Fiction and Science Fiction combined to make Wes-Sci (a name I just made up). This was one of the first major marriages of two genres so utterly different, yet, so beautifully merged.

Honestly, with the artistic freedom that we have today, we can take any two (or three… or four) genres and push them together in the juicer to see what kind of interesting brew we can concoct. Do you love Noir mystery AND high fantasy? Write a book about a medieval inquisitor investigating murders. There’s no one saying that you can’t.

Whatever you can make a good story out of, you can combine. Of course, there are some that will be very (very) difficult to combine. For instance, I don’t think that a vampire romance piece would work well in space.

But, heck, if you think that it sounds like a doable project, give it a go and prove me wrong.

In any case, because of all of these genres and the difficulty that comes along with defining them, I am going to take a whack at some of them on this blog to see what I can come up with.

Want to learn more about them and see how they turn out? Stick around.

Also, I had another story published by the Penmen Review. “The Safford Sun Weekly How-To Column.”

It tells the story of a newspaper writer who slowly spirals into self-destruction, all told through his how-to articles published in a newspaper.

Check it out here or on my “Works” page.

Well, until next time.