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wirelessI have problems with juggling genres.
There. I said it. It needed to be said. It still feels like a tiny failure to admit.
I've always been firmly rooted in the fantasy genre. The first novels that I dreamt up were a product of that genre. The very first characters (with embarrassing names that I still remember even now) originated in that genre. I've never successfully produced a world that goes with a plot that is fuelled by characters there. But I love it and continue to read it and revel in it.
The novel idea that I have right now has a foot firmly in the supernatural genre and the other firmly in history tales. I'm happy with that.
But I have a niggling idea (or rather, three niggling characters) for a fantasy novels and I want desperately to write them both but I'm terrified that one of them will end up falling by the wayside for the other, that I'll lose momentum on one in favour of the other…
I can't juggle genres. But I want to.
There. I said it. It needed to be said. It still feels like a tiny failure to admit.
I've always been firmly rooted in the fantasy genre. The first novels that I dreamt up were a product of that genre. The very first characters (with embarrassing names that I still remember even now) originated in that genre. I've never successfully produced a world that goes with a plot that is fuelled by characters there. But I love it and continue to read it and revel in it.
The novel idea that I have right now has a foot firmly in the supernatural genre and the other firmly in history tales. I'm happy with that.
But I have a niggling idea (or rather, three niggling characters) for a fantasy novels and I want desperately to write them both but I'm terrified that one of them will end up falling by the wayside for the other, that I'll lose momentum on one in favour of the other…
I can't juggle genres. But I want to.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-03 03:19 pm (UTC)All my earliest novels were overwrought Redwall imitations: I used to keep lists of names I saw on road signs and street signs in Britain and Ireland and use those for characters, because they sounded so fantastic and exotic to me.
When you say "fantasy genre," what are you thinking of? Traditional high fantasy? Urban fantasy? What is it about the supernatural genre that makes it not fantasy? (Was it you I was having that conversation with in the first place?)
no subject
Date: 2009-09-03 03:31 pm (UTC)The "fantasy genre" I refer to is in my post is just a broad sweeping arm gesture that takes in everything that includes a) magic and b) another world. My "supernatural" novel is very firmly based in the Real World with slightly modified history and about 20 years of expanded future. It has strange body chemistries (though we're not talking sci-fi and Klingons here) and it has intrigue but everything about the actual world itself is distinctly earthly and firmly Normal and Uninteresting.
Personally, I have very specific guidelines on the types of fantasy novel I'll read these days. After years of Copy Tolkiens and Tolkien himself (who I am actually not that fond of), I have come to enjoy the "new wave" of high fantasy (such as Scott Lynch's Gentleman Bastard series) which doesn't rely solely on magic to make the world go around and doesn't go like this: there was a fight and then there was a tree and a tree and a tree and some grass and a lake and lilies on the lake and a frog and a tree and an elf in the trees and then some flowers.
It's high fantasy but it's also not full of itself.
I'll read steam punk. I won't read urban fantasy because... well, it's sort of cheating? Here is Edinburgh. NOW HAVE SOME WIZARDS TAKING OVER THE CASTLE! There. I didn't have to make up money or anything. I won't write either of them.
I'm picky. Really, really picky.
But I might have to start pretending to write short stories. Because this idea is eating my brain and I have characters who won't shut up but I'm so terrified of losing momentum on Project Revelation. I honestly don't know how you don't panic about having two worlds at the same time!
no subject
Date: 2009-09-03 03:56 pm (UTC)I'm actually having a little bit of an identity crises with the post-apocalyptic Americana -- I've always thought of it as fantasy, but when someone else was talking about gods and vampires and werewolves being in it, I had a very strong reaction that that was absolutely not right. Which made me try to understand what the fantasy element in that was, and I feel like it's just beyond my reach right now, but there's definitely something out of the ordinary about it.
I'm with you about not being too into Tolkien or urban fantasy -- the one is too overwrought and the other is usually too ironic. Oh! Books you might like, if you haven't seen them already: Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell and also The Magicians and Mrs. Quent, both of which are very literary, very historical, and also do really interesting things with magic and society and the magic isn't the big deal, it's the people and their constructs.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-04 07:30 am (UTC)(No pressure. Cough.)
I have been told to pick up Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell in the past and actually had it in my hand in Waterstones the other week but I ended up buying a new copy of The Colour Purple instead because it was cheaper and I needed it.
I'm with you about not being too into Tolkien or urban fantasy -- the one is too overwrought and the other is usually too ironic.
You essentially just summed it up for me.
FYI, on LJ there are several writers who actually have journals who do fantasy stuff. Though I don't like some of their work, they makes some really interesting points about the genre. Scott Lynch, Jennifer Jackson (who is a literary agent), Holly Black, Elizabeth Bear, Sarah Monette and Jo Walton.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-04 02:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-05 01:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-04 07:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-03 10:09 pm (UTC)Also: Your books sounds like a contemporary fantasy. Not quite historical, but not quite urban either.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-04 07:40 am (UTC)I could go with contemporary fantasy!
no subject
Date: 2009-09-04 06:48 pm (UTC)