Genre-Crossing?
I confess to being a little muddled at this month’s Blog Tour topic. I’ve heard of gender crossing, and, certainly, cross-dressing. The term isn’t used for women much, but I do a lot of cross dressing. Men’s clothing has always been more durable — both in construction and fashion. I’ve been tall with longer legs for most of my life, so the only way to get pants long enough or long sleeves that come below mid-forearm, I’ve had to purchase men’s clothing. That works fine for casual clothing, but for dressier things, I’ve had more of a challenge. But you didn’t come here to read about clothes shopping challenges.
I’ve spent a rather long and convoluted time telling you I don’t think I have much to add to the genre crossing discussion. I used to prefer techno thrillers or military thrillers (Tom Clancy’s early work was my favorite for years as were similar authors), but I’ve made a conscious effort for the last ten years or so to read nearly any type of book. While I have some that are not my favorite, I find elements of several genres in most of them.
For instance, pure mystery authors and aficionados may disagree with me, but I believe there’s a bit of mystery in every well-written book. In many books, there’s also a touch of romance — even if that is not the book’s primary purpose. I would suggest most young adult also has another genre element — YA fantasy, YA mystery, YA thriller, etc.
In my own writing, I struggle to identify a genre. I tend to identify it as mainstream, but I suspect others would not choose that for it.
What to YOU think? What is genre crossing? Do you seek it out or not when you’re choosing a book?
Read what 20+ other writers have to say on this subject (they’ve approached it differently from me) over at the Merry-Go-Round Blog Tour.
I think it’s the mixing of elements that are traditionally assigned to other genres. It used to be that everything had its own category, and you couldn’t cross the lines. But we started seeing all manner of other parts of genres come into unexpected areas.
I’ve done in with the book I’m working on. It’s a contemporary fantasy thriller — essentially a thriller with magic and lots of action.
Hi Jean – that’s interesting about the pants. (I have the opposite problem; petite are too short though, regulars too long, bleh.)
I never set out to cross the genres. I never set out with a particular genre in mind. The ideas that come to me, I let themselves develop a bit before I steer them in any direction. Sometimes, they come out crystal clear, others, not so much, then I have to play with it.
Dawn
As a reader I never gave much thought to genres — at least, I thought I didn’t. Then I realized I had some unfounded prejudices against certain genres that didn’t hold up when I gave them a read. I’ve been attempting to read widely since that realization was exposed to me.
As a writer, I find it difficult to categorize my writing into neat little boxes, so I tend to call it mainstream. I figure telling the story as it needs to be told is more important; however, some elemental identification is important for determining who to pitch it to for potential agents and editors (in the traditional publishing world) and who to market it to (no matter which publishing choice is made).