Welcome back, my fellow creatives!

Growing up, I’ve always been a fan of reading both fantasy and mystery. It’s even better when those genres twist together to create an engaging mystery far and away from this everyday world. But I will dip my toes into other genres, too, like the occasional regency romance or scifi.

(Hmmm. Can there be a scifi regency romance? I’m sure someone’s done that somewhere.)

After enjoying Terry Pratchett’s twist of humor with fantasy in his Discworld books, I’m determined to at least get through Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy this summer, too. The fact that Blondie’s already beaten me through the whole series ignited a wee competitive streak in me, too, not gonna lie. 🙂

Anyway.

Noelle Granger dives into some famous authors who cross genres, and also gets one thinking if different pen names should be applied to different genres. It reminded me of my interview with Michael Scott, who also shared he used a female pen name for his romance publications. Like Noelle writes, some authors will keep these “split writing lives” a secret (as best they can), while others seem to treat the names like brands: if people want your Oreo writing, they’ll look for your Oreo, not your Fig Newton.

That…sounded weird, but you get my point.

Anyway. The article.

WRITING ACROSS GENRES

I hope you find some inspiration for the possibilities here. Never underestimate the potential of your characters when placed in a new place, time, or galaxy. I never would have thought a western like High Noon would translate into scifi, but by golly, they pulled it off with Outland–starring Sean Connery, to boot!

And this isn’t to say you should just take a classic story and “reimagine” it–that’s, um, been done quite a bit (see the first book image of this post). What Noelle and I are saying is that you shouldn’t limit favorite characters or situations to a single genre. There’s nothing wrong with letting characters wander outside their (and your!) comfort zone. As the iconic Alan Moore once said:

Life isn’t divided into genres. It’s a horrifying, romantic, tragic, comical, science-fiction cowboy detective novel. You know, with a bit of pornography if you’re lucky.

Coming up, I’ve got another podcast, a resource highlight, and one last trip to summer camp. This should be a doozy of a trip!

Read on, share on, and write on, my friends!