Have your genre interests ever shifted?

I don’t read near as much as I used to - which is something I ought to repair if I want to be able to write a novel well. But I've noticed a slow, subtle change in me spanning over a couple of years, and one that I've been trying to fight for a while: I fear I’m turning into a fantasy grump.

My genres are fantasy and historical fiction (pre-gunpowder ideally). But now, I’m finding the "high" fantasy a big turn-off. Magic systems that would previously have fascinated me, now gets a disinterested “huh,” and when I read about sorcerers and colleges on the back covers in a bookstore, I immediately put it back on the shelf. Which makes me sad. All these mythological creatures that used to fascinate me when I was young, I feel little for now (except a soft spot for dragons, because i wrote my first ever book about them). It makes me think that people will think I'm being a snob. It's not that I think fantasy can't make good fiction. It just doesn't rouse my spirits anymore like it used to.

I still do read fantasy books (my other genre interest being historical fiction) and enjoy them, but I don’t care too much for the magic systems but more for the characters and the world. I get fascinated by the complex worlds: empires and leaders, conflicts and cultures that people have managed to create from their own minds: histories that almost seem real. I don’t get into anything too magic-heavy anymore, and those elements in the books I read, I now find myself not that interested or even glossing over. I was looking forward to reading Gardens of the Moon, but couldn’t fight past the first few chapters, which only induced some heavy sighing.

The interesting thing I found on reflection is this: I can trace down this transition to pretty much when I started writing this book. I’m writing a “fantasy”. It's more like “historical fiction” really, but the history is my own. I wanted the epicness we associate with fantasy with my own fictional world, but none of the magic, no real gods and no mythical creatures, absolutely nothing of the sort. And so I began to write, wondering all the while why there is such a vacuum between the two genres. And the more I wrote, the more I wanted to fill it.

So my thought was this: have any of you found your interests narrowing into books that are similar to the ones you’re writing? Or is it just that we are writing the novels that we ourselves want to read?

 

You should read KJ Parker. This is exactly the sort of thing he writes. Also, later works by Guy Gavriel Kay, through they're more like alt. histories, where Parker completely makes up his own world.

I will read any genre. Probably read sf/f/h/mystery more than anything else, but my interests run to anything that is written well.

 

I think it's natural for tastes to shift, especially as you write. As you write you get a different appreciation for what is good in a book, especially I think for repeated or tired tropes that before you didn't mind retreading but as a writer feel stale and that you'd want to steer away from. I think writing just gives you a really clear insight for what you like in a book, it almost forces you to try and crystallize which elements work for you and which don't. Especially as you edit and improve your work you get used to not letting writers off the hook for taking an easy answer or not giving a good enough answer.

For me personally, I started off trying to write cyberpunk sci-fi which is a genre I absolutely love but I wasn't great at. I can't quite come up with good ideas for that world, or anything really fresh to add to the formula. In the end everything I tried to write could easilly have just been set in Gibson's sprawl and while that's not a bad thing per se, I recognized I was more engaged in fanfiction and gave it up as a bad job. Not that fanfics are bad, just that I was trying deliberately not to do that and did it anyway. I'm still a huge fan of the genre, my copy of Neuromancer literally never leaves my bag, but I can't write it.

From there I had a crack at writing black comedy which was reasonably successful and may one day see print, as well as writing something set in a cult (a subject that always fascinated me). But as I was doing that I realized that the parts I liked writing were the inter-character moments especially the lead character romances and finally I just started writing romance of various forms. Now, I do not like consuming romance. But I do feel I can write something fresh in that world; unfliching grim and grimey stuff that's all about pain and saddness and overcoming that.

I don't feel that my tastes have changed at all, as such. I just became clearer on what things that really draw my interest and stuck to the stuff that I feel I write really well. As a consumer of all media, well, I'm still a huge nerd who loves sci fi (and loathes fantasy) and I have no specific interest in anything just because it has romance in it. It feels to me less like I'm writing romance, more that I'm writing these dark complex flawed characters battling their personal demons, and as a side effect finding someone.

 

The exactly same thing happened to me, though I really can't trace it back to when that happened. I remember myself enjoying Harry Potter, quite some time later I really fell in love with The Dresden Files (contemporary fantasy, lots of magic and magical creatures) and then... I think the next book that really grabbed my attention was Metro 2033 (post apocalyptic, no fantasy). At some point later I remember reading the Dark Tower (the darkest fantasy I have ever read at that point, I think almost no magic, certainly no fairies and unicorns). I read all kinds of science fiction in between, I am a huge fan, but couldn't ever get into the newer books in that genre. I love Ray Bradbury and Andre Norton and a few Russian authors most people probably haven't heard about...

All that was a few years back. There was a period of time after that where I didn't read much and then some time later I started again. Pretty sure The Dresden Files was the last magical fantasy novel that I read. Maybe I just grew up. That or the world is in such an ass, it makes political fantasy more relatable.

Edit : Nevermind I just traced it back. LostThePlot has a point. I was writing my "first" novel (never got finished), it was about a fallen angel and the fight between angels and humans. The humans being the bad guys and the angels being the bad guys. Demons were for certain reasons trying to restore the balance so they were kind of good, and well so were fallen angels. I put so much into character development and so little into the actual plot, that after a few chapters I had no idea where that mess of a train wreck was going. Then my hard drive broke. And I lost every single word. Surprisingly it was a relief though. That thing should burn in hell.

 

I used to read a lot of mysteries when I was younger, but I guess I got burnt out and now I don't even touch the genre. I don't remember if that was about the time I got serious about my writing or not, but it could be. I don't have a specific genre I like to read anymore, anything with interesting characters will catch my attention (as long as it's not a mystery).

 

I read a lot of fantasy and romance when I was younger (it was what my mom had around the house), and mostly wrote it as well, but for the past ten years I've read and written almost nothing but aromantic sf. Strangely, over the past week I've started writing something that I've taken to calling a high fantasy western; not sure where that came from. But definitely a lot of the more defining books of my childhood were fantasy, and I just sort of abruptly stopping reading or writing it when I was around twelve? It's normal for interests to migrate, and I've certainly always written things I wanted to read, so of course I end up writing whatever I'm into reading.

 

When I was a kid, I read nothing but science fiction. I read TONS of science fiction. If I was awake, I was reading science fiction. If I was asleep, I was just waiting to wake up so I could read more science fiction.

In my mid-teens, I started exploring my father's bookshelves. He read mostly literary fiction, so I got exposed to Steinbeck, Hemingway, Huxley, Melville, and so on. I have hardly read any science fiction since. I still write it, because I have a worm in my head that keeps telling me there's a market for it, but I prefer to write more realistic literary fiction.

Losing interest in a genre doesn't bother me. I think what would bother me is failing to gain interest in any other genre - that would mean my soul is ossifying. I'll read what moves me and write what excites me. I'm happy with that.

 

Thanks! I'll take a look at them! It just seems to be very scarce.

Yeah, the most frustrating thing I always find is the deus ex machinas, all those bits where I'm supposed to have just as intimate grasp of the magic system as the author to understand or predict what is going on, and the conveniences and loopholes that allow characters to escape certain defeat I found particularly tiresome and dissatisfying. Without all that, there is much more a sense of danger.

 

Yeah I totally agree. As a reader, especially in a genre that you really like, then you engage with that stuff in a different way. That out of nowhere sudden reversal to save the characters you love can feel very satisfying as a reader because a lot of the time it's all just about how the heroes you love can get out of it this time. In fact I've seen people say that such stuff is really cool and clever because they didn't see it coming; and when you are really invested in a world and in this set of characters then really you just want to see how exactly they will win this time. It's a different experience. As a writer though that stuff becomes tiring very quickly. The one thing that you don't want to do is regurgitate an overdone thing, and we all strive to avoid those kind of contrivances. When it's you're own writing and you have to read through it over and over it starts to become something that irritates you because it's really not that clever.

I think magic systems are a perfect example of this. To the reader who just comes in fresh they will just run with what the book tells them; if it's a book they like then they just suspend disbelief and don't ask why it doesn't make sense, or if they do they don't care so much because it's not just about the workings of the magic system, it's about the world and the adventure or whatever. But as a writer you end up having to tie yourself in knots to answer why exactly they aren't solving everything with magic; why this time they can't just do what they did last time. The uniqueness starts to drain out, either as you see yourself using the same answers as other writers, or you're putting so much time into explaining this that you aren't getting anything done.

As a reader I actually think that the Harry Potter magic system is the best one out there, because it's so slimline and a bit quirky and really it's just whatever the plot needs it to be at any given time. And because the books are well written and the characters are people we like then we don't care, Hermione can find the right spell in some old book and jobs a good'un. But it's not actually a good magic system. Because it's totally inconsistent, it makes almost no sense why things do and don't work, the magic duels don't even make sense in their own terms and rely on knowing what the other person is doing before they do it. It's a bad system, inherently, but it's in books that we (or I anyway) like so it gets a pass. But it still stands out as being just bad, at least, if you are someone who has to read it over and over, who can see just how big of a cop out it is every time magic solves a problem and it feels so unsatisfying.

There are some cool magic systems out there; I think World Of The Watches (the Sergei Lukyanenko books; Night Watch, Day Watch etc) has a really cool take on magic. In that world magic is this incredibly precious resource that has to be harvested from mortals (for the good guys they have to take good feelings from mortals, steal their happiness to power magic) and that you can't trifle with because if you just run out of magic you just kinda die. As a result they mostly use semi-magical or pseudo-magical solutions to things; wands someone more powerful charged up for them, guns with silver bullets, shape-shifting and then mauling people as a bear. When the actual magic gets brought out it's a huge deal and it's not about spells really it's just about power just hurling raw power at someone and wiping them out. That's really cool. But of course it's also been done now, been seen before.

And eventually you just get burned out on all this stuff and don't want to have to deal with this. It's just, well, not fun to you anymore, even when reading a book you didn't write. You are looking more critically and not jumping with the writer unless it's robustly set up. Magic always creates plot holes just by it's nature and once you've written some you want to know how they are resolved instead of jumping past them.

I think the thing really is that writers aren't so much in the business of suspending disbelief. That's one thing that we teach ourselves when editing our own work, that we need to lose our personal connection to the book and characters and make sure there is that a->b->c chain of logic that is internally consistent and strictly makes sense. We make ourselves disconnect from everything that we know about this world and just look at what is on the page and make sure that what is on the page explains how all this works and makes sense and ties into everything else. Even outside of stuff like magic, even in contemporary worlds with normal people in them, every character moment needs to come from something on the page, from the background stuff that is there and the reader has retained and remembered.

We have to make sure that this persons troubled childhood has been mentioned a few times before, that it sticks to the reader, so when that becomes important it's not just out of nowhere and that's not easy because we always knew about that. So we teach ourselves to be dispassionate and in doing so stop suspending disbelief; stop just going along with things and make sure we've shown our working and foreshadowed it adequately and included everything needed to explain why not just give the reader a cool moment that doesn't quite make sense to the character.

And all of this changes what we like in a book, what we look for. That doesn't mean that writers can't enjoy fantasy anymore, but I think it does make us ask for a bit more. Being a writer definitely showed me how badly written lots of popular or even 'classic' books are. That doesn't stop me appreciating them still, hell the only books I read these days are the Warhammer 40k books. But I think in the end we start thinking about what makes for good books, rather than enjoyable books and that naturally leads to a change in the kinds of books we read.

 

You mention Russian SF writers... have you read, Hard to be a God, by Arkady & Boris Strugatsky?.. or watched the film based on the book?



I find classic Russian Literature to be overwrought and cumbersome, but SF is a different story. Some Russian SF is far deeper, and for me, more engaging than most of the American and British crap I read.

 

Strugatsky are who I meant. Oh yes, Hard to be a God is one of my favorites along with the Roadside Picnic and the Prisoners of Power. I haven't seen this movie, but I think I'll have to, it looks surprisingly good. I did watch the one based on Prisoners of Power (Dark Planet) though, I think it still remains the most expensive Russian science fiction film. God it was beautiful, but I remember other people not liking it, as it always goes with sci-fi movies.

The thing about most of their novels is, you have a society, either completely inhuman or partially inhuman, and then you have the human characters who somehow ended up in said society. But at some point in their novels you start to realize - that horrible, barbaric, brutish society, it isn't very different from our own. And it all goes down from there. Unlike many American/British authors, they don't have rainbows and unicorns, they don't give promises of a peaceful resolution, the totalitarian regimes are not overthrown, the people are not freed. And even if a revolution happens, a new leader comes to power, a leader who isn't any different. I grew up on such novels, I think they really shaped my view on the "democracy," governments and life in general. I remember going to school in Canada, all the teachers would sometimes like to remind us of how we lived in a beautiful, free, multicultural country, how we all had a right to speak our minds, etc. I would always argue and do that alone. Other students never understood what the hell I was talking about.

When my family later applied for a permanent citizenship and it was denied (my father was a highly qualified professional, mind you, a software developer going for a promotion), my confidence in what I was saying grew. Sure I could open my mouth and say whatever I wanted, but there were consequences. Murder is also physically possible, that doesn't mean we are free to kill.

People write the best things in the darkest of times and places. We are all too fat and happy to write anything even slightly close to what they have written. I, being the fool that I am, just had to go and make writing high quality, political fiction my life dream before I understood it.

 

When I was a child, I used to read a lot of horror, especially Stephen King. I haven't read horror (other than Poe) in years. I have moved towards sci-fi, but only where it forms a backdrop to a great story, I'm not interested in excessive world-building or reading about the minutiae of future-tech. My novel is loosely sci-fi (but it doesn't need to be) and will have slasher and mystery elements to it- hopefully I'll make it suitably trashy for this genre mix to work.

 

As a writer, I've focused exclusively on SciFi/Fantasy/Horror, and as a reader, I've focused exclusively on SF/F/H and crime dramas.

Pretty consistently.

 

I have always written the stories I want to read/watch/see/etc. Those being; Science Fiction and Horror (and obviously sub genres of both). I have always loved futuristic societies, ideas of the future, the concept of exploring the universe and all the great things brought to you by Science Fiction. I also love the mechs (I mean, come on, I grew up watching Gundam) and crazy sci fi concepts like teleporters, holograms, space ships, and the like.

 

The best art, the stuff that sticks to your ribs, is usually created by hungry, desperate artists.

Anton, the main character in Hard to be a God, is equal parts hero and pathetic tool, and what's more he knows it! Hard to be a God, reminds me of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness... there isn't any happy endings because in real life only fools enjoy such outcomes. The only American/British SF that compares to some of the best Russian work I've read, is Iain Banks' Culture books. They involve the same themes, the cyclical nature of humanity and the futility of organic life.

 

I feel your pain. When I read your post it was pretty much like 'Yeah, that's me.' The books that I found awesome and thought would have a permanent place on my bookshelf, getting read over and over during the years, these books are now gathering dust. I am not even interested in looking at new releases. I'll probably keep this books as a rememberance of how it used to be... I feel a distant kind of regret for those days when I could loose myself in these books, but I don't want to go back.

Yes, I think that what we write changes us (or the other way round, what we read defines us). I am reading now only the genre of what I'm writing about. In a way it's creepy as hell. But the vacuum you talk about whispers louder than I can ignore to be filled and so I am trying to learn how to write my story.

How can you write a story you don't want to read? I know I couldn't; even if I've never read a story like what I am writing—I am burning to read it. So, naturally I am drawn to books which help me learn this specific kind of writing—and equally naturally, I like to read them. It's just inevitable

 

It's an interesting question you posed as OP, @Dracon. I had to think about it.

In general, I've never been a 'genre' reader ...except for a period as a child when I read ALL of the Agatha Christie mysteries because I loved the sense of small Englishness that she created (I was a Yank at the time.) I was never the slightest bit interested in solving the mysteries, though, and she's the only mystery writer I ever read with any frequency.

I prefer to think of sci-fi as a 'topic,' rather than a genre. I define 'genre' as a style of writing that follows certain rules pertaining to that genre. Sci-fi is too open a category to be formula, really. I love sci-fi. But not all sci-fi. In fact I'm pretty picky about it.

Fantasy? Some of my favourite books fall into that category (LOTR, Joe Abercrombie's First Law trilogy, Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials, etc) but in general, I don't enjoy it or read it—and certain phrases like 'magic systems' or 'superpowers' will send me clawing for the Exit. I do love reading and collecting fairy/folktales and mythology, though. Go figure.

I NEVER read Horror, Thriller, stock Romance or Mystery, or any kind of 'genre' that is predictible and formulaic. I don't read modern military stuff either. And despite my abiding interest in stories laid in the American old west, I dislike Westerns as well. (Well, okay, I admit to owning and liking a few Elmer Keltons, but it's because of the local colour he inserted into his work, not the formulaic storylines.) I read Zane Grey as a child, but there was always something that felt 'wrong' with his approach. (I later discovered what it was ...he basically didn't have a clue and was not a westerner himself—and he developed the Black Hat/White Hat conflict that Westerns thrive on.) What I wanted were adult versions of Laura Ingalls Wilder and Old Yeller instead. Stories of 'real' people living their lives as normally as possible, but during a different time period. Not gunfights at OK Corrals.

What I look for, and always have looked for, in any fiction I read is that spark of originality and readability that allows me to sink straight into a story, become totally immersed, but will surprise me enroute.

I love well-written, well-researched historical fiction—and that has always been my favourite go-to section in any library or bookstore. (If historical fiction is clunky or poorly researched, then I HATE it.) I suppose historical fiction will get my attention more quickly than any other kind, because I love history...particularly social history. Most of my 'favourite' books of all time fall into that category. There are even a few that might be sold as 'formula genre' —such as mysteries like Peter's Brother Cadfael series, or Sansom's Shardlake series. However, I always read these for the historical content, not the 'mystery.' That has never changed.

I think what has changed is that I read far less fiction these days than I used to ...and far MORE non-fiction in areas that interest me. It's not that I've gone off fiction. It's just that it's been hard for me to find fiction I truly enjoy any more. I rarely re-read a book, and that's a big change for me. I used to re-read books all the time. The fact that I rarely do now must say something about what I've been reading.

 

@jannert All genres seem to me to have a lot of predictable, formulaic works within them. And they all some works that are neither predictable nor formulaic. This includes horror, thriller, romance, mystery, &c.

Shouldn't historical fiction be about as predictable as it can get? I mean, if you know the history being written about, at least?

 

Well, that's why I prefer social history to political history. We know all about battles, kingdoms, wars, etc ...but we don't know about the lives of the ordinary people who lived during these times. That's where the stories lie, at least for me.

As to genre? Well, I'm sure you're right. That all genres contain some stories that are neither predictible nor formulaic. However, since the concept of formula seems basic to 'genre,' I think they're probably few and far between, although there seems to be some genre bending going on. But a murder Mystery that never gets solved? Or a category Romance where the two leads don't get together after all? That's what I mean by formulaic. I don't think the genre readers or publishers would be keen on the above. You might get other publishers to take these stories on, but they won't actually be 'genre.'

Again, I think I prefer to refer to 'topic' sometimes, rather than 'genre.'

 

I like Horror and Sci-Fi, but have been exploring other genres.
Some are all hook and no brain. Though this usually is in the
form of the more popular genres at the present (or the most
polluted depending on your point of view). So it is increasingly
difficult to find something decent to read.

Personally Dark/Black Comedy seems to be a good choice.

 

This is definitely the case for me. I used to like high fantasy with teenage elf mages running around, yelling "pew, pew!" and throwing fireballs around at green-skinned orks... But as I got older, I became indifferent to that level of fantasy, and nowadays find it quite a bit distasteful. Fantasy stories about secret magical schools full of misunderstood teenagers and sparkly vampires make me want to hurl.

Instead, I have a keen interest in history and like stories that are realistic, that portray real human emotions and stories. I like unpredictability and realism of outcome- not every "good guy" survives in the book I am writing. As one of my characters points out, "evil is ancient, and cruel, and intelligent. It has been here far longer than any of us, and will be here long after we are but dust in the ground." The first third of my first book ends in one main characters being crippled, another's face burned off, and one being killed. In the second book, another main character is killed by his brother and the story continues from his nephew's POV.

While my book does have magic, even men and women who use it for war, I try to write it pragmatically. The spells are limited to destructive functions- making them ONLY suitable for combat. They are viewed as just another weapon, as a bow or sword would be. In fact, any other spells are considered sorcery and those who cast them are persecuted in the way "witches" were in medieval Europe. Besides that, there are only several hundred spell casters in a world of a few billion.

All of these aspects that I write about I also seek in books that I read. Writings like A Song of Ice and Fire and historical fiction appeal to me on these grounds.

 

I like anything. I've always been that way. If it's well written with a good plot and interesting characters, I'm there. That pretty much explains me for music, movies, etc.

It's good and bad. Good because it gives me a lot variety and exposure to a lot of content. Bad because sometimes it's difficult to narrow down what I want or what I'm looking for.

 

My tastes definitely shift from time to time...both the stuff I read and the stuff I write. I see it as a positive because settling down too long can lead to stagnation. I started writing science fiction last year out of the gray, rainy sky last year; I had never even thought about writing in that genre. It just happened.