Okay, so I know a lot of us here have a pretty good idea of what we want to write and how we want to do it. Out of pure curiosity, I'm wondering how many of you have tried different forms or genres before finding what you're best at. I think I've tried everything and then gone back for seconds. It's kind of hard to find your niche, no?
I used to do serious fantasy novels. Whenever that got too frustrating, I’d write a silly little romantic comedy to entertain myself. Turns out I’m... actually really good at that. So I switched.
I just sort of fell into romance, but I'm not sure it's what I'm "meant" to write. There are marketing advantages to sticking to one genre/sub-genre, but other than that I think I'm probably happiest writing a bunch of different stuff.
We tend to struggle with what we don't think about. I struggle with romance and comedy the most, and those are 2 things I rarely think about. Most of my writing circles back to fear and violence. I really like to write for children, but fear and violence need to be toned way down. That is difficult for me.
I read a lot of fantasy when I was a kid so that's what I ended up writing. Then I realized that I liked sci-fi more and started writing that. Used to write a lot of romance - again, I think, because it was what was around to emulate - but it always felt really obligatory when I did it, so I stopped. Used to want to write YA but my tastes changed and I don't really write things that're suitable for that anymore. Got back into fantasy, at some point, branching out from the high fantasy I used to read to more urban fantasy type stuff and other low fantasy. Tried out smut (it's not classy enough to call erotica, I know where I'm at). I still do sci-fi but I'm expanding from mostly space operas to some slightly harder stuff. There's the slipstream stuff that's s somewhere in the middle. Oh, and there's horror, of course. My recent stuff all seems to have a mystery aspect and I'm not even sure where that one came from. I used to and still kinda-sorta-sometimes write poetry. Used to write lyrics, too. Wrote a couple scripts. Used to write novels, then started doing short stories, now I'm back to novels. I guess it's actually kinda been a lot. I'm not sure what my niche is yet. Well, realistically - it's probably robots
I haven't found my genre yet. I want to write something action-packed and epic - but I usually end up writing something more along the lines of a homely romance*. I still aim to switch things up a bit - epic action-packed romance! - but I just haven't gotten anywhere with those ideas so I keep writing my lovey-dove things until something better comes along. I've been thinking about doing the most Swedish thing in the world and write a murder mystery but throwing in some paranormal twist. It's still in an early idea stage, though, so I haven't got a clue if it's something I'll be able to write. *Yes, if you go through my posts here at WF you will find me saying that I can't write romance for the life of me and that I don't really get it. I guess one is allowed to change their minds
I just love playing with different genres, so I'll probably keep doing that until the lights go out. My only two must-have ingredients when writing a story is comedy and fantasy, otherwise I get bored. I also mesh together genres, usually with bad results. For NaNo 2016 I did a 1930's cozy mystery with a fantasy back drop. Oh, and before that; a hard-boiled steampunk detective story. Turns out I'm not a mystery writer though, because putting the crime solving together gave me a headache in both of those stories, so I quietly slipped back to fantasy adventures of all sorts. But that gives me a lot of genres to work with, and I kinda hope that I never find that one genre.
Romance is the only genre where I've been able to successfully write a story from beginning to end, and luckily I love writing romances so I'm happy to reside in that wheelhouse. I'd love to write Mystery/Suspense, but my brain is definitely not wired to write in that genre effectively. I've never had an urge or interest in writing any other genres, though.
I love sex, horror, and narrative poetry. It would only make sense for me to write about the things I love about in life.
I write mostly science fiction. My main WIP, though, is a kind of alternate-history fantasy. It deals with a version of North America with a couple of geographical tweaks (some mountains here and rivers there that don't actually exist), and a somewhat pre-industrial society. I thought, when I began this story, that I'd only use this setting once, but I've found I love it, so it'll probably wind up being my Middle-Earth, my Yoknapatawpha County. But I'm also fascinated with strange planets, so I do my fair share of sci-fi. I grew up reading sci-fi, so it's a natural fit for me. I don't like horror. I hate reading it (except for Edgar Allan Poe, if he counts as a horror writer), so I have no desire whatsoever to write it. Also, I find what is called "romance" these days boring, so I avoid that, too. I love some detective fiction (Sherlock Holmes, The Maltese Falcon, a few other classics), but I don't think I could think up interesting mysteries, so I don't try to write it. Maybe one day I'll give it a try. Ultimately, I love stories about faraway lands and peoples, whether in the past or the future. I love reading about lives I could never lead. This is why I love Kipling so much, and Joseph Conrad, and Herman Melville. I love myths, legends, and folktales. I'd feel comfortable writing in any of those genres.
For me it wasn't so much trying to find my niche as wanting to try different things, trying to avoid boredom, and always wanting to learn something new. Over the years I've written, in chronological order: fiction, poetry, song lyrics, entertainment gossip, hard news, (ETA headlines (not the actual story; the headlines), Features, music reviews, movie reiews, entertainment articles and celebrity interviews, PR promo pieces, product reviews / product comparisons, blog pieces, and now back to fiction. Am I good at all of them? Nope. ETA: There have also been periods where I stepped away from writing altogether and did other things, but usually someone at my job would find out I can write (allegedly) and I'd end up doing writing tasks there anyway.
Who says I am any good at writing in any genres? Haven't really tried them all on for size yet, so I don't know which I can write well/ill. I would like to think I am fair at Sci-Fi, but that is just the first genres that I happen to enjoy as a reader. For all I know I am really bad at it. So it comes down to you write what you want, and it's all up in the air until you are comfortable with a set genre or genres you enjoy writing.
I may discover something new down the road, but I really like large-scale sci-fi, or fantasy. I just want to get lost in my worlds
I only write comedy. I'm convinced that if i ever start to be funny I might actually start to be successful.
I've always liked mastering skills - becoming really good at something specific rather than trying loads of different things. Even in gaming, I have to get the top score on every level or I can't move on to the next. So I'm happy staying in one genre for now. I feel like I'm learning and getting better at it bit-by-bit, and that makes me happy. I have lots of goals left to fulfill in romance. If I ever feel like I've mastered it (unlikely) I'll probably move on to something else.
I'm starting out on a sort of horror bent at the moment, although I'm not especially interested in the genre. I'm drawn to writing things I think will be psychologically jarring (but I'm not good enough yet to jar a pickle). Things that play with on brain's frameworks for space, time, continuity and identity recur in my ideas so that leads me to horror often. But I just write whatever I think would be both interesting and within my currently limited capabilities. I'm not looking for my genre particularly.
I'd read a mystery where the crime isn't solved. In fact one of my favourite novels is a conspiracy mystery that isn't solved, where the MC is just allowed to disappear down a fractal warren of red herrings and loose ends.
At the moment, it's more about an idea I'd be interested in writing than following a genre. Since I'm quite inexperienced, I'm hoping this will eventually allow me to have enough experience to be able to decide what I find as my niche.
For me, i'm nearly always thinking about writing. Even when I haven't physically got a pen/pencil in my hand or am sitting down in front of my laptop. I'm always thinking about writing scenes so I suppose it more than likely comes naturally.
I have just started. I want to learn the craft of writing, but currently I have no story to tell. I have a goal. Before 18th of april 2019 I shall have written a reasonable good short story(15-20k). No idea about genre. To practice I write flash and short story < 3000 words, most of it for the forum contest. And there the prompt usually sets the type of story.
I'm similar. I have been writing 'from' ideas that emerge during my daily routine with an eye to practicing the craft, rather than 'toward' a fixed topic or genre. A lot of my early content was literally 'filler' for a student paper, when we had, say, 25 column inches unspokenfor at 3am. I'd make fake ads, fake op/eds, fake news reports, flowcharts, cartoons, poems or short stories. Whatever was on my mind.
I dabble in a variety of genres. My very first story was a brief autobiography of a portion of my life; I was required to write a short story for an English class in elementary class and I wrote about when I was first diagnosed with Guillain-Barre Syndrome (and I got an award for the story). After that I delved into horror and ill-written erotica in middle school. At the same time I was co-writing a fantasy novel with a friend and was writing my own fantasy novel. After that I found yaoi and fell in love with m/m relationships. Shortly I began to work on science fiction, fiction, "romance", horror, and more fantasy. The main novel I'm working on now is a thriller with a romantic subplot. My issue is is that I'm (so I've been told) really good at short horror (to include blurbs, short responses to prompts, and short stories), but that isn't what I want to write full-time. I love the genre, but sometimes I write a little bit more peppy or look into more humanistic genres. So...I think I have a niche, but it's not the only thing I write.
