Did you choose your genre, or did your genre choose you?

Even though I am legally an adult, I don't feel like one. That may be why I gravitate towards YA only occasionally dipping my toe into New Adult.

With the first book I started writing, I had intended for it to be an environmental-themed crime fiction. Before I knew what the heck was happening, it had morphed into an erotic ménage romance. With shape-shifters. Go figure.

So the erotic romance genre sort of chose me. But I'm also working on a contemporary romance (No sex! No paranormal!) and a satirical crime fiction that I'm determined will stay a crime fiction!

I've literally read thousands of thrillers/police procedurals and I keep trying to write one and then go back to my fantasy stories. I do read and enjoy fantasy but read far, far less of it (mostly because I'm very picky about what I like). Were I to pick a genre I know inside and out, it wouldn't be what I keep ending up writing.

IMO, the story idea dictates the genre more than anything else.

Personally, I love science fiction. After watching almost all the old series (Moonbase Alpha, Babylon 5, Farscape, Battlestar Galactica and many, many more) I finally started writing my first novel about - garden gnomes
That was a few years ago, now I've progressed to starships.
There is an ever growing list of projects waiting for me, including paranormal and mystery. So I just go where my muse (or: the only part of myself who truly deserves chocolate) wants me to.

Lilly

I think for me it was a combination of choosing the genre and it choosing me. I had an idea of what I wanted to write and after a little research, I discovered that literary fiction would be the best fit for executing the story.

IMO, Story plus writer personality defines genre and subgenre. It's not like you will write efficient humor if you haven't it in you. You can choose to write whatever genre you want, but in the long run, it won't be that decision what decides the genre, unless you are proficient in it.

In my humble, newbie experience, self publishing is fine…if…
If you wrote one book, don’t have plans for another, have time and money to dedicate to its proper marketing.

I've always been a romantic fanatic and used to write M/F romance but I've been really into MM in the last couple of years and have tried writing stories in that genre--stuff I'm dying to read. Unfortunately those MM stories are torturous to get out even if my brain is teeming with ideas and vivid scenes.
My MF stuff always comes out so easily though. So i'm guessing in my case it's the case of my genre choosing me and it won't let me swap.

I write what wants me to write it: poetry, contemporary and fantasy works for all age categories. I also write non fict for teachers for actual money. Not sure if that wasn't mutual choice.

Stories are stories first. The genre comes last for me. I don't like putting myself in a box and putting invisible restrictions on myself.

Now, I do have reoccurring themes. I love writing fantasy and lots of stories have fantastical/paranormal themes in them, even if they aren't straight up fantasy.

To me, the story always comes first. A genre is just a tool to help you market a book to the proper audience.

I think it might go both ways for me, actually. I've spent most of my time reading historical romance and historical fiction. My story ideas are mostly historical fiction. I'll get the occasional contemporary realistic whatever idea and I tried writing a paranormal, but they're not really what I gravitate towards.

I think it chooses me! I normally come up with characters first then the plot comes after that.

I chose mine, but mine was easy.

One professor felt sorry for those of us completing masters in English Literature. (Since we weren't going to get jobs.) So he invited an editor from Harlequin who told us 43% of all fiction sold was romance.

I'd never read a romance, but I gave it a try. Then after reading a lot of different romances, I found paranormal was the way to go for me. And after being scared off by stories of agents taking 2 years to get back to people, I decided to try the digital first route where erotic romance sells better than anything, so I was very market focused. Also when I entered writing contests, the judges seemed to make a fuss about my being great at writing sexual tension and sex.

I started out writing short stories, and I noticed on duotrope that the only short story market that paid anything worth mentioning were erotica and horror. And when I wrote paranormal erotic stories, that was when I didn't get rejected. All my paranormal short stories were snapped up for nice pay.

I may be writing a thriller/horror soon along with continuing with paranormal erotic romance. I may start writing M/M.

I've played around with different genres but feel most comfortable in romance. I do plan to spread out to a middle grade scifi--next to romance I generally read middle grade books. SO I am going where my reading interest are.

BTW, this forum does not have the best info on Self Publishing. Kboards Writer's Cafe has much more info, as does Romance Divas self pubbed forum.

s.j.l said:

I've always been a romantic fanatic and used to write M/F romance but I've been really into MM in the last couple of years and have tried writing stories in that genre--stuff I'm dying to read. Unfortunately those MM stories are torturous to get out even if my brain is teeming with ideas and vivid scenes.
My MF stuff always comes out so easily though. So i'm guessing in my case it's the case of my genre choosing me and it won't let me swap.

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Heh...I'm just the opposite. My MF stuff is boring because I always have a romance element even in fantasy but my M/M characters come out to play all the time! I couldn't stop if I tried!

Horror's definitely chosen me. I got this misguided idea in my head a few years ago that all the horror writing I'd been doing was just a stepping stone on my path to becoming a more "serious" literary writer, and I tried to start ignoring the genre. But it kept tugging at my skirt while I was trying to write the next Great American Novel and wouldn't leave me alone, so I decided to just embrace it.

Mine (urban fantasy with a strong horror overtone) chose me. I've always loved mages and magic, but never liked the whole medieval fairy-tale thing, so the idea of mages in the modern-day world was like catnip to me. As for the horror elements, I've been a horror-book fan since I was a little kid (primarily Stephen King, Graham Masterton, John Saul, and a smattering of gory true-crime stuff) so it's only natural that my writing tends to be a bit gory in spots as well.

I started off writing fanfiction *shock**horror* in my teens. It's what actually started off my love for writing. As most of my fandoms were SF in one way or another, it made sense for me to keep writing it. And I enjoy it. I love SF, cyberpunk, dystopian. It's what want to write.

I choose.

I write sci-fi YA, time traveling YA, dystopia YA, adventure, romance, just because this inspires me.

I very much want that discarded sock epic.
anyway, in a way I would say that the genre has chosen me. I tend toward horror and sci-fi, and really many times i am just expanding on ideas that pop in my head while reading science journals or from dreams that managed to entertain my dark side when I should have been waking from a nightmare instead. Regardless of wanting to write that "great American Novel", and even having outlines of it floating around, the Muse keeps insisting on other inspirations.

When I was little, my first (unfinished) writing attempts were MG and featured kids with magical powers or anthropomorphic characters. These stories were also illustrated, because I love cartoons and I wanted to draw the scenes in the stories.

I read mostly fantasy. I loved magic, mermaids, fairies, and princesses. (And still do.)

I loved point-and-click adventure games, like Monkey Island and especially King's Quest games (which are set in medieval fantasy) and Humongous games (which usually included anthropomorphic characters or cartoony settings). I was also into action-adventure games like Tomb Raider, Spyro the Dragon, Jak and Dexter, Crash Bandicoot, etc. I also played a little bit of RPGs.

I read lots of MG fantasies with a bit of MG scifi--like Animorphs, for example. I loved reading contemporary MG stuff, too, like Ramona and Beezus, and Baby-Sitter's Club.

In my teens, I got into fanfiction and fanart, especially slash fanfiction and fanart. My favorite genres in fanfiction were (slash) Romance and Family. I was into anime, particularly shows like Sailor Moon, Pokemon, Digimon, Yuu Yuu Hakusho, YuGiOh, and Dragon Ball Z.

As I got older, I started reading some adult romances and some YA (usually LGBT). I recently got into M/M romances as well. I really got into Star Wars again. I'm watching more live-action tv shows, though I still watch lots of animated films. O still read MG, both MG and Upper MG, fantasy and contemporary.

So, based on all of this, you could say that I am drawn to: MG, various types of Fantasy, M/M Romance, and Contemporary. I like scifi if it's science fantasy, like Star Wars.

SpiteLokidottir said:

I started off writing fanfiction *shock**horror* in my teens. It's what actually started off my love for writing. As most of my fandoms were SF in one way or another, it made sense for me to keep writing it. And I enjoy it. I love SF, cyberpunk, dystopian. It's what want to write.

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That's basically my story, too, except I also loved stuff like The West Wing and Sherlock Holmes which really fed my love of political intrigue and backroom double dealing. I like my stories, whether they feature starships or certain white houses, to be awash in the stuff.

The things I grew up loving (and continue to love) fuel the stories I want to tell. I just want to tell them in a new, inclusive way.

Speculative fiction, particularly horror, "chose me" in the sense that the abundance of story ideas that pop into my head fit that genre. But the last two stories I wrote were mainstream and the last novel I published was romance. I have never vetoed a story idea because it wasn't "my genre".

I started writing when I was in elementary school, most of it being a mixture of original stories and fan fiction. Back then, I didn't know anything about genres, I just knew what kind of stories I liked to read.

Fast forward to when I'm a teenager, I'm working on projects that become incredibly messy because I keep mixing stuff that doesn't need to be in it with the projects I had going on at the time (all original science fiction).

Didn't figure that stuff out until 2007, when I decided to try my hand at a horror script, and turns out that the book form for what I was writing was mystery/suspense/thriller, ala James Patterson (I use him as an example simply because he's one of the few MTS writers that everyone I talk to knows the name of).

So now, I write MTS and SFF, though the SF isn't 'hard sci-fi' since I focus on character more than technology.

In short, I think it's a mixture. Some read the same stuff they write and love it, and that's why they start; others, like me, start writing before they even know what a genre is, they just know what they love to read and both write it and seek it out.

A taste of my reading as an elementary school student, at least those which I could get at the school library: Goosebumps, Box Car Children, Young Indiana Jones, Bruce Coville's books.

What I read that I could bring from home (or just read at home): The above, plus supernatural-themed books, and a few adult novels like Michael Crichton's "Jurassic Park" and "Timeline".