Genre Genre Genre
Everything Is True
Ada Hoffmann's author newsletter
Last week's post about hard science fiction got me thinking. If I don't think of myself as writing hard science fiction, what genres do I write? The Outside series is a space opera with cosmic horror elements, but my next longform work might not be. Pretty much everything I write is speculative, but I got a kick out of it when blurbs for MONSTERS IN MY MIND described me as being able to effortlessly bop around between genres. Why limit yourself to just one thing?
Of course I then had to autistically count up the number of short stories I've published in every genre, according to my own idiosyncratic understanding of what genres things are, and then rank them from most common to least common.
Science Fantasy
Quite frankly, Star Wars ruined me for any kind of sci-fi purism. Why would you make me choose between cool spaceships vs cool magic? WHY NOT BOTH?? This can be a very maximalist, everything-but-the-kitchen-sink genre, but the combination can also be fairly subdued. (Example: I Sing Against the Silent Sun)
Contemporary Fantasy
Stories of magic and the supernatural, set in the contemporary world. One of the reasons this ended up high on the list is because I define it broadly - the contemporary world can contain only part of the story, can be connected in all sorts of ways to elsewhere and elsewhen. (Example: Variations on a Theme from Turandot)
Fantasy Horror
There's a very blurry line between fantasy horror and regular horror, since even my regular horror tends to have some dose of the supernatural. But there's supernatural stuff that feels like it fits in with fantasy tropes, or sneaks in among them and makes itself at home. This is very subjective. (Example: Lady Blue and the Lampreys)
High Fantasy
Fantasy set fully in an alternate world, governed by the rules of epic myth or fairytale. It's harder to put together a world like this in the space of a short story, but I do try. (Example: Fairest of All)
Science Fiction
Stories that are set In The Future, with science or technology affecting the plot somehow, without those other pesky genres sneaking in. I don't write this as often as genre blends, but it happens. (Example: Across the Ice)
Sci-Fi Comedy
I went through a Douglas Adams phase in junior high school, just read the whole Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series over and over again until I was sick of it, and a lot of people told me that my writing at that age reminded them of him. As an adult, my work tends to be a lot darker, and there have been times when I've struggled to recapture that sense of whimsy. When I do manage to write something funny, it's a good day. (Example: Research Lab Electricity Usage Timesheet Reporting)
Plain Old Horror
The works I classified as straight up "horror" are the ones where weird, surreal bad things happen, but not in a way that neatly matches up to fantasy, sci-fi, or cosmic horror tropes. People simply experience something weird and creepy and it sucks. I don't really read a lot of this genre, and I'm always mildly surprised when it comes out of me. (Example: Centipede Girl)
Weird Fiction / Cosmic Horror
To me this means not just works where the horrors have a cosmic scope, but works where reality is warped in a particular way. If you've read much that gets marketed as Weird, with the capital W, then you know what I mean. I've talked elsewhere about how a certain kind of surreal overwhelm, in stories, is literally the way I feel about most of the world most days - Weird fiction externalizes that feeling in a satisfying way. I'm more likely to layer this into another genre as an aesthetic than to write it straight up, but I've written it straight up sometimes. (Example: Back Room)
Sci Fi Horror
When I blend these genres it's usually cosmic horror flavored, like the Outside series itself. Space is just a really nice place to confront unknowable vastness beyond your understanding. (Example: Harmony Amid the Stars)
Steampunk
I've written this a couple of times (and also played a D&D game in it at one point). It's not a huge interest, but it can be fun once in a while. (Example: The Scrape of Tooth and Bone)
Strange Sea Creatures Doing Strange Things Underwater
I've written this more than once and I don't know exactly what other genre it fits under?? It isn't firmly enough situated in a human era to be "contemporary fantasy"; it isn't quite weird enough to be Weird with a capital W, but it's leaning that way. Anyway, it's a thing. (Example: The Mother of All Squid Builds a Library)
Post-Apocalypse
I like my apocalypses lyrical and full of life and, for some reason, dinosaurs. None of that grime and nihilistic raiding for me, thanks, I'm just going to pretend that human civilization gets replaced by something cooler. (Example: The Hedge-Witch of Welland)
Erotica
This only happened once!! I wrote "Under the Clear Bright Waters" kinda on a dare, when I was in a writing group that wanted to write a little anthology together. People in the group wrote in all kinds of different genres, and "erotic fantasy romance" seemed like the best compromise between all those genres at once. The antho plans fell through, but then I had this little story about lesbian naiads, grief, and light bondage and I didn't know what else to do with it besides drop it into MONSTERS IN MY MIND and hope for the best.
I do enjoy reading this sort of thing, though - on AO3, for instance - and I'm fascinated by Chuck Tingle, who is autistic himself and who uses parody erotica to comment on the social issues of the day. Plus it's not like fiction and fantasy aren't integral to my approach to relationships in the first place. I don't think I'll ever write category romance (nothing wrong with that genre, lots of wonderful people doing important work in that genre, it just has some structural rules that aren't a good match for the way I write) but maybe one day I'll write a steamier book. Who knows!!
Literary
I was honestly surprised to remember that I have published one (1) microfic that doesn't have any speculative element at all and is just about describing something interpersonal in a particular way. Will wonders never cease. (Example: Taylan)