More On Writing: Genre

How to pick your genre.

So, I could not think of what to write about. But after asking a young "pupil" of mine what to write about she exclaimed "Write about how bad Nicholas Sparks is! And tell peole never to write like him!"
Well, I'm not one for bashing other genres, but I personally do not like Nicholas Sparks or the sappy romance genre. So this is how you should pick your genre.

After you determine length of story, novel or short story, then you have to go about finding what to write about. Now, you may have thought that we already covered this in determining the length, but sometimes it is a totally separate issue. For example: I am writing a novel that is about a vampire. Then I had to categorize it. I chose that instead of writing a really horror-stricken or gory or even action-filled book, I would write a paranormal romance.

Now, that is not to say that any one genre is better than another. But you need to write in a genre that you feel comfortable in. I like writing romance, mostly paranormal romances, tho I have dabbled in other areas of romance. That is a genre that I feel like I can write effectively in.

So, basically choosing a genre is probably the easiest part of writing. It is just the subject that you feel the most comfortable writing about. Usually when people say "genre fiction" they are refferring to horror, fantacy, and sci-fi. But those are not the only genres that people can write, there are probably hundreds of genres and sub-genres that people write in.

Sorry that this wasn't more helpful, but genre is really not something you can teach. You can choose to dabble in many diffrent genres, or you could choose to stay in one genre. Whatever you choose, just remmeber to stay true to the story.

Ciao!