The Confabulator Cafe

Tag: genre

  • Putting on the Sorting Hat (Week of 13 January 2013)

    Genre is a French word meaning “kind” or “sort” according to Wikipedia. Genre, though, for writers is what we write, how we express ourselves, where we want to take our readers away from their everyday lives. Certain genres are overdone, some are less explored, and many are confused with the medium in which they are delivered. TV westerns are not necessarily the same as Hollywood westerns which are different still from Pulp westerns. However, they are ALL westerns.

    Some of us here in the Cafe write in distinct genres, others still crossover from into another and then back again or perhaps into a third. As readers we are attracted to certain genres for entertainment: science fiction, romance, urban fantasy, high fantasy, etc… As writers sometimes we eschew what entertains us in favor of what we like to write or are good at. Or think we’re good at.

    This week we’re exploring why we write in the genre we’ve chosen. We’re going to tell you what’s attractive about that genre to us and we hope you’ll tell us what you like. The regulars here know we run the gamut of any list of genre you might find anywhere, but why we write in these milieux is a topic of conversation over coffee, tea, or cocoa on a cold winter’s day.

    Pull up a chair. You’re always welcome here but you’ll have to bus your  own dishes.

  • New Year, New You? (Week of 6 January 2013)

    Winter is a time when things reset, readying themselves to be born anew when the weather warms up, and for assessing what needs to be done. And 2013 has a great deal of promise for us here at the Cafe. Several regulars have been published and are continuing to be published in the months ahead.

    But we wanted to take another look back over the past year and see if anything’s changed for us. Are we still writing in the genre of our choice? Why? Has our writing changed? If it has – why? On close inspection (or just off the top of your head) do you think you’ve changed as a writer? Grown? Gotten more or less confident?

    Why?

    Our awareness as writers has shifted, certainly, and it’s time to take that deeper look and see if we’re still the same as we were last Winter. Can some cycles be broken or should they be embraced?

    Pull up a chair, wrap your hands around that warm mug of tea, coffee, or cocoa, and let us regale you with our thoughts. We promise it’ll be informative.

  • A Comfortable Blend (Except When It’s Not)

    I think that when we first conceive a story we all probably start with one or the other: a plot or a character. It doesn’t really matter so much as blending the two by the time you hit your final draft. I usually have a character, and sometimes a vague concept. Almost never a detailed plot. My examples:

    When I wrote my first novel, I wanted to write about a punk stuck with a blind kid while trying to find the kid’s foster mother. The plot from there just happened as I interconnected the other characters. That novel is awful.

    When I started my second novel I had a concept: a cyberpunk retelling of Sleeping Beauty, as told from the perspective of a character who wasn’t the Prince Charming analog. I followed that pretty strictly even when my characters started to deviate. By the second draft I had to pull back on that concept as the characters took the forefront. The undertones are still there, but it’s a lot less overt.

    From this I gather that for me, crafting a novel has to be a balance of the character and plot or it just sort of falls apart.

    What I find interesting is that not all stories and writers need that balance to rock an amazing story. There are stories where the characters are just a means for exploring the world and moving the plot, and stories where the plot is just a means of moving the characters together and solving their nonsense. The difference seems to be largely a matter a genre.

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  • Food, glorious food

    In looking over my Confabulator entries from the past few weeks, I realize that food and cooking are controlling metaphors for how I write and think about writing. Food is, naturally, delicious, and preparing delectable food is a natural metaphor for all types of production,including literary.  I find food to be at the center of human existence, and if there is anything more inspirational than good  coffee, with cheesecake, I have no idea what it might be!

    But this week we are focusing more on how other media influences our writing.  You know, I love movies, and we watch the Simpsons on an infinite loop in our house, but I don’t feel like moving pictures have a major effect on my writing.  The two genres that do influence me are advice columns and liturgy.

    A proliferation of advice columns (many published weekly, with years of archives available for mid-week fixes) is one of the many blessings of the Internet age. I do love the folks that people trust to make narrowly useful ethical decisions for them! Dan Savage and Dear Prudie are my favorites, to be sure, but many lesser luminaries light the way as well.  Once, I thought about writing a NaNo novel from the POV of an advice columnist, but thought better of it when trying to plot character development entirely through one-off letters. But often, I use the format to shape my stories.  Now, what would Prudie say about this situation? How about Dan? How about an advice columnist working in this particular culture…

    I am also influenced by the liturgical settings of my religious tradition.  Long have I planned to write a novel whose structure is based off a church service (start with a greeting, confession, etc, and have hymns sprinkled throughout). Although I have not done this directly yet, I do come up with something else to work on every time I start contemplating it. I like to invent liturgies for the various new religions in my stories, and someday my service-inspired novel will emerge full formed from the oven and be amazing.

    Geez.  Another food metaphor spiced it up this time.  At least I am consistent!

     

  • What’s your favorite genre to write?

    Every week we’ll ask the Confabulators a question that may further illuminate the blog question or give you some further insight into our working minds. This week’s question is “What’s your favorite genre to write?” Sometimes a writer is better at writing one kind of story than the kind of story she likes to read. Below, look for what this group of writers likes to write. For purposes of comparison, feel free to go back and read our bloggers’ thoughts on what books are their favorites to read. 

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