Being a speculative fiction writer, or a genre writer of any sort, is an interesting experience because of the strange grey area we’re all placed in. We’re simultaneously the easiest to label and yet the hardest to classify. There are only so many variations on something like “drama”, but you can get pretty specific about what kind of sci-fi you write. Are you writing a hard sci-fi space action adventure? How about a soft sci-fi/fantasy space opera? There’s a lot more words for our facets than the “non-genre” works as the most specific they get are labels like “dramedy”. And yet, funny enough, it’s also surprisingly hard to figure where you really fit despite all of these available labels.

I felt the sting of this myself in the past. My own work has often been a bit of a blend between different genres. My books have been a kind of crime/mystery sci-fantasy – which can be a pain in the ass to identify to a book market – and I know I’m not alone. But it gets stranger when you consider just how often a trope can be shared across multiple subgenres but “claimed” by a specific one to such an extent that people may misidentify you by default. Does including vampires in your work naturally make your story fantasy? What if they’re alien vampires?

So a problem arises that is difficult to counteract but almost inevitable: Sometimes, people are going to get your genre wrong and change their opinions of your work accordingly. Continue reading Subjective Genre Interpretations →