The comedy and tragedy of mixing literary genres

Although I’m edging away from writing science fiction and fantasy, those genres still hold places in my heart. So, I was delighted to reconnect with them at this year’s FenCon, Dallas’ literary sci-fi/fantasy convention. And to find a panel of writers who love writing too much to stay tied to a single genre version, whether "mashed" in the same story, or separated in “silo” stories.

Not that genre mixing is a modern phenomenon. What would Hamlet have been without a comic gravedigger? And where would William Shakespeare have been if he couldn’t move from comedies to tragedies to historicals without losing his audience? Why should Will have all the fun?

But how can modern writers manage those combined genres? Or switch seamlessly from one genre to another?  And do modern tastes – and modern social media – work against such mixing in 21^st century writing? In short, what are the perils of writing in more than one genre? 

YouTube personality Shado Wiley teamed with genre-busting writers Charlayne Denney (Fangs and Halos series), Ethan Nahte (The Undead Ate My Head), and Karen Bogen (Quest and Find) to search for answers. Even when the answer sometimes was, darned if they knew!

“There are people,” Bogen admitted, “who actually know what they’re writing about.” For others, including her, “the book tells you what it wants to be.”

“(Mine) started as a paranormal romance, and then I blew up a building,” said Denney, who combines angels and vampires (as well as explosives) in her Fangs and Halos series. 

l-r, Denney, Wiley, Nahte, Bogen

“So, you sit down to write the book that wants to be written?” moderator Wiley asked.

Mostly yes, the panelists agreed, although Nahté cautioned that he’s able to write strictly in a particular genre, especially his chosen one of horror, if there’s a call for a specific genre. “I have to ask, does this work? If it doesn’t, I do it anyway!”

“I listen to what my characters are telling me,” Denney said, “and hope they know what they’re doing.”

Still, Wiley said, pursuing the issue of “perils,” “Are there dangers to writing in more than one genre?”

“You could lose your audience,” Bogen said. “There’s also the peril of losing your focus,” Nahté added. 

“You get editors who don’t know how to sell them,” Bogen said, meaning, know where to place them on bookshelves with such labels as “fantasy,” “science fiction,” “young adult,” and so on. Although, Denney said, “with the advent of self-publishing and independent publishers, there’s less rigidity in labeling.” 

At this point, audience members were waving their hands with questions. “Are there any genres that are not mashable?”

Maybe not fairy tales and Nazis, the group decided. To which Bogen added, “I don’t do teenage angst vampires.” 

“Bless you!” Wiley intoned. Although that, perhaps is a matter of taste. When he noted, that with respect to Nahté’s specialty, zombie anthologies, “zombies mix with anything,” Nahte added, “They’re really good if you mix them with Twinkies.”

At which point an audience member asked, Is this the panel I thought it was? Her problem wasn’t how to mash genres together but how to keep her brand straight while writing books in each of four different genres. 

“Silo them,” Wiley said. The first step is to work on only one genre at a time. “If you find yourself drifting, set it down and write the book you’re drifting to.”

Nahté, in contrast, finds working on multiple books helpful. “If I get to a point where I’m blocked, I go to another book to clear my mind.”

A change of writing location can also help delineate the genres. “Use different rooms to keep yourself focused,” Wiley suggested, “Book A in the living room, Book B in bed.”

And “comedies in the bathroom,” was Nahté’s deadpan suggestion.  

What about the use of pen names? Will using multiple pen names benefit authors who want to write in multiple genres? Or should they stick with the same name regardless of how much genre mixing they do?

Wiley’s take was that separate pen names were acceptable when writing in multiple genres, but writers should beware of excessive name changes. Or excessive genre changes. Things have changed since Shakespeare’s time, and writers whose names are too closely identified with a particular genre will find it hard to switch. Even if they adopt pen names for multiple genres, identities can be hard to hide. “Like Hollywood, the book industry doesn’t like new things,” Wiley warned. “Names are franchises now. It’s tougher to hide behind pen names now since the advent of social media.”