Many writers and readers are familiar with romances written with a touch of fantasy, futurism, or a paranormal theme. Writing across genres is becoming more and more popular as writers are branching out into new and exciting genres, and mixing it up is no longer limited to romance. Authors are writing multi-genre works in many categories. Jamieson Wolf, for example, mixes thriller paranormal stories with a dash of romance. Karina Fabian shakes up her Christian-theme stories with a combination of fantasy, mystery, and satire. My own short stories tend to be fantasy with just a sprinkling of romance, and my middle grade novel, Ghost for Rent, is a paranormal mystery. Is writing across genres something you should try?
Fantasy most often involves magic, mythical creatures, a hero’s quest, and an invented world. Paranormal stories have nightmare creatures such as vampires, werewolves and ghosts. Mystery plots involve solving a puzzle, usually a crime, while building suspense, and dropping clues to help the reader figure out the solution to the puzzle. Thrillers blend action with believable characters in tense situations, often with political overtones. Science fiction can be either technological or social and involves conjecture about future science or technology. It can include alternate history, time travel, space exploration and settlement, aliens, and/or robotics. Historical fiction portrays fictional stories of real people or events with attention paid to the details, manners, language, dress, moral and social conditions of the specific time period. Christian literature deals with Christian themes and world views.
Mixing one or more of these types of fiction together creates stories which cross-genre author Jamieson Wolf states have “more bang for their buck.” Writer Dianne G. Sagan likens “combining some elements of other genres” in a story to “adding seasoning when you’re cooking.” Karina Fabian believes “We are becoming increasingly more sophisticated in our thinking process… (this) make(s) us able to handle complex storylines that transcend a single genre.”
Ms. Schizas—author, editor, and organizer of the MuseOnLine Conference—published her paranormal suspense young adult thriller, Doorman’s Creek, in 2007. Most of Lea’s books include mystery and the paranormal because she loves “cliff-hanging chapter endings.” When asked why, Lea stated, “...in my Young Adult novel, Doorman’s Creek, the main focus is mystery, but I added paranormal to heighten the read and surrounding make-believe world of my characters. A bit of spookiness added with mystery rounds off each page for the reader.”
