Good evening! Tonight, I’d like to talk about crossing genres. For writing, there are well established genres such as: general fiction, mysteries, murder, crime solving, comedy, horror, romance, sci-fi, adventure, and fantasy. You can consider it more detailed such as historical fiction, sword and sorcery and space sci-fi as compared to tech sci-fi (think robots), murder mysteries, and paranormal mysteries. Then there are even further distinctions such as fairy tales, folk tales, and tall tales. They can combine well like hot fudge and French vanilla ice cream, peanut butter and jelly, and cookies and milk.
I recently read an article by author/blogger Richie Billing wherein he discusses various types of fantasy genres. Such as high fantasy, low fantasy, epic fantasy, urban/contemporary fantasy and sword and sorcery fantasy. He lists some very good examples of each. It is a read worth your time. His entire article can be found here: https://richiebilling.com/2017/12/05/the-many-sub-genres-of-fantasy/
My books cross genres; fantasy with a little bit of romance thrown into the mix because I am a romantic at heart. I wouldn’t stop there though, I’d also say I mix sword and sorcery with adventure fantasy fables and a little bit of fairy tales. I would also like to think my series are “epic!” I think that combining the genres makes the story more appealing in that it allows me as an author to branch out and take the story in a direction that, if it were real, it would naturally go. A few of my reviews say that they are not normally fantasy book readers or romance readers but that my stories are changing their minds. This, as an author, is the greatest compliment and keeps me going in the wee hours where discouragement tries to sink in its claws in my heart because of low review numbers. I do console myself that I have never received anything lower than four stars and mostly five-star reviews. I can’t say enough how important it is to review a book after you’ve read it. Reviews help immensely! I always post a review after reading a book, especially for a self-published author’s work because I know how important it is to getting the word out about a book.
Crossing genres of fantasy with romance is not about creating situations where I can add a love scene as many strict romance novels seem to do. It is about developing a relationship between two characters. It is about building characters and taking that relationship to a new level in a natural progression.
Honestly, sometimes it is just me dictating the story as I see it in my head and wanting to express the strong reactions and passions that transpire between some of my characters. In Of Demon Kind, it was also about Lorn’s emotional progression from the cursed son of an evil tyrant to developing into a good man who wants to leave that evil behind.
In conclusion, crossing genres in my books makes for a fuller, more developed story and breaks out of plain-old fantasy, to a world filled with adventure, sword and sorcery, love, and yes, romance. So, I hope you don’t let the fact that there is “romance” involved deter you from reading Of Demon Kind and Redemption of the Fallen.
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I hope you are enjoying these Greetings from the Green Chair and my series #KingdomofJior. Tune in next week for more exciting news about #OfDemonKind and #RedemptionoftheFallen. You can buy both books on Amazon.com or Barnes and Nobles.
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