Genre - one, two or more?

I write in at least three different genres (or two genres and one that I just consider general fiction), plus playing around with writing in two other genres. Mine would generally appeal to different core audiences.

Hi deccydiva - I'm working in three genres plus what I'd call general fiction. Audience appeal would be very different.

I've seen articles that say an author should pick one "genre" and stick to it. But the human mind's a complex thing - I'd get bored if I only stuck to one type of story line. I suspect readers would too. Puma

It doesn't seems to bother Stephen King, who is well-known for his horror stories, but also writes such stories as Rita Hayworth and the Shankshaw Redemption and The Body.

Eventually you're probably going to want to pick a genre or two and stick to it; this is the best way to build a career. (If you're as prolific as Stephen King, you may have more flexibility -- but he's never, ever stopped regularly publishing in his main genre, horror.) But I think it's good to explore different genres in the beginning to find out what you love/write best, and to know what kind of career flexibility you'll have in future.

Deccydiva said:

I am considering writing a novel in a completely different genre to the one I usually work in and I wondered if this was usual. My two are completely unrelated but the choices do reflect my favoured reading material. So - does anyone here write in more than one main genre and if so, are they related or would they appeal to totally different audiences?

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My primary genre is fantasy, but it crosses over a lot. Drama/suspense/crime/occult is the other main genre (speaking of crossover, you can see I'm not even sure how to define it, I usually say "occult" though in some of the stories the only "occult" elements are the fact that there are people into the occult in the story, nothing paranormal or anything happens ). Mythology is a big subgenre of my fantasy writing since most of it is based on mythology. I also have some unrelated fantasy/anthro/erotica (the only real fantasy aspect is the fact that the characters aren't human; other than that, it's like political drama/furry/erotica/GLBT-type stuff, *LOL*)...hm. I notice that I can't really seem to narrow ANY of my work down to just one genre, I always just say I write fantasy and occult to keep it simple! Even if that's kind of misleading. When I check out other people's "occult" work it's all about vampires and stuff. No vampires in my work. I'd consider that "supernatural" or "horror," myself.

I don't set out to write in "different genres"; I just write the stories that come to me, that I want to write, and whatever genre they fit into, well, that's fine by me. Witness all my confusion above! I'll just keep calling myself a fantasy writer. *LOL*

I don't think that what you're doing is unusual. Despite the different genres I mentioned above not being related, they all still reflect the things I'm interested in reading about. On the one hand I love Egyptian mythology and Ojibwa mythology, so that goes into two storylines; on the other hand I like to read about ritual abuse and Satanic crime so that goes into another storyline. Totally unrelated, but I find both interesting.

Some of the THEMES in the different storylines are related (Jungian themes show up a lot), and once in a great while they can share some characters, but I don't tend to do that much anymore, so no, they're not that related. I imagine they'd appeal to different audiences, but I couldn't be sure, since I haven't really obtained an audience that gives me much feedback as of yet. If a person is interested in one storyline of mine though, they tend to not often get interested in the unrelated storylines, but that could just be because my writing is online and people don't have time to read much on the Internet. *shrug*

Rick Riordan writes primarily Thrillers, but he also has a YA series out as well- Both have been on the New York Times best seller list.

personally I have written in thrillers/ fantasy/ sci-fi/ and YA genres- I am extremely eclectic in both what I read and write. nothing wrong with a little variaty.