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Hi, all! I was just musing about this and I'm really interested in hearing your thoughts.
Everyone's got their own tastes. We all know that a book might thrill one reader and leave another cold. We also know that many of us have a few genres that we strongly prefer.
What inner qualities do you think make a person partial to a particular genre? Or, conversely, what drives them away from another genre?
For example, I love dark fantasy but I avoid horror. There's a lot of overlap between those two flavours of speculative fiction, but for me, the crucial difference is I don't enjoy feeling frightened. The better the horror writer does his or her job, the less I like the book.
It's less clear to me, however, why I love fantasy and science fiction so much. I'm a science nerd and have always had a wild imagination, but are those the only traits required to make me so happily susceptible to the charms of these genres? It seems like the resonance I feel when I read those genres has more to do with my inner yearnings and personality than with my interests or imagination.
What do you think it is, about you, that makes you love a particular genre? What do you think the common denominators are for people who are into romance, horror, historicals, science fiction, thrillers, etc? And, if you're an omnivorous reader, what is it about you that makes your tastes so flexible?
Everyone's got their own tastes. We all know that a book might thrill one reader and leave another cold. We also know that many of us have a few genres that we strongly prefer.
What inner qualities do you think make a person partial to a particular genre? Or, conversely, what drives them away from another genre?
For example, I love dark fantasy but I avoid horror. There's a lot of overlap between those two flavours of speculative fiction, but for me, the crucial difference is I don't enjoy feeling frightened. The better the horror writer does his or her job, the less I like the book.
It's less clear to me, however, why I love fantasy and science fiction so much. I'm a science nerd and have always had a wild imagination, but are those the only traits required to make me so happily susceptible to the charms of these genres? It seems like the resonance I feel when I read those genres has more to do with my inner yearnings and personality than with my interests or imagination.
What do you think it is, about you, that makes you love a particular genre? What do you think the common denominators are for people who are into romance, horror, historicals, science fiction, thrillers, etc? And, if you're an omnivorous reader, what is it about you that makes your tastes so flexible?