Genres - Steven R. Southard (Poseidon's Scribe)

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Your Type of Writing

Your personality type determines how you write and what you write. Sorry, but that’s a proven scientific fact (says the guy who’s not an expert on personalities, science, or writing for that matter).

In last week’s post, I cited Lauren Sapala’s claim that two Myers-Briggs personality types seemed most suited to pantsing (writing without an outline), rather than plotting. That got me wondering—does your Myers-Briggs Type Indicator reveal your writing process, and the genre of your fiction?

Kate Scott explored this topic well and I recommend her post. What follows is my whimsical take. To determine your type, take this online quiz. Then skip to my assessment of your type. If my write-up doesn’t ring true, well, I warned you. If you do identify with what I wrote, that proves even a blind pig, etc.

ENFJ

Process—Lucky you keep a notebook of interesting words and phrases. Now post that calendar with the deadline circled, and get ready to educate the world. If you can’t collaborate with a co-author, then at least consult.

Genre—Young Adult, with realistic teenage dialogue

ENFP

Process—Time to brainstorm with fellow writers. Get the feel of each character—know them like family. Let those metaphors and similes flow.

Genre—literary fiction or highbrow romance, where you connect your characters to the big ideas, the eternal aspects of human nature

ENTJ

Process—You joined a writer’s group, and soon became its president. You’ve researched all aspects of your book and could teach a college-level course in each. You’ve posted a mind-map on the wall near the executive chair in your ‘command bunker.’ All that remains is to adhere to your detailed outline.

Genre—technothrillers bristling with advanced gadgets, accurate in every detail

ENTP

Process—Peruse your ‘ideas file,’ now bulging with dozens, even hundreds, of story ideas. Bounce notions off your online fan club, or sit with friends at the coffee shop to discuss the book. Follow the intricate plan you’ve laid out.

Genre—mysteries featuring a clever detective, or other problem-solving stories where your hero contrives an ingenious solution to a bedeviling dilemma.

ESFJ

Process—you take your voice recorder everywhere, ‘writing’ by talking first. Collaboration? Heck, you tell everyone about your book, from the grocery clerk to your co-workers. Outlines bore you, so you write on the fly.

Genre—any popular genre, since you know what readers want, but always in first-person, like you’re telling a campfire story

ESFP

Process—You host a party, and the main entertainment is a freeform brainstorm of your story. A few drinks liven things up. For the actual writing, if you’re not collaborating with one or more co-authors on the effort, you wish you were.

Genre—romance, featuring your clever wordplay. with a huge cast of characters, often attending parties

ESTJ

Process—Somebody’s put out a submission call you like, so it’s time to sit at your well-ordered desk and craft an outline. Soon a theme emerges as you work to achieve each milestone of your plan.

Genre—short stories in any genre, prompted by submission calls, written in clear prose, about characters using logic to resolve conflict

ESTP

Process—Good thing you’ve assembled your collection of note cards with all the facts you’ll need. Now head to your favorite restaurant with your writer friends. Once the outline’s done, get the story written and published, because the real fun is at the book signings.

Genre—any genre where your characters can talk their way out of difficult jams

INFJ

Process—You’ve been people-watching in the park, notebook in hand, so you’ve now formed an image of your characters. You even know which actors should play them in the (please let it be!) movie. No outline will constrain you as you let the characters take the story where they will.

Genre—Romance, of course

INFP

Process—Home now after your daily nature walk, you retire to your writing niche, energized by fragrant incense and stimulated by seeing your favorite decorations. Time to write, unhindered by outlines or any assigned topics, you write what you want. You’re no sell-out to the market.

Genre—literary fiction of a deep, introspective, and moody nature

INTJ

Process—You’ve never shown anyone where you write, and you call it your ‘secret lair.’ A blueprint of your story fills the screen of one of the monitors on your desk. Maybe that first draft didn’t work, but that’s why you edit.

Genre—science fiction, alternate history, or steampunk, but always containing political overtones

INTP

Process—It’s well past midnight, but you don’t care, or even notice. You’re writing what you like. The detailed outline guides you. Thanks to careful research, and your collection of how-to-write books, you’ve learned a lot, and that’s the point.

Genre—mixed-genre novels, the kind booksellers can’t categorize, as well as experimental novels that explore untried plot structures

ISFJ

Process—You’ve done your research and know the plot types and tropes that work for readers. You’ve carved out this time to work without interruption, after first ensuring others in your home don’t need you for anything.

Genre—Historical fiction, in your easy style, all parts in harmony, designed to entertain and educate

ISFP

Process—You’re outdoors, on your deck or patio, or in the park, music playing in your earbuds. In your mind, you picture a reader enjoying your book. You just returned from a trip to the city of your novel’s setting, where you soaked in the ambiance of the place. That brisk walk you took earlier sure stimulated your muse and collected your thoughts about the submission call you’ve chosen to respond to.

Genre—novel-in-verse or literary fiction

ISTJ

Process—Here in your home library, surrounded by reference books (including a well-thumbed thesaurus), outline, schedule, and spreadsheets, you’re set to go. You’ve also hand-built a model of the very thing you’re writing about, to inspire you.

Genre—mysteries with a clever detective

ISTP

Process—Above your desk, you’ve posted a clear, one-sentence goal for your book. Nobody tasked you to write this book, and nobody else could craft it as well. You’re going to work as long and as hard as it takes to meet your high standards. Nothing but the Great American Novel will do.

Genre—any established genre, and you aim for the top spot in it

Eerie, isn’t it, how I knew your writing process and genre from your Myers-Briggs personality type alone? What can I say? It’s a super-power reserved to, (and used only for good by)—

Poseidon’s Scribe

April 21, 2024Poseidon's ScribePermalink

The Calf-Path of Writing

You’ve been enjoying my recent author interview posts, I know, but this week I’ll take a short break from them. I’ve got at least two more interviews planned, so stay tuned.

Today I’ll discuss a poem and how it relates to writing. Sam Walter Foss wrote “The Calf-Path” in 1895. It’s a funny little poem bearing a significant message.

In the poem, a small calf wanders through the woods in a haphazard, zig-zag way, just ambling in an aimless manner. It tramples foliage as it goes. When a dog walks that way later, the hound finds it easier to follow the trampled path than to carve a new one. More animals follow, still weaving along the same sinuous, torturous path first made by the calf. In time, people choose that path and over the centuries it becomes a well-worn route, even a paved street, albeit a bent and crooked one.

Foss explains the metaphor toward the poem’s end. He’s speaking of “calf-paths of the mind,” how people find it easier to follow tradition and precedent than to break away from them.

How does this apply to writing? Perhaps:

you’re basing the plot of your current story on a prior work, or
you’re force-fitting the story into a particular genre thinking it would sell better, or
you’ve portrayed one or more stereotyped characters, or
as you crafted each paragraph and sentence, your inner critic silenced your muse whenever she urged you to experiment with something new.

True, sometimes paths get worn because they work well. The tried-and-true plot types have proven successful. Genres exists because readers (with their own mental calf-paths) prefer books like the ones they’ve already read. Certain character stereotypes can work because readers don’t require a full description—they can fill in the rest themselves. And sometimes your inner critic is correct to dissuade you from your muse’s most outlandish suggestions.

I’m not suggesting you avoid the calf-path. I just advise you to recognize when you’re on it and make a considered choice whether to stay or deviate. It’s akin to the thoughtful decision discussed in Robert Frost’s poem, “The Road Not Taken.” In that poem, the narrator states “long I stood/And looked…” implying some deliberation about the options.

I’ll conclude by paraphrasing Sam Foss:

Much with this blog post I could teach

But I am not ordained to preach

Nor in some wise didactic tribe

No, I am just—

Poseidon’s Scribe

July 9, 2023Poseidon's ScribePermalink

The Dawning of Solarpunk

The Punk Family just keeps on growing! Its new addition is Solarpunk, a subgenre and movement pointed out to me by a kind fan on Facebook.

The Punk Family started with Cyberpunk, which spawned a series of literary subgenres. Of those, the most popular is Steampunk (a favorite of mine). Most of them are marked by a prime mover, an energy source or main motivating agent, that is part of each one’s name. They all incorporate a ‘punk’ aspect, that is, that at least one character rebels against some aspect of society. Finally, each one comes with its own décor, or visual style and clothing design.

As near as I can determine, Solarpunk started with a post by Olivia Louise in 2014. She envisioned a world of renewable, sustainable, ecological green energy where people are closer to the earth and specialize as craftspeople and artisans. She proposed an aesthetic along Art Nouveau lines.

Others took up this theme and incorporated related threads of thought into Solarpunk, including:

Transcendence beyond war, aggressive violence, and scarcity;
A culture celebrating ethnic and sexual diversity and inclusion;
A decentralized society, including micro-farming, with individuals not dependent on a commercial, global economy to furnish their needs;
A technology level we already have; no new breakthroughs required; and
Glass structures and ubiquitous solar cells.

Solarpunk is a reaction against a society marked by the burning of fossil fuels, hierarchal political arrangements, corporate greed, global warming, intolerance of marginalized groups, capitalism, and globalism. That, of course, is the ‘punk’ aspect of Solarpunk.

Given this description, you can understand the appeal of this movement. A quick internet search for ‘solarpunk’ reveals beautiful designs incorporating flowers and other plants, and utopian depictions of a near future within our reach.

Some great descriptions of the Solarpunk movement include posts by Connor Owens, Adam Flynn, and Ben Valentine. Goodreads has a list of Solarpunk literature here.

Solarpunk is still blossoming and forming itself. Its literary landscape is rather sparse, and there’s a clear demand for more Solarpunk stories. This represents a new and potentially fruitful opportunity if you’re a writer of fiction, like—

Poseidon’s Scribe

May 6, 2018Poseidon's ScribePermalink

What’s Silkpunk?

You thought this blog-post was the last word on the various ‘punk’ subgenres? Wrong. Meet the new member of the punk family: Silkpunk.

Author Ken Liu invented the term Silkpunk to describe the genre of his latest novel, The Grace of Kings. In this post, he defined silkpunk as “…a blend of science fiction and fantasy…[drawing] inspiration from classical East Asian antiquity. My novel is filled with technologies like soaring battle kites that lift duelists into the air, bamboo-and-silk airships propelled by giant feathered oars, underwater boats that swim like whales driven by primitive steam engines, and tunnel-digging machines enhanced with herbal lore.”

This newest member of the Punk Family is unlike the others in that it’s not represented by a power source or engine type. Perhaps, though, in a metaphorical way, it is. The Silk Road was a trade network from China to Europe that empowered China.

Congratulations to Mr. Liu for coming up with the term Silkpunk. However, with all due modesty, I must say, stories of that type are not new. My own story, “The Sea-Wagon of Yantai” belongs in that genre as well.

In my tale, it’s 206 B.C. and China is torn by warring dynasties. A young warrior, Lau, receives orders to verify the legend of a magic wagon that can cross rivers while remaining unseen. He encounters Ning, the wagon-maker in the seaside village of Yantai. Ning has constructed an unusual wagon that can submerge, travel along the bottom of the Bay of Bohai, and surface in safety—the world’s first practical submarine. Ning enjoys the peace and beauty of his undersea excursions; he won’t allow the military to seize his wagon or learn its secrets. Lau must bring the valuable weapon back to his superior. In the hands of these two men rest the future of the submarine, as an instrument of war or exploration.

My story was inspired by vague references I’d read about someone inventing a submarine in China around 200 B.C. A second inspiration for my story was Ray Bradbury’s tale, “The Flying Machine.” One of his lesser-known works, it’s a wonderful short story, and would certainly qualify as silkpunk, with its kite-like bamboo flying machine with paper wings.

Another silkpunk story that predates the invention of the subgenre’s name is “On the Path,” by fellow author Kelly A. Harmon. Within it, Tan is a farmer, following the path, when the seal on his soul-powered plow bursts, releasing all ghosts from its reincarnation engine. The ghosts flee to Tan’s tangerine groves, reveling in their freedom. One of the souls is Tan’s deceased uncle, Lau Weng, and Tan must offer hospitality. Souls laboring in the reincarnation engines grow more solid as they work off their past lives’ debts and prepare to be born again. Freed from the engine, Lau Weng and his ghostly compatriots rely on Tan and his wife Heng to support them. Caught between death and re-birth, Lau Weng will do anything to remain alive. Tan is honor-bound to provide hospitality, but must feed his family, too, and he can do nothing to stop Lau Weng. Everything changes once Lau Weng takes over Heng’s body.

Thanks to Ken Liu (and others), silkpunk may well catch on in popularity in North America and Europe. Here are four reasons why:

Like steampunk, silkpunk comes ready made with its own aesthetic, with fascinating clothing for costumes, and a characteristic look for gadgets, etc.
Silkpunk is a completely new world, ripe and wide open for writers and readers to explore.
To Western readers, silkpunk will seem exotic and enthralling.
For Western readers, silkpunk represents a chance to learn about new cultures and different philosophies.

Will Silkpunk someday rival Steampunk in popularity? I don’t know. I’m a writer. If you want a psychic, don’t call—

Poseidon’s Scribe

March 4, 2018Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Been to Utopia and Dystopia, and I prefer…

Judging from recent literature, the future looks bleak. The Hunger Games, Divergent, The Maze Runner, Delirium, Matched, Legend, and others paint visions of worlds much worse than our own.

Without question, these books sell well. Some have become movies. We readers have a fascination with dismal futures, possibly because:

They make our own present seem better by comparison;
We like to imagine the end result of current downward trends;
The character’s stakes are high, the conflicts larger than life;
We identify with being a victim of society;
It’s inspiring to read about characters making the best of things in the worst of places; or
Millennials, raised in the shadow of 9-11, actually believe their future will be worse than their present.

From the writer’s point of view, dystopias have this advantage—at least one of the book’s conflicts is baked in from the start. There will be some sort of man vs. society conflict going on. Whatever other conflicts are present, you’ll find a struggle between the individual and the state. By contrast, in utopias, conflict is harder to come by.

For this post, I’ll define utopian literature to refer to fiction set in a future world that’s better and more technologically advanced than our own, but is not necessarily a perfect world. Dystopian literature is fiction set in a future world worse than our own (with either more advanced or less advanced technology), it’s but not necessarily a completely hellish world.

Utopian literature doesn’t seem to be selling as well as its dystopian opposite. Such books once rocketed off shelves. Almost all science fiction written in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s assumed society and technology would advance and life in general would improve.

Such utopian books didn’t portray perfect futures. The characters suffered from problems and challenges as dire as those in any novel. After all, if someone traveled to our present from almost any period in the past, they’d view our modern era as utopian, thanks to our long life spans, medical advancements, reasonably plentiful food, and readily available technology. We look around us and see no end of problems, but in the eyes of our ancestors, we all inhabit Utopia.

Does the prevailing literary mood reflect society’s predominant attitude toward technology? In the 1940-1970 period, could it be that the Space Race, combined with the baby boom (which produced a huge number of youthful readers), result in a yearning for optimistic literature?

Might it be that today’s readers no longer hold a positive view of technology? Has the rise of terrorism, increasing surveillance, climate change, cybercrime, and a fear of artificial intelligence biased the current book-buying public against science?

Possibly, but Baby Boomers had “bad” technology, too—namely, the Bomb. And Millennials have plenty to be optimistic about, such as driverless cars, household robots, 3D printing, hyperloops, missions to Mars, etc.

If each generation knew both good and bad technology, then why would they hold such different attitudes toward it? Or is it something besides a prevailing view of science?

Could it be all due to the Boomers alone? Maybe that “pig in a python” generation is, all by itself, influencing literature as its population ages. That is, when Boomers were young and optimistic, they preferred Utopia, but as they became older, sadder, and wiser, they pulled up stakes and moved to Dystopia.

Whatever the reason for the current literary preference, some evidence indicates the reaction against dystopia and back toward utopia has begun. In 2011, author Neal Stephenson helped found Project Hieroglyph which seeks fiction and nonfiction depicting a positive future. The published anthology, Hieroglyph, is on my list of books to read.

I prefer utopian fiction. Being a techno-optimist, I prefer to think the future will be better than the present, and reading such books keeps me in that mindset. However, I’m not Pollyannaish; I know society could well backslide, much as the thousand year Dark Ages followed the Roman Empire. Further, I know readers of dystopian books don’t necessarily believe the future of the real world will be dismal.

Let me know your position on this spectrum. Do you read solely utopian, or solely dystopian books? Or perhaps you don’t care, so long as the book is good. Your comment may influence the type of fiction to be written by—

Poseidon’s Scribe

March 27, 2016Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Genre Switching for Profit

It’s just not working. Try as you might, you’ve been writing like mad but not seeing any success. You’re seeing either lackluster sales or none at all. This isn’t how you imagined writing would be. What do you do?

There may be many reasons you’re not attracting readers, some due to the genre you’ve chosen. That genre may be unpopular or out of style. It may be saturated which makes it tough for new authors to break in. It could be that your stories are too similar to those of other, more famous, authors in that genre. Perhaps you’re trying too hard, focusing on staying within genre limits rather than telling a good story.

If the problem is due to one of these reasons, have you considered switching genres? Maybe you could try that just for a while, to establish a faithful readership, and then switch back to your favorite genre.

You might have rejected the idea of switching genres already. I can hear your reasons now:

“I’m no quitter. What happened to the virtue of persistence?”
“I hate all the other genres. My favorite is the only one I’d ever want to write in.”
“Right now, I might be on the brink of success. What if my next story is destined to be a bestseller?”
“There’s no guarantee I’ll succeed in any other genre, either.”

There’s some merit in all those reasons, but on the other hand, no one awards prizes for banging your head against a wall. Sisyphus was forced to roll that stone up a mountain, but you have a choice; you can leave the stone alone and walk away.

Here are some advantages you might experience if you try switching genres:

It could give you a fresh perspective. You’ve been looking at the craft through the lens of your favorite genre. With your view broadened, your writing may improve.
You will learn new things. As you research your new genre, you’ll benefit from the increased knowledge.
Whether due to the new perspective, or what you’ve learned, the experience of writing in the new genre might enable you to write better and more saleable stories in your favorite genre.
You might become a huge success. Sometimes, in life, you find you’re quite good at things you hate doing. Of course, phenomenal sales might make you re-evaluate whether you really hate that new genre as much as you thought.
You may discover that this experimental method of discarding things that don’t work and trying alternatives, is applicable in other areas of writing besides genre. It applies to writing techniques, book marketing methods, story lengths, etc.

The writing biz is full of examples of writers who achieved success by switching genres:

Author Name	Initial, failed, genre(s)	Success genre
Agatha Christie	Spiritualism, paranormal	Mystery
Horatio Alger, Jr.	Essays, satirical poetry	Rags-to-riches boys stories
R. L. Stine	Children’s humor	Children’s horror
Dean Koontz	Science fiction	Suspense thrillers
Louis L’Amour	Adventure and Crime	Westerns
Mickey Spillane	Comic books	Detective fiction
Mary Higgins Clark	Historical fiction	Thriller
Jules Verne	Historical adventure	Science Fiction

Regular readers of my blog know I’ve dabbled in various genres myself. Although my favorite is alternate history (especially steampunk and clockpunk), I’ve written fantasy, horror, science fiction, and even some romance. The most successful in terms of sales has been my horror story. I’m not attracted to that genre, and it’s likely that the great sales are due to other stories in the anthology besides mine. Therefore, it’s questionable whether I’d really attract more readers if I switched to writing horror.

Has this blog post caused you to consider switching genres? If you do switch, please comment and share your results, whether successful or otherwise, with—

Poseidon’s Scribe

December 13, 2015Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Secrets of the Past

Is it possible that some amazing things happened in historical times, but never made it in the history books? Today I’ll discuss the subgenre of fiction known as secret histories.

Wikipedia’s entry provides a good definition: “A secret history (or shadow history) is a revisionist interpretation of either fictional or real (or known) history which is claimed to have been deliberately suppressed, forgotten, or ignored by established scholars. Secret history is also used to describe a type or genre of fiction which portrays a substantially different motivation or backstory from established historical events.”

With secret histories the author can deviate from actual history as far as she’d like, but she must return things to status quo or else explain why historical accounts don’t align with her story.

For this reason, secret histories are not to be classified as alternate histories (as I mistakenly did here. There is no permanent altering of history. Rather the world returns to the one we know. The thrill for the reader is seeing how close the world came to actually changing in some dramatic way.

Secret histories work well as thriller stories with assassins or spies, since they work in secret anyway. Frederick Forsyth’s The Day of the Jackal and Ken Follett’s Eye of the Needle are two examples.

I’ve written secret histories myself, but my stories involve technology, not spies or assassins. In each one I leave it to the reader to speculate how much further ahead we’d be if some inventions had occurred earlier.

In “The Sea-Wagon of Yantai,” an inventor creates a submarine in China in 200 B.C. There are obscure references asserting that something of that sort actually happened, and those references inspired my story. The tale ends in a way that explains why more submarines weren’t made as a result of this invention.

My story “The Steam Elephant” (which appeared in Steampunk Tales magazine) is a secret history in which a traveling group of Britons and one Frenchman are enjoying a safari from the vantage of a steam-powered elephant invited by one of the Brits. They get caught up in the Anglo-Zulu war of 1879. This is intended as a sequel to the two books of Jules Verne’s Steam House series.

In “The Wind-Sphere Ship,” Heron of Alexandria takes his simple steam-powered toy and uses it to power a ship. If there had been a steamship in the 1st Century A.D., it boggles the mind to think we could have had the Industrial Revolution seventeen hundred years early and skipped the Dark Ages.

Another secret history is “Leonardo’s Lion” which answers what happened to the mechanical clockwork lion built by Leonardo da Vinci in 1515. In the story, humanity comes very close to seeing all of da Vinci’s designs made real, which would have advanced science and engineering by centuries.

I’d categorize “The Six Hundred Dollar Man” as secret history too, when a man fits steam-powered limbs on another man who’d been injured in a stampede. The story takes place in 1870 in Wyoming and it’s pretty clear by the story’s end why that technology didn’t catch on.

“Rallying Cry” is a tale about a young man who learns there have been secret high-technology regiments and brigades in wars going back at least to World War I. Members of these teams cannot reveal their group’s existence, so it fits the secret history genre.

In “Wheels of Heaven” I take what is factually known about the Antikythera Mechanism, and weave a fictional tale to explain it.

As you can see, I like writing in this sub-genre. Imagine something interesting and imaginative happened in history, write about it, then tie up all the loose ends so that our modern historical accounts remain unchanged. Leave the reader wondering if the story could have really happened. History that might have been, courtesy of—

Poseidon’s Scribe

December 7, 2014Poseidon's ScribePermalink

What a Disaster!

Today I’m exploring the world of disaster fiction. There are many, many stories dealing with disasters, from local misadventures to world-wide calamities. I’ll discuss frequently occurring themes in disaster fiction, as well as the reasons people read it. That might help you decide if you want to write such a tale.

First, no disaster story is truly about the disaster. If you want to write about disasters, try non-fiction. As I’ve said before, fiction is about the human condition, so your disaster story is really about the characters, their attempts to cope with the disaster, and how they grow or change as a result.

I’ll make a distinction between disaster stories and post-apocalyptic stories. In the latter, the disaster has already occurred and people are trying to handle the aftermath. In the former, the disaster occurs during the story. I’ll discuss post-apocalyptic fiction in a future blog post.

Types

Though disaster stories are about people, we can still classify them by the type of disaster that occurs, and there are plenty to choose from. You might think all the best disasters have been taken already and the reading public won’t go for one more disaster novel. You’d be wrong; since the stories are about people, there are always infinitely more stories to write.

Disasters can be natural, as with floods or tsunamis, hurricanes, tornadoes, other significant storms, earthquakes, volcanoes, extreme climate change, asteroid or comet collisions, etc.

The disaster could be an accident, such as a shipwreck, airplane crash, train wreck, industrial accident, etc. A car crash probably wouldn’t count, since the disaster really should involve a large number of people.

There are other disasters that aren’t natural, and aren’t really accidents either. Let’s call them calamities, and separate them into plausible and less-plausible scenarios. The plausible ones include pandemics, terrorist attacks, major wars, economic collapse, and loss of electricity.

The less-plausible calamities (my own risk assessment; yours might differ) include: alien invasion, uncontrolled release of technology (such as nanotechnology, robot uprising, creation of a black hole, creation of a super-disease or super-creature, etc.), zombie apocalypse, “return” of vampires or werewolves, and attacks by menacing (usually gigantic) animals.

Themes

You’ll find some common themes in disaster stories. Here’s a partial list.

• Despite how far humans have progressed, we need reminding we are small and weak creatures in a big, dangerous universe.
• As disaster looms, people will react differently, going through the Kübler-Ross ‘Five Stages of Grief’ at different rates.
• A large-scale disaster will collapse the normal societal structure, and other structures will form.
• A disaster brings together strangers who must form a team with a common purpose, such as survival.
• A main character must overcome a personal fear or other psychological flaw and rise to the situation.
• A former leader cannot cope with the disaster; a new and unlikely leader must take charge.
• Often the protagonist’s main goal is either survival (of a group) or rescue of others.
• There are good and bad human reactions to disasters, and the characters who react badly often (though not always) meet a bad end. For example, preparation is better than assuming an unchanging future; clear thinking is better than panic, teamwork is better than uncaring self-centeredness; natural leadership is better than using a chaotic situation to claim power; focusing on the goal is more productive than blaming or finding fault.

Purpose

Why do people read disaster stories? These are among the reasons:

• It’s a chance to “experience” the disaster in a safe way, without having to endure it for real.
• The stories can be taken as metaphors for how we can deal with the smaller-scale mishaps of daily life.
• The tales can be metaphors for some perceived societal defect, as in H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds.
• The stories offer lessons in preparation as old as the ant & grasshopper fable.

Conclusion

I would classify only one of my stories as a true disaster tale. “The Finality” appeared in the anthology 2012 AD by Severed Press. In it, a scientist discovers that time itself is coming to an end, not just on Earth but throughout the universe, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. But just maybe the Mayans were trying to tell us something about that.

May all your disasters be the written kind; that’s the hope of—

Poseidon’s Scribe

November 30, 2014Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Your Writing Voice

We call it laryngitis when you lose your voice, but what if you never found it in the first place? To be clear, I’m not writing about a medical condition of the larynx, but rather about your writing voice.

Definition

What is a writing voice? I liken it to your vocal voice in that it is distinctively yours, an individual indicator like your fingerprints, your retina patterns, and your signature. It’s a marker that can be used to identify you.

In other words, a few paragraphs could be taken at random from your published stories, and a reader might be able to recognize that you’re the author.

Is your writing that identifiable? Is it unique? If not, how can you get to that point?

Two Elements

Before we arrive at a way to answer those questions, I’ll cover what I believe to be the two elements of a writer’s voice.

The first is the subject, the topic about which you commonly write. This can take the form of a genre or theme. Someday when you have compiled a full body of work and your name comes up, if people say, “That’s the author who writes about ______,” it’s that ‘______’ that forms part of your voice.

The other element has to do with style. It’s not just the subjects you write about, it’s how you do it. The Wikipedia article on Writer’s Voice suggests that this element; a combination of character development, dialogue, diction, punctuation, and syntax; is all there is to a writing voice. I’m not willing to discount the subject/topic element, though.

Discovery

How do you find your voice? This marvelous blog post by author Todd Henry provides a great way to help you find your voice by answering ten questions. These questions help you reach your inner passions and hopes. In this way you’ll touch the deep emotions and motivations inside.

Why does that method work, for discovering your voice? Certainly the answers will help you determine the subject half of your voice. The answers will suggest topics you should write about or genres to write in. Only by tapping in to your central core of strong enthusiasms will you be able to sustain the discipline to complete what you start to write. If you work at it, those deep hopes and passions will become evident in your writing.

What about the style element? How are you supposed to discover that? I’m not sure answering Todd Henry’s ten questions will answer that. I believe your writing style is a matter of imitation early on, then leading to experimentation, and finally perfecting.

No Guarantee

Let me set some expectations about this process of finding your writing voice. In the end, you’ll have a unique voice, one recognizable as you. That doesn’t mean anyone else wants to hear it. This isn’t a recipe for fame or financial success in writing.

I’ll write a blog post sometime laying out the sure-fire, step-by-step formula for how to become famous and rich by writing.

Sure. Keep checking back for that one.

What’s the point, you’re asking, of this voice discovery process? Why go through it? I’d answer that all the authors who are famous, or rich, or whose writing is considered classic, all of them have a distinctive writing voice.

I think finding your voice is necessary, but not sufficient, for success. You might discover your writing voice only to learn it’s not marketable. If high sales numbers are what you’re after, experiment more. Try slight alterations of voice until you hit the combination of subject and style that sells.

Best of luck to you in finding your writing voice. Still searching for mine, I’m—

Poseidon’s Scribe

October 19, 2014Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Fiction Elements by Genre

In earlier posts I’ve blogged about the various elements of fiction (Character, Plot, Setting, Theme, and Style). I’ve also blogged a bit about the various genres of fiction. Here I thought I’d explore how the various genres emphasize certain elements and de-emphasize others.

For the chart, I used the genres listed in the Wikipedia “List of Genres” entry. As the entry itself points out, people will never agree on this list. Even more contentious will be my rankings in the chart for how much each genre makes use of each fiction element.

For each genre, I assigned my own rough score for each fiction element. I’ve placed the genres in approximate order from the ones emphasizing character and plot more, to the ones emphasizing style and theme more.

Go ahead and quibble about the numbers I assigned. That’s fine. There’s considerable variation within a genre. Also, the percentages of the elements vary over time. If we took one hundred experts in literature and had them each do the rankings, then averaged them, the resulting chart would have more validity than what I’m presenting, which is based on my scoring alone.

But the larger point is that the different genres do focus on different elements of fiction. In my view, character is probably the primary element for all but a few genres. Theme is probably the least important, except for a limited number of genres.

Of what use is such a chart? First, please don’t draw an unintended conclusion. If you happen to know which elements of fiction are your fortes, and which you’re least skilled in, I wouldn’t advise you to choose a genre based on that.

Instead, look at the chart the opposite way. Find the genre in which you’d like to write, and work to strengthen your use of its primary fiction elements in your own work. You might even glance at the genres on either side of your favorite one and consider writing in those genres too.

I can’t seem to find online where anybody else has constructed a chart like mine. Perhaps the only one you’ll see is this one made by—

Poseidon’s Scribe