Question

[mrissa]

For non-writers: if someone magically forced you to write something, what would it be and why? Length/category/genre/audience/etc.

For writers: if you could only work in one length/category/genre/etc. ever again, which would it be and why?

Does anybody feel that they aren't covered in either of those two categories, writers and non-writers? If so, can you explain why?

Myself, I think if I had to stick with one thing, it'd probably be YA fantasy novels. I'm glad I don't have to, but if I did....

I'd like to think that whatever I'm working on now will be the best thing I've written to date. But sometimes it's hard to compare adult SF short stories to YA children's novels to adult fantasy trilogies in that regard. Besides, I'm opposed to total orderings in general. We all know that by now, right? Mrissas Don't Like Total Orderings. Rule of life.

Comments

[merriehaskell.livejournal.com]

Well, considering I'd be working heavily with the no-doubt angry resistance movement that would spring up at this restriction, I probably wouldn't have time to write. :)

No, I'm with you on YA fantasy. (I think that satisfies both length and genre.) I'm glad I don't have to, but 1) there's no way I'd get as much fulfillment out of writing romance, and 2) adult SF is too hard for me without doing other stuff in between, so I know I'd never get anything done. And 3) YA fantasy has the advantage of being a good vehicle for the odd short story that might occur to me. (Most of my short stories would be best expanded into novels or not written at all, anyway.) And 4) I've got way more YA fantasy worlds in my head than I do the other kinds. Or worlds that could be turned to that end with little trouble.

(shudder) What brought on this nightmarish Hobson's choice?

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

Cyberpunk! I'd love to be a cyberpunk writer, born around the time that cyberpunk writer was the thing to be. Not that the latter's not-happeningness would be a problem for me, if the former were the case.

Barring that, YA.

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

Or, I suppose, a cyberpunk YA writer?

Non Writers Choice

[(Anonymous)]

Just to be different, I would probably write technical articles or research books. :) What I know and love is electrical engineering and the aspect of creating something new in a circuit, so my writing would most likely revolve around that to the point of writing for conferences or journals on the subject.

Probably not an answer you were expecting, huh M'ris?

Heathah

[mechaieh.livejournal.com]

Formal poetry, prolly. If I needed to draw the noose in tighter, sonnets. (Proper ones, not the anything-layered-is-a-lasagna kind.) I fancy there'd be enough in the way of thematic and structural possibilities to keep me interested to the end of my days, especially if I decided to try stringing a bunch together into a novel epic.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

...in that electrical engineers are doing the same thing as the rest of us but don't express it in the same way?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

What brought it up: I'm trying to figure out how my brain compartmentalizes "what I do" and "what I don't do." It knows. I'm not so sure.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

This seems reasonable to me, and I'm not sure why you don't just do it. Lyda Morehouse went to a WorldCon panel where Gibson pronounced cyberpunk dead, the year her first book came out. She's sold all three sequels as well. I guess I don't see the point of doing something when it's The Thing to do.

Re: Non Writers Choice

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Actually, it was exactly the answer I was expecting from you, Heathah. I don't assume that everyone must secretly long to novelize, and when we were talking about friends who were more immersed in experiment than in story, you and Dave were the first examples.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I have a recipe for polenta "lasagna." I am skeptical -- of the term, not the taste.

[merriehaskell.livejournal.com]

Heh. Really? I know I don't do mysteries. I find them to be the most boring of genres to read; I can't imagine writing them.

(Exceptions have been made for character-driven mysteries: Lord Peter, for example. And I quite like the series about Jane Austen, but frankly, the author (Stephanie Barron) is lifting authentic chatter wholesale from Austen's letters (which I don't blame her for; in fact, I'm sure that's why I'm still reading the series).)

Yes, if you had asked, "What genre would you be willing to never, ever be able to write in?" -- I would have had a more enthusiastic and ready answer. :)

Answering "what I do" is much less simple...

[merriehaskell.livejournal.com]

We have a phrase in our house: "clam chowder lasagna." That means your experiment is headed into dangerous territory. It applies to many things beyond cooking.

I feel snobbish in pointing out that the disaster of clam chowder lasagna was not something I originated, and yet, here I am, pointing it out. :)

[mechaieh.livejournal.com]

!?

What's in it, besides the polenta?

[mmerriam.livejournal.com]

My goodness! If faced with such a choice I think I'd go mad and freeze up!

To answer the question, I'd write urban/mythic fantasy pieces of 15,000 words or less. Sure, adult novels are where the money is at, but I'm happiest writing short work and I'm happiest writing urban fantasy and magical realism. So if I'm stuck writing one type/style/genre forever, I'd pick what makes me happy over what makes the best cash.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Setting aside the whole part about how genre categorization is fun for a visit but lousy as a way of life, I'd be writing adult dark fantasy novels, heavy on the dark.

However, since my current projects include, aside from the adult dark fantasy novel thing, a YA SF novel, an adult SF novel, a handful of short stories, variously SF, F, and H, and a YA historical mystery series with not a breath of the specfic world about it ... I'm glad I don't have to make that choice.

But it's interesting that I could answer the question without hesitation.

[gaaneden.livejournal.com]

I think, I would do short stories in a supernatural urban gothic feel. Sort of like a cross between Charles De Lint and Neil Gaiman. But, I would never want to be that limited.

[greykev.livejournal.com]

As a writer wannabe can I answer both ways?

The only fiction of my own I've been fired up/inspired about were YA fantasy ideas. (both still in the worldbuilding stage, though one has sketchy characters & themes! ooh ah.)

More realistically if I was forced to write something I would broadly say 'games' (making rules & such count as writing, right?) and if that didn't cut it, 'roleplaying games' or supplements for them.

(shrug) I know, totally out of left field... :P

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure if I count as a writer or not. If told I had to write but could write anything, I'd write essays -- basically, what I already blog but with a little more structure. I wouldn't write fiction unless I really was forced to but in that case it would probably be fantasy and most likely YA because that's one of the major genres I read and my mind doesn't work right to construct the others. It would be this-world fantasy, though, not world-building.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

And another thing: what makes a fantasy world a YA fantasy world?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Portobellos, cheese, tomato sauce....

Haven't tried it yet, though.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

That's my thing, too: I've written both SF and fantasy, for both young people and adults, at short story and novel length. I've got outlines for a straight-up historical novel and for a couple of mysteries. I do essays. I've done nonfiction books and will do more if people will cut me checks for them. So it's not like this is how I'm living my life, and yet the answer came very clearly.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. I guess it'd be personal essays. I've hardly ever aspired to write fiction (always excepting consulting proposals, of course).

Actually, the one kind of writing I'd find *hardest* to give up is email/usenet messages.

(I don't think of myself as a writer, but I do seem to produce and "publish" a large number of words each week.)

[merriehaskell.livejournal.com]

Funny you should ask. I realized it was poorly worded after I posted it.

I mean that I have fantasy worlds, and that the YA story is what I've considered building there. And then I have fantasy worlds, and I've built adult fantasy there, but I think I could have YA fantasy, too. There are younger characters running around somewhere in them, who have interesting stories, too.

[timprov.livejournal.com]

Industrial Fantasy novels. Partly because most of my novel ideas can be shoehorned into that if necessary (even quite a few of the SF ones, actually), and partly because very few others would choose it. I'm not sure I believe in a real distinction between Adult and YA.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Silly Timprov. YA novels are 40-90K, and adult novels are 80K+. So okay, there's a 10K overlap, but....

[joelrosenberg.livejournal.com]

if you could only work in one length/category/genre/etc. ever again, which would it be and why?
Short, NYTimes bestsellers. I'm avaricious and lazy.

More seriously, probably long fantasy; I like it, and over the past quarter of a century I've had most of the fun I've had writing when doing it, although no question, the most condensed fun I ever had was when writing Home Front, a contemporary mystery.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

"If you could only work in one length/category/genre/etc. ever again, which would it be and why?"

Op eds, 700-1000 words. Because they're the most read, and potentially the most pursuasive. Although it would be hard to give up books, because you can develop arguments and ideas there that just can't be fleshed out in op eds.

Do I get some magical ability to get them published, too?

B

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Of course. Magical Mrissaland is not all hard choices.

My brother-in-law has approximately five books, but one of them is by you. Is that a good thing? Probably. I think so.

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

I would (and will) just do it if I had any inclination beyond a vague "Gee, I'd like to do that someday." I'm not writing it off so much as storing it up.

[apis-mellifera.livejournal.com]

I don't consider myself a writer because, well, that word brings up awful memories of my creative writing major days. And I wouldn't say that I write creatively much anymore--most of what I write ends up on my website in the form of rambles about my days.

If I had to confine myself to one area, though, it'd be what's currently called "creative non-fiction"; in other words, the personal essay. But that's mainly because while I love to read all sorts of genre fiction, I don't have it in me to write any of it. 'Course, some of that's due to the aforesaid awful memories, too. (Not sure if I've told you about that or not.)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

You haven't.

[apis-mellifera.livejournal.com]

If you'd like the gory details, I can inflict them on you in an email. :)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

K.

[alecaustin.livejournal.com]

Long form fantasy, by a long shot-- it encompasses pretty much all the projects I have in my head except a couple, and those few could be shoehorned in, easily.