Sometime during your career as a writer
in fact probably quite often
you're going to find yourself
writing in a genre.
Now, I would advise
that if you're starting off writing in genre
probably choose a genre that you already enjoy.
Yes, you can move on to other genres later.
But find something that you're genuinely excited about
before you go plunging in
to this extremely fertile undergrowth.
Where does genre come from?
Well, actually, it kind of comes
as with most of the important things in this world
from Northampton.
Genre has grown out of the Gothic movement.
The Gothic movement
has grown out of
the Graveyard Poetry movement.
The Graveyard Poetry movement has grown out of
the writings of the miserable
but very eloquent
Northampton divine James Hervey.
He wrote such incredibly morbid
but beautiful pieces of writing
about funeral processions
with the cerement blowing on the breeze
which, I mean, Jesus Christ
they were really depressing but beautifully worded.
And he became the best writer
in John Wesley's Holy Club
as it was called.
He was then thrown out
for hanging around with Evangelicals.
But his writing
was so extraordinary and pervasive
he could write so beautifully
about how only God was eternal
and that all of the flesh
would eventually decay and fall away.
This was lovely.
And then you've got the first Graveyard Poets
who thought, "Oh, this is fantastic stuff.
I wonder if you could write this sort of stuff as poetry."
And so they wrote the graveyard poems
things like Gray's Elegy in a Country Churchyard
where they were talking about
the things that you find in graveyards
the skulls, the bats, the tombstones
and how these are all symbols
of how the flesh and the material world
will all fall away and there will only be
the eternal, immortal glory of God.
Now
some people read these graveyard poems
and they thought, "Yeah, actually
I'm not all that fussed about this God business.
But now the bats and the skulls, that is fantastic."
So you've got the lighter graveyard poems.
The lighter Graveyard Poets were frankly ghoulish.
They were loving all of this stuff
the bones, the skulls, the bats, everything.
Then you've got writers like Horace Walpole.
Horace Walpole reads the lighter graveyard poems
and he really loves all of this miserable ghoulish stuff.
And he thinks
"I wonder if you could write a novel
based upon this kind of thing."
And so the Gothic novel is invented.
And it scandalises literature
which up until that point had been the Comedy of Manners
like Sheridan or Jane Austen.
This was seen as being the only genre
that could be considered literature
that everything else was sensational and ghastly
and should not be considered to be proper writing.
Despite the fact that, actually
genre is where literature gets all of its energy
and its vitality from
it has been excluded
beyond the security fence of literature.
Working in genre
is quite a heady experience.
As I said, you should always go with a genre
that you know something about.
Because, say, for example
that is the crime genre.
Then you will be well acquainted
with all of the aspects of the crime drama
you will know all of the clichés
you will know about the heart-stopping
but ultimately treacherous blonde
that tells the world-weary private eye a story
to get him involved in the action
but inevitably she'll betray him.
You know all of these little things
that occur in most detective stories.
So, you can play against them.
You can do the exact opposite.
You can bend genre
you can break genre.
Now, at the beginning of your career
this is the best thing to do.
However, you might, at some point
want to move beyond genre
into something that more resembles real life.
At that point, then
when you have matured as a writer
why not try mashing all of the genres up together
in the way that real life actually works?
That in real life, we are not separated
into tragedies and comedies and romances
and science fiction dramas
they're all happening at once
every day of our lives.
We are in a soap opera
that can easily turn to a mystery story
or a hard-boiled piece of crime fiction
or a science fiction story
or any other form of narrative
and they're all happening at once.
Now, I would say
that there is a lot to be had
in trying to remove
the perimeter fences of genre
and rewilding the fictional landscape
letting all of these things
play freely with each other
and to wander into each other's territory.
The writer Cormac McCarthy
in his book Blood Meridian
he is taking a genre
which I have never had the slightest interest in
and that is the cowboy genre
but by bringing in elements
that we would often associate
with a completely different genre.
In his case, he brings in
extreme violent horror
such as might have been employed
by what used to be called the Splatterpunk movement
and he brings in luminous poetry
at the same time.
So, his books are sometimes
an uncomfortable read for some people
because there is horrific violence
that you would possibly never have imagined before
but the language in which it is described
is exquisite.
It makes it bearable.
It makes it something which is rich
and vital to read.
So, this is what you can do with genre.
Genre is a set of restrictions.
It's a set of border walls or cage bars
around different areas of literature.
But breaking down those bars
smashing down those walls
gives you an incredible release of energy
that can fuel your stories.