4 What Writing Types May I Write?
Cecilia had finally done it. After writing web content, blogs, articles, and other expository and descriptive writing for nearly two decades, Cecilia had discovered her gift for fiction writing, and not just fiction in general but mystery romance in particular. Cecilia hadn’t been a big reader of either mystery or romance. Neither genre had attracted and held her attention as a reader. But somehow, the alternately toxic and wondrous mix of mystery romance fit her writing interests and skills perfectly. Cecilia knew it as soon as she finished writing and gaining publication of her first mystery-romance novel. And she had a whole series more of mystery romances to write and publish. Cecilia was on her way as a gifted creative writer.
Types
Just as you have a fairly wide choice of writing forms, you have an even wider choice of writing genres and types, plenty to entertain you and give you multiple outlets as a writer. As the prior chapter introduced, a writing genre refers to the writing’s content, style, purpose, and audience. Genres fall into the two main categories of fiction, referring to fanciful accounts, and non-fiction, referring to factual accounts. Fiction subgenres are many, including mystery, romance, mystery romance, suspense thrillers, science fiction, dystopian, horror, historical fiction, and westerns. Non-fiction subgenres are also several, including biography, autobiography, memoirs, journalism, true crime, expository essays, and self-help, of which this guide is an example. One can also divide writing genres into poetry versus prose, and add drama and stage writing. Writing types are another way to refer to genres or styles. Types of writing include expository writing like a textbook, persuasive writing like a speech, narrative writing like a novel, descriptive writing like an autobiography, and creative writing like poetry or fiction. Explore and choose your best writing genres and types.
Non-Fiction
Writing non-fiction has something solid to it. Writing non-fiction forces the writer to deal with the real world, in expository, descriptive, or persuasive terms. Non-fiction writers tend not to fool around. They generally prefer to get to the point because non-fiction readers are generally looking for the point. Journalists may be the quintessential non-fiction writers, presumed by their readers to be relating just the facts, ma’am, just the facts. Non-fiction writers may have a good deal of research to do, or need to have reliable sources, in order to write reliable accounts and pieces. They may alternatively require substantial experience with their subjects, out of which they can write convincingly and authoritatively, having lived the subject. Non-fiction writers enjoy the gift of continual discovery. They are always learning, exploring, and revealing new patterns about the world. Non-fiction writers are also often broadly knowledgeable and up to date. They are always describing new events and their fresh impacts on the world. You might, for instance, trust a non-fiction writer for medical or financial advice but not for whether to watch a new television drama. If that sounds like you, then write non-fiction.
Fiction
By contrast, writing fiction can have something liberating to it. After all, with fiction, your writing may be mostly untethered from the facts. Historical fiction, that wonderful oxymoron, may be an exception. But even there, the reader permits the writer substantial liberty with rearranging historical events to fit the fictional narrative. Fiction, like non-fiction, can benefit from a writer’s knowledge, experience, and research. But those qualities are not generally a fiction writer’s gifts. Instead, a fiction writer’s gifts tend to include the ability to craft a compelling narrative with a suspenseful, meaningful, and likely uplifting arc. A fiction writer also benefits from skill with character development and the dramatic but genuine-seeming portrayal of human relationships. The fiction writer has the rare ability to make the reader care about imaginary figures and their equally imaginary relationships. A fiction writer also benefits from having deep insight into the human psyche, spirit, and soul. And, of course, a fiction writer benefits from a rich imagination. If these qualities sound like your writing gifts, or you wish to explore and develop them, then try your hand at fiction writing. The following sections address several attractive subgenres to explore.
Mystery
Mystery is a category that can attract and enliven a writer to a significantly greater degree than generally imagined. Indeed, that’s mystery’s allure for a writer, that it holds the continual possibility of the unlikely, surprising, and even heretofore impossible. Mystery writers must imagine narratives that others are unable to imagine, narratives that have twists and turns that others could not foresee but yet that, once revealed, seem surprisingly reasonable and clearly explanatory. The genius of mystery writers is that they imagine and describe how the world actually works, from wonder to wonder, appearing fortuitous but instead plainly prepared and planned. Mystery writers must thus have deep affinity for how the creator works, turning chaos and even horror into light and life. Mystery writers must also be able to look that chaos and those horrors straight in the face. Try your hand at mystery, if you possess that rare insight into the creator’s hidden providences and wish to bring more of them to light. Mystery writers can explore numerous subgenres including legal or psychological thrillers, espionage, capers and heists, the supernatural, detective and private detectives, amateur sleuths and bumbling detectives, and police procedurals. Have a go at mystery writing.
Romance
Romance is another category that can attract and enliven a writer more than one might think. You don’t have to be especially touchy feely to be an effective romance writer, as one might think. Romance need not include explicit intimacy. Indeed, the better part of romance is exploring the fascinating phenomenon of intimate relationships, no matter their quality. Relationships are among the most motivating phenomena that we know. People do crazy things over intimate relationships, and romance writers get to explore what, when, where, how, and why. If you have a keen interest in the human soul, spirit, and psyche, and a writer’s knack for describing the interior human landscape when lit by the flame of intimate relationship, then consider romance writing. Like mystery, romance has multiple potential subgenres for writers to explore, including mystery romance, paranormal romance, fantasy romance, romantic comedy, inspirational romance, western romance, historical romance, and holiday romance.
Sci-Fi
Science fiction is such a peculiarly fun and fascinating subgenre, with such a large, sophisticated, and dedicated audience, as to hold a special attraction for some writers. Writing effective science fiction can require or benefit from specialized knowledge of science, engineering, physics, computer science, robotics, artificial intelligence, space travel, and other STEM subjects. Effective science fiction, though, also benefits from strong narrative and character-development skills, and can further benefit from a writer’s familiarity and affinity for psychology, spirituality, fantasy, alien beings, and other dimensions and realms. Writing hard science fiction requires greater STEM knowledge, while writing soft science fiction requires greater social-science knowledge around subjects like anthropology, sociology, and psychology. Cyberpunk, dystopian, post-apocalyptic, and other science-fiction categories enrich the subgenre. Try your hand at science fiction if these are your skills and affinities. Your avid audience is out there.
Mythology
The greater and richer extremes of science fiction and historical fiction can lead a writer to explore mythology. Mythology entertains and informs readers with stories of the gods, heroes of old, and supernatural beings, particularly as they influence the affairs of humankind. Writers often draw their mythologies from ancient cultural histories mythologized into greater supernatural realms and dimensions. Mythologies aren’t simply rich cultural fantasies. They instead draw on archetypes that reveal the human condition, explain human motivation, and rationalize unpredictable natural phenomena. A good mythology can teach a reader not only about the reader’s own deeper yearnings but also about the powers and principalities that compete to control human consciousness and culture. Writers and interpreters of mythology can benefit from psychological interest and understanding, an interest and education in religion and spirituality, and education in classic literature and ancient history. Write a good mythology, and you’ll have touched the profound.
Stories
Short stories are an attractive and fascinating challenge for fiction writers. Short stories can be in any form, from entertainingly realistic but still mostly imaginary accounts to pure and obvious fantasy. Short stories, while a relatively simple narrative form, can in their best iteration take the character of classic literature and high art. Famous authors like Hemingway, Melville, Poe, Joyce, Kafka, Bradbury, Asimov, Oates, Nabokov, and Orwell all wrote celebrated short stories. Don’t assume, then, that writing a good short story is easier than writing a decent full-length book. The opposite may be true that a good story gets harder to write, not easier, as you shorten it. Yet short stories can be wonderful entrees to publishing fiction. Try writing a collection of short stories to both test and improve your fiction-writing craft. You may find several potential outlets for your short stories, whether as stand-alone works, part of your own collection, or published among short stories by other authors. Writing short stories can also be a good way to move around writing circles, find willing readers who wouldn’t agree to review a full-length book, and get helpful feedback on your creative writing.
Poetry
Poetry may be a genre all its own, but it’s still one that writers of prose may find attractive. Poetry, of course, takes many different forms following different conventions. Sonnets are the classic fourteen-line love poems, following various rhyming and meter options. Haiku is the delightfully precise and concise, traditional Japanese three-line form with 5-7-5 syllable arrangement. Limericks are the five-line humorous poems with AABBA rhyming structure. Odes are longer lyrical poems lauding the characteristics of a person, place, or event. Elegy mourns a loss. Blank verse or iambic pentameter has ten-syllabus meter on every line and may extend to greater length, in the epic form celebrating a heroic figure or epochal event. Free verse takes whatever form the writer chooses. Poetry’s generally restrictive form, though, imposing either strict rhyming or meter conventions, can surprisingly liberate the creativity of your vocabulary, grammar, and storytelling. Writing line after line of iambic pentameter, for instance, forces you to deploy non-standard words and expressions, challenging but also vastly increasing your vocabulary and enriching your grammar. Try your hand at poetry. You may find it a marvel in releasing your creativity.
Children
Children’s literature is another writing universe. Of course, children’s books are a huge market, filled with the widest variety of fiction and non-fiction offerings. As a writer, you may have a gift for knowing what narratives will inform, entertain, and inspire children. Children’s capabilities and tastes change quickly, from year to year or even more often. What you would write for a two year old might be entirely unlike what you would write for a child a year or two older. Every subsequent year older brings new child interests and greater child reading capability. A writer’s challenge with children’s books thus begins with the age appropriateness of the writing and the interest the author can create in the writing form, narrative, and subject. Each of those attributes can be important. A hilarious or otherwise highly entertaining narrative, fascinating natural subject, sensitive skill with rhyming and alliteration, and perfect age appropriateness can lay the groundwork for a winning children’s book. But the bigger challenge for a children’s book writer can be the book’s illustration. Consider writing a children’s book if you have keen illustrating skills or know someone who does and who would be a good children’s book collaborator.
Youth
Chapter books for older children and youths nearing young adulthood are another interesting writing market. Because chapter books for older children and youths generally abandon the illustrations necessary to hold a younger reader’s attention, writers may find chapter books easier to produce, without having to find a collaborating illustrator. Chapter books for older children and youths provide a rich opportunity to help young readers explore their family and friend relationships, their developing psyche and personas, and their opportunities and challenges. Writing chapter books for older children and youths can thus feel like a rich ministry, supporting the psychological, spiritual, and moral development of the young. If you’ve become jaded as a writer writing for adult audiences, then consider writing a chapter book or series of chapter books for older children and youths. You’ll need strong narrative and character-development skills, a keen eye and ear for dialogue, and a soft heart for the sensitivities and developmental challenges of older children and youths. But you’ll likely recover your love for writing and for your reading audience.
Reflection
What is your favorite reading genre and subgenre? Do you have a favorite writing genre and subgenre yet? What genres and subgenres have you explored already as a writer? Where did you find your greatest skill? Where did you find your greatest affinity? If you could develop a gift for writing in any genre and subgenre, what would it be? Do you have the nature and personality of a non-fiction writer, being more fact-driven, logical, analytical, and practical, or of a fiction writer, being more imaginative and creative, and preferring greater liberty? For what audience and age group would you most like to write? What audience and age group do you know best from your own education and experience? Have you written any poetry? If so, in what poetry form did you write? Did you find poetry liberating or constraining? Do you have any special education or life experience that would make you a more knowledgeable writer about any particular genre or subgenre?
Key Points
Writers have many genres, subgenres, and types of writing to explore.
Non-fiction writers exhibit a knack for sharing the real and practical.
Fiction writers portray compelling characters in rich narratives.
Mystery writers reveal the hidden wonders of fortuitous events.
Romance writers show the powerful psychology of intimate relations.
Science-fiction writers plumb technological powers and boundaries.
Mythology writers reveal the great influence of ancient archetypes.
Poets find satisfying liberty within poetry’s strict conventions.
Writers of children’s books need illustration skills or collaborators.
Writers of chapter books for older children enjoy a rich ministry.