Blending genres isn’t an easy task. I learned that the hard way when I wrote my novelette (longer than a short story, shorter than a novella) To Carve Home in Your Bones and meshed horror with fantasy in a post-apocalyptic world. I didn’t get it right in the first go or even during the second, third, or fourth. It took me several years and several revisions to get its genres working together.
The best thing I did for that weird blend of a story was wait for it to be written before trying to fix it. I know not every writer believes in this workflow, but for me, trying to revise the story while writing, makes the writing impossible.
Like trying to fit a whole universe through a straw.
According to Merriam-Webster, is “a category of artistic, musical, or literary composition characterized by a particular style, form, or content.” Genres can be as generalized as horror or as specific as genres within genres (aka
