Draw from Other Genres

My heart lies in the fantastic—fantasy and science fiction. There is often, as well, a certain ridiculous element that shows itself. 

Just imagine--in a few more years those horns will curl around enough to reach his mouth,
so he can blow great trumpet blasts right into his own head. 

I do enjoy, every now and then, writing a memoir, or a short-story with reasonably adult characters with jobs and mortgages, where the tensions lie in secrets or sexual tension, etc. And that’s all well and fine, but I always feel this pull towards something else. I never seem to last long in a “normal” world, perhaps because I use reading and writing as such an escape from my “normal world.”

After all, I too have a normal 8-5 job, bills to pay, a future to fret about. If I’m going to write a hero, that hero’s going to have a big flaming sword and a pet dragon and the issue he's dealing with has a lot less to do with the ennui of a life in suburbia and a lot more to do with the mystical viking martians who have crashlanded in the ancient mountains of his forefathers. 

AND TRUMPET GOAT WILL BE HIS STEED

As such, I tend to read works somewhere within the range of fantasy fiction (which is a wide range. A traditional definition would have Twilight and The Historian in the same category—a criminal offense). This does make sense: read what you write, know the genre, the trends. Know what storylines and tropes have been used and overused so you can avoid them. But there is another way to be original, I think.

My fiancé recently introduced me to the works of L.M. Montgomery, and such delightful characters as Anne of Green Gables and Emily of New Moon. I am thankful for this, because these are not books that I would ever think to pick up on my own, and as a boy without sisters, they were not on my childhood reading list.

Montgomery is, first and foremost, a fantastic writer. I approached her books as a skeptic. The covers didn’t appeal to me, and neither did the titles, the settings, or the blurbs on the backs.

Everything about this is designed to repel me. In book stores,
 I would literally see blank space on a shelf in place of this

It was literally a labor of love for me to even crack one open. But I have changed my tune, now. It is most amazing that Montgomery can make the daily dramas in the life of a nine year old girl seem to be the most important things in the world for those three pages. Her characterization is absolute, her world building on-par with the most successful fantasy or sci-fi authors.  

And there is freshness there, new subjects and phrases that I have never seen in a modern books of fantasy fiction. Something I drew away, for instance, was how she describes the Canadian scenery:

“It was November--the month of crimson sunsets, parting birds, deep, sad hymns of the sea, passionate wind-songs in the pines. Anne roamed through the pineland alleys in the park and, as she said, let that great sweeping wind blow the fogs out of her soul.”

                -Anne of Green Gables

I especially recall the way she wrote about the flowers, because I’ve never cared a bit for flowers and would never think I could enjoy a book so much that spent so much time on them. That’s the joy of a good book. You enjoy it even when you can’t believe that you’re enjoying it.

And those kinds of words can make it into any genre, any setting. There’s no reason words like these have to stay in late 19^th century Prince Edward Island. They can stretch to any world or time I could possibly invent. This is a real lesson I learned from reading L.M. Montgomery. Good writing is not limited to any particular genre. And so, learning to write should include reading all the best works, learning from the best authors of every age, style, and subject.