What the Fran

Just invent new genres why don't you

Read a thing about genres and I think the intention was that, having read it, I (as in, the audience) should be angry and upset about genre and publishing and such. But it just seemed funny to make up some new genres? Be the genre we want to see in the world?

I'm into the vibe of 'Golden Age' late nineteenth, early twentieth century scifi and adventure and stuff. Wild adventures in a weird world, a bit of melodrama, mindless fun... I'm just so much less into the racism and sexism hiding behind every other page. (These are Predictable problems with reading 1930s pulp fiction.) I want that style with modern sensibilities. Apparently this is Neo-Pulp.

Similarly there's the 'what the future used to look like' vibe with Atompunk, Retrofuturism, and Raygun Gothic. I want to write stories like this but can in no way pull it off. As if they were written in past, about a future that is now, with the retro-future science and inventions. I can't even explain it in this sentence, never mind a novel.

I'm waiting patiently for an Adventure Revival.

As part of my ongoing quest to get to grips with cosy stories and whether I actually like them or not, I have joked around about Cosy Existential Dread. I need to try that sort of Cosy Solarpunk Post-Apocalyptic Cottagecore which I do know exists.

Some other stuff I'm into, which may or may not exist, I don't know.

Griefpunk. On a yolo. Everything I wrote while my dad was dying. Being chased by the Grim Reaper. Howling at the moon about terminal illness. But it has to have that scrappy punk element, not just be serious and sad.

Archival Horror. X-Files and Buffy research vibes. The horror is equal parts monsters and bureaucracy. A bit New Weird but I'm specifically here for the mustiness of books, broken lamps, coffee-stained manilla folders, bringing each other snacks, and kissing.

Superposition Romance, concerning love and quantum physics, possibly with time travel. Probably I should call it Quantum Romance but 'superposition' sounds ever so slightly lewd next to romance and I like the insinuation.

Self-Actualisation Lit. Aren't all positive character arc stories this? Dragging themselves up the Maslow hierarchy. But I'm here just to witness the grinding process of self-actualising.

Catalyst Fiction where the main character has a flat arc and it's about how they change the people around them? I'm thinking Sam in Lord of the Rings, Atticus Finch, and Mary Poppins.

Maybe this would all be solved with some Jules Verne AUs/fusions. Send me your silly genre ideas, I would love that.