Let’s Do the Mash! Genre Mashups and How they Can Work for You
It’s that season again, where monsters start to take up space in stores, on porches - and in our imaginations. But did you ever realize that, like Dr. Frankenstein, we can keep putting our writing monsters together out of various parts all year?
Publishing loves to put everything into genres. As readers, we also like the idea of categorization, so we know (more or less) what we’re getting when we pick up a book. In the bookstore, on Amazon, on Goodreads, we count on the neat labeling on genre to sort books into categories we recognize.
Every genre has its tropes and writers ignore them at their peril. These are signposts that every reader looks for to reassure them they are where they want to be. Nothing wrong with tropes. Often they’re so long-standing they veer into cliché: the proud warrior, the snooty princess, the wise old mentor; the quest; the murder with a twist; the modern everyman/woman with a dissatisfying life; star-crossed-lovers…
But… publishing (well, all entertainment) also craves the new, original and exciting. We want both the known to reassure us and the unknown to excite us. And some of our most enduring cultural touchstones have resulted from this marriage. Star Wars is the classic example, a coming-of-age quest/hero’s journey in space (with a dash of romance thrown in).
One of the quickest ways to get out of a writing slump in fact, is to embrace the genre mash-up, and see what comes out. Brandon Sanderson, in his YouTube videos on writing, mentions how his first book in the Mistborn series came out of a mashup of “heist meets high fantasy.” The current wildly popular Netflix show Squid Game is an effective mix of thriller, horror, and social commentary. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies took the idea of a genre mashup to a hilarious extreme. Diana Gabaldons Outlander series combines historical romance with hints of adventure. Jasper Fforde’s Thursday Next series (beginning with The Eyre Affair) plunges straight into delightful mashup territory - Sherlockian mystery, sci-fi dystopia, and an entire world where literature of all kinds is mixed up in everyday affairs. Hard to explain, but a charming and fun ride for sure.
Yes, if you can think of a mashup, someone has probably done it. But that doesn’t mean you can’t do it too. The whole point is to take stale tropes and mix them up in new ways.
This week, take a look at some of the genres listed below. If you like, add some of your own (including subgenres). Then, take a few at random and see what you come up with. For best random effect you can write them on paper then tear them into strips to pick out of a hat. Come up with a logline or mini-summary of no more than one paragraph for each. If this sparks an idea for a full story you want to explore further, great! If not, at least it will wake up your mind to new possibilities.
Mystery
Horror
Thriller
Romance
Fantasy
Science Fiction
Historical Fiction
Coming of age
Paranormal
Dystopian
Heist
Mythology
Real people into fantastic circumstances (Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter)
Adventure
Sports
Travel
Time Travel
Spy
Family Drama
Others…???
