Discussion: Writers who cross genres

Hello bookworms! For this post, I want to discuss how authors who work across multiple genres really get to flex their writing skills. Sometimes you’ll notice that an author injects a little bit of their other genres into their various projects. I find that doing this really opens up genres to trope inversions, new ideas, and surprising moments that make the books far more interesting.

This is especially interesting when authors dip their toes into a variety of genres. An author who primarily writes historical romance digging into the world of science fiction, or a comedy literary fiction writer trying their hand at a highly specific trope-laden fantasy genre can bring in a new perspective. Not just because they’re in less than familiar territory, but also because writing across genres requires authors to work on more skills. Different genres require different writing styles more often than not, including the type of dialogue and the beats of the story. Entire plot structures can be wildly different between two books of different genres.

There are also authors out there who aren’t particularly entrenched in one genre or another and simply write whatever project is calling to them at the time. These authors do tend to receive praise for not being locked into a single genre, whereas authors who cross genres later in their writing career can face a little skepticism–especially from their followers who may not be interested in the new genre.

Reluctant readers are both the toughest and the most ideal audience for a cross genre author. On the one hand, a readership built out of years of publishing within a single genre will come to expect that genre, continued stories and characters, and the writing conventions that brought about their loyalty in the first place. But on the other hand, that readership can be a vast fanbase that promotes and recommends the author’s new works if they do follow the author across genres. The more loyalty built with that fanbase, the larger it will grow and the more likely they are to consider the author “always buy.”

What do you think, book readers and bloggers? Do you enjoy following authors across their genre excursions, or do you prefer to read only the genre you enjoyed the author’s writing in in the first place?