As a writer, you’re often drawn to a particular genre. It becomes your comfort zone and expertise. However, sometimes stepping out and approaching the craft from a different angle is necessary.
It’s a daunting but also exhilarating process, offering you a wealth of opportunities for personal and professional development.
Genre Boundaries
Genres are a way to categorize literature by their content, tone, length, and style. It provides people with a way to understand and group written works. For example, nonfiction has creative nonfiction, biographies, self-help, travel writing, essays, and journalism.
Sometimes, books are categorized in other ways not considered “genre”. This includes age categories (children’s literature, young adult, middle-grade) and by format (graphic novels, picture books, anthology).
At most, genres are loosely defined and prone to change. However, they do have boundaries, conventions, and certain expectations. Stepping outside your genre means breaking free from these constraints to explore new ways of storytelling.
How Changing Genres Improve Your Writing Skills
Here are a few ways you can grow as a writer if you plan on writing outside of your genre.
1. Expand your skillset.
Genres often heavily focus on certain things. Thrillers excel in pacing and tension. Science fiction and Fantasy are great at worldbuilding. Memoirs capture the essence of a specific time, place, or person.
A new genre means new ideas and perspectives. Suddenly you’re a novice again! Exploring this new space becomes your mission. It will help you develop the skills unique to that genre.
This is even more apparent when jumping from fiction to nonfiction, or vice versa. Both have fundamental differences that will challenge your creative muscles. An obvious one is that in fiction, you create worlds while in nonfiction, you explore reality.
2. Reinvigorate your passion for your chosen genre.
When you’ve written plenty in one genre, things can get repetitive. There’s nothing wrong with embracing your chosen genre’s core characteristics, but sometimes you can burn yourself out. Or maybe you just want to try new things.
Writing in a different genre helps you reset. It’s a change of topic and pace. When you return to your main genre, everything looks fresh, new, and fun again!
3. Conquering writer’s block.
This is related to tip #3. A reason you might choose to explore other genres is that you’re currently suffering from writer’s block. Either you can’t write or whatever you write turns out subpar. That is both frustrating and discouraging.
Changing genres can help you find new stories to write. For example, you’re a mystery novelist who goes on a trip to find inspiration for your writing. Nothing clicks but now you’ve got new experiences to write about. Perhaps, a travel article?
And when you start writing that article, details might jump out at you that become seeds for your next mystery novel.
4. New audience.
Writing outside your genre also gets you to expand your reach. You’ll have a completely new audience with different expectations compared to your last.
Science fiction fans don’t want magic. Mystery fans want a puzzle to solve. Memoir readers search for inspiring stories by people they can relate to. And so on.
This relates to tip #1. Fulfilling those expectations means expanding your skillset and exploring your new genre’s unique elements.
5. Exploring new formats, constraints, and opportunities.
Let’s say you’re a novelist who decides to write short stories. The difference in format alone is a challenge. You’re accustomed to writing multiple chapters but are now limited to creating a full story that’s only the length of one.
Such constraints force you to rethink how you write. You pay attention to things you usually don’t think about. In the process, you discover more about your writing style and voice.
And of course, different formats also mean accessing opportunities that were previously unavailable to you. Who knows, they might even lead to lucrative publishing deals.
Why Write Outside Your Genre
Write what you love—it’s always been a rule for many writers. But if you’re writing to establish a sustainable writing career, that isn’t always the case. More often, successful writers write about what they know and are good at.
There’s no reason these things can’t overlap. However, you need to do lots of exploration in the craft to better zone in on where you want to be as a writer. It’s why you can’t pigeonhole yourself into only one genre.
Specialize, but don’t close yourself off to other genres. Just look at some of the most successful authors in literature. They often write in multiple genres and formats.
This is especially important for new writers. Establish yourself first by writing in a space where you have an audience. Just because you’re not writing what you love now doesn’t mean you can’t do it later. You might even love what you’re writing now.
It’s also a way to grow. You’ll be able to tap into new perspectives, experiences, and techniques that contribute to deeper, more cohesive storytelling. In the end, you become a well-rounded writer.
Have you tried writing outside of your genre? Share your experience below!
If you enjoyed this post, then you might also like:
- How to Find the Right Balance between Facts and Storytelling in Nonfiction
- Writing A Nonfiction Book Using Your Personal Experiences
- 7 Common Nonfiction Writing Mistakes to Watch Out For
- 10 Reasons Why You Should Write Nonfiction
Cole is a blog writer and aspiring novelist. He has a degree in Communications and is an advocate of media and information literacy and responsible media practices. Aside from his interest in technology, crafts, and food, he’s also your typical science fiction and fantasy junkie, spending most of his free time reading through an ever-growing to-be-read list. It’s either that or procrastinating over actually writing his book. Wish him luck!
