This Modern Writer: Genre
[admin / July 10th, 2010 / This Modern Writer ]I’ve never done a how-to-write blog post before. This is because
a) Â Â Â Â PANKsters know how to write already; and
b) Â Â Â Â I’m not entirely sure how to write.
But I realised that I do write in a few different genres, so I tried to think about how each one is different. Here are my conclusions.
How To Write Horror
Try to hear every word you write in Tricky’s voice.
How To Write Sci-Fi Erotica
Imagine what Mary Shelley would write after fucking Pris from Blade Runner.
How To Write Urban Fantasy
Peep in your neighbours’ windows and write what they do when they’re out of sight — it’s okay, because they are mermaid-vampire-werewolf hybrids and it is your duty to tell the world about their hidden battles.
How To Write  Fairy Tales
Imagine you have trapped a tiny person in a glass jar for several years. Tell the stories they would say to convince you to open the jar.
How To Write  Personal Essays
Pretend someone else is writing the essay, then write in such a way that if you met them you couldn’t look them in the eye. This is especially important if you’re British, due to our centuries-old romance with shame.
How To Write  PANK blog posts
Imagine what a professional, organised, wealthy writer would write. Then imagine what an opium-addled, tangle-brained, gutter hack would write. Try to do something that is simultaneously the opposite of both.
What’s your genre? How do you write it?
While this made me chuckle…neigh…laugh reeeal hard…it wasn’t helpful. Lately I’ve been tending to write in my “voice,” as in the way I talk. According to, maybe one single solitary professor, this is a good thing. But I can’t help but feel like I’m spiraling away from some sort of formalness once had, or am supposed to have, when communicating with written words. Tell me I don’t need to return to that and I’ll be such a happy writer…yeah, I blame twitter among other quick fire minimal character forms of expression.
I think it’s a good thing to write in your own voice. I don’t think there needs to be a formalism in writing, unless that’s what you want. Not everyone has to sound like a Brontë.
This is amazing.
Thanks! I hope everyone who reads it goes to write some superhot sci-fi erotica.
sweet