Genre

Do you shy away from genre classification or embrace it? If you're a genre writer did you consciously choose to be one or was your book/story style just labeled that way?

I have always known the type of stories I would end up writing. Horror has always been something I was pulled towards even if my first love was poetry. (You never really leave your first love behind... I never did.) But before you're ready to pin a sign on me that says "Wannabe Poe" I might have to amend my first statement. I thought I would want to write only horror stories.

What has come as a complete surprise is that I enjoy writing with humor. "Horror and humor!" you gasp in puzzled shock. Yes, horror and humor as well as other things. A great story has many elements mixed in and it can draw in people it may not have had a chance to reach without the dash of romance or the pinch of history.

I tend to think of genres as a tool to separate books for the people marketing the darn things and the people trying to pick out something to read. After all, I wouldn't want to try placing a book with no real defining elements and I wouldn't want to read one, either. Writing is like compiling a dictionary, definition is a must.

-Jennifer Jackson