A Guide to Genres and Themes in My Work

It seems that in the past little while, there’s been a marked increase in people visiting the site and reading my stories. So, I thought it might be nice to provide a little crash course for the newbies on what genres I typically write and what some of the common themes you might find in my work are.

Genres

When it comes to genres, I don’t really stick to one like a lot of authors. In fact, I actually despise the idea of being permanently pigeonholed into writing one kind of story. There’s a lot of stories I want to tell.

That being said, I think that the majority of my stories can probably be classified as one of three genres: literary fiction (we’re using the common understanding of genre here), horror or thriller. I tend to focus more on characters than on bombastic plotlines. I like exploring how characters are affected by the plot, how their minds work and what they believe in.

Admittedly though, I am also a sucker for worldbuilding. There’s something extremely fun about building out worlds with their own ecology and cultures and sometimes even rules/physics. So it is far from unheard of for me to dabble in fantasy or science fiction also. I’m even working on some fantasy longform projects right now.

Things you’re unlikely to see from me though are the more specific and formulaic genres like detective fiction, romance, westerns or hyper-specific sub-genres of fantasy and sci-fi. That’s not to say I’ll never do these things or that they won’t find their way into some of my other stories, but it’s rare for them to be the focus for one reason or another.

The only other thing I’ll say on this for now is that my work does tend to be more in the young adult or adult range for target audience. I generally try to make my stories accessible to as wide an audience as I can, but I gravitate towards darker themes and storytelling so a lot of my work ends up not being particularly appropriate for really young kids. Never say never though, I have written a picture book before.

Themes

In broad strokes, one of the biggest recurring themes in my writing could just be said to be humanity. I already said it, but I love exploring what makes characters tick and how their minds work. That’s reflective of my tendency to explore people. A lot of my stories (and poems too, for that matter) boil down to delving into what makes humans who we are, both at the individual level and as a species. I think my serial Epilogue is a particularly good example of this. My short story Our Importance probably qualifies too.

Bouncing off of that, society is also a focus of a lot of my work. My stories frequently explore class divides, moral and political ideologies and how those things affect people. These are issues that tend to be very important to me personally and that I find intriguing on a more philosophical or intellectual level as well. My books Domino and Marble from my Pieces series are good examples here.

Relationships between characters also tend to feature prominently in my stories. In fact, a lot of my stories have very small casts of characters compared to a lot of others so I can really focus on how different characters play off each other and influence each other. This could mean bonds of love, hatred or anything in between. I’ve said it a million times, but I think characters are the most important part of a story. So, it probably stands to reason that this would be the direction a lot of my writing would take. Playing Games is a pretty good example here.

If I were to pick one more, it might be fear. Fear drives so many of the choices we make (or don’t make) and forms large parts of our identities. Because of this, and because of the things I enjoy writing about, this is a recurring theme that I didn’t necessarily set out to explore but that naturally finds itself popping up again and again. For similar reasons, themes of grief and loss are also pretty common throughlines in my writing. I definitely wouldn’t say I’m someone to turn to if you’re looking for something cozy or warm and fuzzy.

Hopefully, that’s a bit of a helpful guide to my writing and what you can expect from it. If you want to learn more about specific stories, I also recently attempted to rank my favourites among things I’ve written. Luckily for me though, if you’re curious, the best way to find out more about my writing is to read it.