What do you write and why?

[Pam]

I mainly write fantasy but have written a YA dystopian novel and have also dabbled in dark fantasy - short stories. I also have written a couple of books that are contemporary supernatural (as in supernatural forces affecting present day people), though one needs a total rewrite because I was never happy with it, and the other one has been majorly impacted by recent events so am not sure what to do with that one.

Reason why - well, I wrote ghost stories and other 'weird' stuff from a young age as 'normal' fiction didn't interest me, though I have written some general fiction short stories more recently. I wrote the stuff I liked to read, I think!

[Patrick]

I mostly write fantasy. I have written 3 novels so far, with one being recently published. I also am working on a short serial idea, which would mix classic rpg ideas with satire. I have always been interested in fantasy, probably started as a kid in the early 80s watching the Hobbit animated movie and playing Legend of Zelda lol.

[Angel]

I write all genres.

[Paul]

I like sci-fi, dystopian in particular. While my first manuscript is actually General Fic, everything after that has been in the Sci-Fi/Fantasy realm, with an emphasis on Dystopia.

I believe that even though a lot of dystopian stories can be on the bleak side, there's always room for some hope and I'm all about injecting that into what I write. Maybe I'm an eternal optimist, but it's how I feel.

[Mathew]

A lot of writers after my own heart, in here.

I write far future dystopian hard science fiction, fantasy/fae/myth, urban paranormal, and military science fiction. Basically my first four books written, the first of which was just published last month :)

- Mathew Babaoye

[Elizabeth]

I write fantasy adventure, and so far have published the first in a series which combines magic and myth with present day science and technology.

I suppose the conventional pigeon hole for my work is young YA, but from what I've been able to glean from readers who want to know what happens next, they range in age from 11 to 70 plus which is great because it's what I hoped for.

I read and appreciate all fantasy sub genres and some science fiction, but I write what I've always enjoyed reading the most.

[J.J.]

I was a huge fan of horror when I was younger and always imagined writing horror. I guess kids today when they get depressed or down or otherwise dissatisfied, they think nothing of taking up a gun and shooting up their school, but I always found horror an appropriate escape for a lot of the negative feeling from adolescence. It let's you indulge in those fantasies and at the end everything is all right - no one is actually dead and nothing that happens in a movie or a story is real.

With horror, I love the aspect of the victims somehow deserving death. In real life their little wrongs don't actually deserve death, but horror is an allegory in some ways so the moral play aspect is interesting. the fictional worlds of horror can be places where life is fair because you don't get away with "deviant behavior" or hurting others because that killer is there to mete justice. And in the end, the killer usually doesn't escape justice, so you get the sense that this vigilante pays for his crimes as well.

As I got older, I also gravitated toward science fiction. It's a genre that lets you see a future that is so different than ours. Young people tend to think the world was screwed up by the older generations, and they either want to make it a better place, or they think it's so far gone there's no hope for this world. Sci Fi let's you imagine a dream world that is more like your ideas of how things should be, or it's a place where characters can change the status quo and make their universe a better place.

My first book was horror, my second was a science fiction tale. I was already commited to a couple more horror books when the numbers came in and I found the Sci Fi book was a surprising hit while the horror did nothing. So once I flushed the horror WIPs through the pipeline, I decided to focus my efforts going forward on Sci Fi.

My second Sci Fi project was a six part series. Each piece was meant to be a standalone story set within the larger arc, but it became a little more serial and a little less series than I anticipated. It had been a disappointment sales wise until the final book came out last month. It's been slow everywhere else, but for some reason the first book took off in Australia. I set the book free on SW and put a note in the blurb on Amazon to ask for the pricematching, but for some reason the Aussies still paid for it until amazon finally matched the price.

[Mark]

Personally I love messing about with history, so alternate histories are a big one for me. Not so much the usual alt history fare (WW2/Civil War) but more pop culture based ideas, such as what I did with FAB, which imagines John Lennon alive and well in the 1980s.

Post apocalyptic and horror also creep into my work quite often. For me, all of these sub-genres of speculative fiction are a great way of exercising the imagination. And I think most people here are just as imaginative in their own areas too. The joys of Spec Fiction.

[[deleted user]]

I'm expanding with romance, but find it hard somewhat. It's hard mapping out how to put feelings into words meaningfully.

[Chad]

I have always been fascinated by stories that combine "out there" fantasy elements with grounded, relatable characters, whether it's sci-fi or a Pixar cartoon. That is why i try to recreate that for people when i write sci-fi. Also, i am kind of a sarcastic satirist who pokes fun at elements of real life that i find absurd and science fiction gives me an outlet for that as well.