Why do you write genre fiction?

I grew up in a house full of books. I never realized that this was unusual. My parents were both teachers. My Dad, I think, was a frustrated historian turned basketball coach, because public school boards find winning basketball coaches much more valuable than history teachers, while I know my Mom had had some minor success as a poet. She’d belonged to a literary sorority in college and had stayed in touch with her sorority sisters well into the 1970s, inviting them over for social gatherings all the time. I know that at least one of her sorority sisters went on to become a mystery writer of some note, because I remember her giving me a signed hardcover of one of her books which I’ve long since lost, but for the life of me I can’t remember her name now.

The point is, I grew up in a house full of books, including the attic. Magazines, too: Life, Look, The Saturday Evening Post, National Geographic. I think the only part of the house that didn’t have at least one bookcase and a stack of magazines was the basement, and that was only because being right on the bluff overlooking Lake Michigan our house was remarkably damp, and any paper product stored down in the basement quickly turned to mildew and silverfish food.

As a child, I was surrounded by readers, and I learned to read early, constantly, and omnivorously. Again, I never recognized this as being unusual. What was unusual, so far as my parents were concerned, was that with everything I had to choose from, I preferred to read science fiction. I was a cerebral sponge, absorbing Jules Verne, Edgar Allan Poe, H. G. Wells, Andre Norton, Arthur C. Clarke, Robert Heinlein, Ray Bradbury…

Later, as an adult, when I wrote fiction, that’s mostly what came back out: fantastic and science fiction, filtered through what I’d seen and what I’d learned. I certainly didn’t set out to become a science fiction writer, and have sold more than a few things outside of the genre. My Mom, who adored Agatha Christie, Ellery Queen, and Erle Stanley Gardner, kept hoping it was just a phase I was going through, and when I sold a story to Hitchcock’s she was ecstatic, because she thought I’d finally seen the light.

The question has continued to haunt me all my adult life. As one of my less tactful co-workers once put it, “You’re a pretty good writer. Why do you write this sci-fi crap when you could be writing real literature?’

I think I know what my answer is, but before I say it, I’d really like to hear your answer.

Why, given all the possible kinds of fiction you could be writing, have you chosen to write fantastic fiction? 

Over to you,
~brb

Categories: introspection week, talking shop, writing theory