Illogical Science Fiction Setting where it doesn't belong.

While I mostly found your reasoning very rational and well thought, you should take into consideration that what the main charm in writing an Urban Fantasy is for authors; it lets them to work on speculative element in settings that are familiar to them. It's one of the main point. To those people, including me, the most contemporary setting is the easiest to write.

I actually reading a manga that is more or less an Urban Fantasy...set in 24th century terraformed Mars, although that series is heavily Mundane Fantastic.

What makes me keep worrying is that I'm keep applying sci-fi elements just for aesthetics purpose. Also, I'm a big fan of military fiction, like Black Hawk Down and Modern Warfare and tries to make them as competent as possible, because I ABHOR how they are all mostly used as Red Shirts in speculative fiction, but because of that, I get confused; what the hell do I want to write, a sci-fi or fantasy?

I think the root cause of all this is my primary inspirations is so vastly different from each other in nature; dark Shōnen Urban Fantasy anime (Kara No Kyoukai and To Aru Majutsu No Index, although the former is a Seinen and the latter isn't dark), and well, even darker comtemporary military fiction like Modern Warfare. The worst part is that I never read any military or sci-fi novels.

It all boils down to this: What exactly is that I want to write?

I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.

What authors? You certainly don't speak for this author - what I like is to write things I would want to read, and I would much rather want to read something like this then just another Urban Fantasy. I don't understand why you seem to view blending genres as a bad thing. I've said before and I'll say again that there is nothing wrong with playing tropes straight, but there's nothing wrong with mixing them up either. X Meets Y is a common form of pitch for a reason...

It's a general analysis. You should also know that mixing genre is and doing it well is obscenely hard. When did I say it's bad thing? It's just that one elements are dangerously close to overwhelming other, which is very bad considering that I have little to absolutely no experience in other genre.

Another thing you should know (btw, do you have any writing experience of your own?); Unless you are a very well read (as in reading A LOT) , which does not apply to me, you really can only have enough inspiration for one genre.

One more thing. Don't EVER accuse me of pretense.

edited 12th May '11 12:10:54 AM by dRoy

I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.

To address some of these points:

I do this all the time. I am not qualified to tell whether it's done well, obviously, but I don't find it difficult. I'm not clear on why you would.

I prefer books to any other form of entertainment, so it would be fair to say that I'm well read. That said, I think this is where the heart of our misunderstanding lies - you have a vastly more rigid concept of genre then I do. To me, genre is just a general concept - you can use it as a quick way of describing a work, but it's not at all a strictly defined area. Look at the page Science Fiction Versus Fantasy for some examples.

I'm not sure what you mean by this, but if I came across as accusatory at any point, I apologize.

Basically, what I want to say is this: If you really feel that it will hurt your work to try and mix genres, that's fine. It's your work, and it isn't anyone else's place to dictate how you write it (within reason). However, from my point of view, your concept is not flawed in any way and is much more attractive because of the idea of mixed genres. It's not a writing weakness at all, despite what your thread title indicates. In fact, I'd call it a strength - you say you have no talent with science fiction, but the fact that you're incorporating elements of it without even intending to suggests that you may have a natural aptitude for it.

If you're curious, I do have writing experience, though I'm unlikely to ever publish anything besides non-fiction.

edited 12th May '11 12:31:45 AM by nrjxll

Ah. I see. Sorry for the overreaction. I don't take well when it comes to criticism, which is something that I really should do something about it.

Warning: Incoherence abounds.

The problem with me adding many genres*

, and my writing in general is that I haven't read any books from most genres mentioned, although it's not the case for movies. My primary entertainment is movies, followed by Anime and I don't know how many of those elements translate well into written form, because so far I've been more successful in first person narrated slice of life work.

Another problem includes my obsession with research. My current draft includes a teenage boy *

who can punch people through half dozen buildings, race of (mostly normal) assasins who can dodge bullet point blank, a crew of freaking time travelling alien from alternate universe whose technology is fueled by magic, and whole other things that doesn't make any damn sense, but other than that, I try my darned hardest to justify as many elements as I can and in fact, one of my current favorite pasttime (other than browsing this site, of course) is thinking of extremely well defined magic system....

Ah! I think I'm decided in what the setting would be; a slightly futuristic society operated by Sufficiently Analyzed Magic that is more or less part of technology.

Ok, got to go. Will come back later.

Again, sorry about misunderstanding. I'm on an edge of mind lately.

P.S. Just by saying that you can (probably?) write a non fiction (about what, btw?), you earned yourself a massive admiration to my me. It's a genre that I will never, EVER, will manage.

edited 19th May '11 7:34:28 PM by dRoy

I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.