In a post on the BookBaby blog, Lee Purcell says writers can beef up their imaginative powers with a few simple actions. “Creative play and the imagination are at the core of a writer’s life,” Purcell writes. “How we nurture the imagination affects all aspects of what we write, and how we write it.”
Almost daily, new sub-genres and mash-ups are appearing on bookshelves. Don’t be shy about sharing your own hybrid vision! Purcell also advises us to pull from our long history of genre fiction to build something new. Use the writers and books you love as inspiration to expand your own imagination and create something with your own unique spin.
“In the same way that musicians draw on varied musical forms borrowed from centuries of music making from every culture in the world, writers can freely adopt different frameworks and inventive narrative styles to shape their works,” Purcell says.
Once you have a sound foundation in craft, you can start writing your own rules. The New Weird genre subverts fantasy clichés to put them into a disturbing, rather than reassuring, light. “Whatever style of fiction you favor in your work, it’s worth considering the elements of emerging hybrid forms of storytelling and consider where the structures, style, points-of-view, and techniques that are used might fit into your own storytelling toolbox,” Purcell says.
Finally, Purcell advises writers to read diverse books. “Becoming familiar with the approaches different writers have used to tell stories will increase your sensitivity to your own writing possibilities,” he says. Read multiple writers and multiple genres, but also seek out offbeat novels that don’t take the mainstream path to story.
