Choosing Genres

Maybe you came to Writing 12 because you really like poetry. Or maybe you signed up because you really want to write fiction. Maybe you just want to stick with the genre you're interested in, and you're feeling resistant to trying genres outside of your comfort zone.

It's not easy to jump into a genre you don't know much about, or that you don't imagine you'll enjoy writing. But there's a good reason we ask you to work across multiple genres in Writing 12.

In the following video, Evelyn Lau talks about writing at length as a younger writer, and then feeling a stronger self-editing drive as she matured, leading to an attraction to smaller forms. Matt Rader talks about narrative and lyricism, and how the narrative impulse has moved from his poems to short stories, which he started writing after he began writing poetry. Andreas Schroder talks about ideas, and questions whether one idea naturally has a "form."

What do you think about length? Do your ideas naturally come to you with a certain form? Are there forms you are resistant to writing? Why do you think you feel resistant to those forms?