Rebecca over at Scribbler’s Cove wrote a post about What do you love about your genre? I don’t know where she found the writing exercise by David Farland, but hey, I’m game. The rules:
Write down five things that you like best about the genre you write in, then write down five things that might hinder you from achieving those in your work. Then share our list with your writing buddies.
First, the genre question. I identify myself as contemporary fantasy. I may be incorrect in that. When I look up “time travel” – it throws the genre into science fiction. Science fiction? There is nothing scientific about my orb – well, okay, there is a LITTLE about science, I think that’s natural, but the origins are purely magical. Fantasy, right? Still, I looked up contemporary fantasy novels, and nothing came up that I had read. Except Harry Potter, which I loved, but no time travel there. I HAVE read Lesley Livingston’s Wondrous Strange and Darklight, and I enjoyed both of them. While there is no actual time travel happening, it happened in the past, and because of the time travel the story happens today, with all the magical creatures. Contemporary Fantasy, right? I’ve always loved books dealing with time.
BTW, is Phantom of the Opera Contemporary Fantasy for its day?
So here’s the Five Things I LOVE about Time stories, regardless of fantasy/sci-fi:
1) The impossible is possible
2) Mystery, intrigue (I ♥ a good reveal/surprise) ie: In Darklight, we find out how special Sonny REALLY is.
3) Danger, excitement. ACTION!! WAR!! Usually there’s a war, right? F.I.G.H.T.I.N.G.
4) Romance. I know that’s not a boy thing, but I can’t deny myself. When there’s nothing happening between ANYONE… snoozers.
5) Past Influences/History. The current generation having to clean the muck the former generation made. Finding out things aren’t what you thought they were. Getting to experience what isn’t available today.
The 5 things that could hinder me:
1) Not making impossible things possible/believable.
2) Not enough time spent outlining the story so surprises can be found along the way.
3) My conflict may not be “big” enough
4) The balance of “enough” romance without loosing the guys
5) Getting caught up in so much detail that I spend all my time researching and no time writing.
Wow – that really made me think. I think I’m going to work on some structure stuff this week. Anyone else want to take a gander at it?
Woman With a Glass Pen 
I remember having a lot of discussions in my children’s/ teen literature classes about the differences between science fiction and fantasy but I can’t seem to remember the true definition of either (I didn’t end up going into children’s librarianship so I never use that knowledge and thus it is lost to me). I do know that the lines get blurred a lot with what constitutes science fiction and what constitutes fantasy.
Speaking of those genres… you might like to take a look at this if you haven’t already seen it. I hope it opens for you and it isn’t one of those professional sites that you have to pay for and I am able to open it because of working in a library… anyway, here it is.. let me know if you can’t open it and I’ll copy it another way.
http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/acrl/publications/crlnews/2002/oct/sciencefiction.cfm
Elizabeth, thank you for taking the time to give me this. I appreciate it (I know I’m slow at answering comments at the moment. Temporary-Single-Parenting is harder than I had anticipated). The link worked just fine – thank you! I’ll be browsing. I appreciate you letting me know I’m not the only one not sure – I feel like a real novice sometimes – not a good way to feel when you’re learning to be a professional! =D
Oh.. and by the way, I also love time travel stories 🙂
I know that link I sent you is from 2002 but for the most part, the links and associations mentioned within the article are still active and current websites.