Getting feedback on genre fiction

DeneBebbo

I found this site which is good for genre writers:

http://www.quantummuse.com

You can submit stories for feedback, but first you must give feedback to earn a submission credit.

SilverLinings

amusing that "genre" is speculative.

Are not Romance, Historical, Horror etc genres too? ;)

red-lucy

Must admit I find the term 'genre' confusing, never really sure why it refers to 'speculative' but then again what does that mean?

It's all very confusing :(

pbw

Speculative as I understand it means 'anything which happens off-Earth or outside normal experience' and usually is a variant of sci-fi or fantasy. To be honest I'm not totally clear on the definition.

Genre - in genreal -ha!- I mean...in GENERAL, refers to where your book would be shoved on a shelf in the bookstore, and where your readership would expect to find it, so fans of romance genre would look for the header at the top of the bookstore bookshelf which said, well...Romance.

DeneBebbo

[quote=SilverLinings]amusing that "genre" is speculative.

Are not Romance, Historical, Horror etc genres too?[/quote]

Good point. I'm not sure why the term "genre fiction" has been hijacked as a way of referring to Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Horror in particular.

SilverLinings

a stab in the dark this, but perhaps because all other genre styles can also be considered literary?

"Oh grow up!" is often sneered at the realms of fantasy and the fandoms that read, play, buy, re-enact it.

Though I can think of many award winning novels - within the genre of Spec Fiction , I don't know any in the Booker Prize.

Red

Everything you write falls into a genre.

Is this a site for those who are new to writing? It seems that way. Good if you can get constructive feedback rather than a dollop of unhelpful and wrong advice.

red-lucy

[quote=Red]Everything you write falls into a genre.[/quote]

I think we are all aware of what 'genre' should mean but as DeneBebbo says why has 'genre fiction' become a term used for fantasy/Sci-Fi?

So perhaps I wasn't clear in my previous post as I merely wondered why terms like 'genre' and 'speculative' had been claimed by writers of
horror/Sci-Fi/Fantasy. How did it come about was the question I was posing.

It's probably a bit like people referring to all sorts of music as R'n'B when it's patently nothing of the sort.

SilentTony

I think there's a confusion here and I kind of understand it. There are two forms in basic terms. Literary fiction and genre fiction. That's a very simple analysis I know. So we push aside lit and are left with genre which fits everything else. Often you'll hear genre fiction used as a short hand for speculative, horror, sci-fi, fantasy or anything else in that melting pot. The term hasn't become a by word for those genres, it's just those are the most successful both in overall and inside genre fiction. It's a matter of propagation and coverage that's all.