Let Them Write
Genre Fiction in the Creative Writing Classroom
Tim Waggoner | February 2023
Tim Waggoner
Imagine a group of people sitting on metal folding chairs in a small meeting room, maybe in the basement of a church, maybe in a rec center. Picture one of the members, a middle-aged man with a mustache and goatee much whiter than his still more-or-less blond hair, standing up and saying, “My name’s Tim, and I’m a genre writer.”
A lot of people interested in writing popular fiction—mystery, horror, science fiction, thriller, romance, fantasy—feel like that the first time they bring a story to a feedback session in a creative writing class: unsure how they and their work will be received and apologetic for having written that kind of fiction. It’s a common experience for beginning writers of genre fiction who take college creative writing courses. The professor hates the kind of stories I write. She told me unless I write more realistic fiction, I’ll have to drop her class.
Kevin J. Anderson, bestselling genre-fiction writer and Publishing Concentration Director in the MFA program at Western Colorado University, is very familiar with this sort of response from creative writing instructors. “When I was an undergrad I was an exuberant reader and ambitious writer, and when I took ‘advanced fiction writing workshops’ and delivered SF stories, the professor treated them with withering disdain. ‘Are you ever going to write REAL fiction, Anderson?’ I had an argument with another teacher who insisted that science fiction could NOT be good. When I hauled out Brave New World, 1984, and Fahrenheit 451, I was told flatly that those were not science fiction. (Really? Bradbury not science fiction?) He said ‘They’re good, so therefore they cannot be science fiction.’” 1
I was lucky. During my undergraduate and graduate school years (over three decades ago), none of my creative writing teachers told me what I should write. They gave me feedback on how I could make my stories better, of course, but they never tried to steer me toward one type of fiction or away from another. But over the years I’ve heard from dozens of writers that their desire to write genre fiction in their creative writing classes was, shall we say, less than well received by their instructors. Still, genre fiction has become more accepted in the academy in recent years, with MFA programs focusing on popular fiction offered by Seton Hill University, Stonecoast at the University of Southern Maine, Emerson College, West Colorado University, and others. And a quick search of the AWP’s Guide to Writing Programs database shows seventy schools in all that list themselves as having some measure of openness toward their students writing genre fiction.
But if a program—or a particular instructor—is genre-fiction friendly (or at least genre-fiction tolerant), that doesn’t mean they’re always confident dealing with genre fiction in their classrooms or workshops. Maybe literary fiction is their jam as both a writer and a reader, but even if they enjoy reading a certain type of genre fiction, it’s doubtful they read all the types. And let’s face it, the likelihood that a college or university creative writing program is centered around literary writing is still pretty high. But no matter your focus as a teacher, some students are going to submit genre stories for class, and you’ll need to decide how to respond to them—and that’s what this essay is all about.
…over the years I’ve heard from dozens of writers that their desire to write genre fiction in their creative writing classes was, shall we say, less than well received by their instructors.
First off, it’s your class. You can set whatever parameters you want, and if you don’t want your students to write genre fiction, that’s your call. (Although if that’s the case, I’m not sure why you’re reading this.) Maybe you feel that genre fiction is a lesser form of literature. Popular fiction tends to focus on plot, sometimes at the expense of character, emphasizes craft over artistry, readability over style, entertainment over meaning, the reader’s experience over the writer’s expression. The goal of the genre fiction writer isn’t to produce Art with a capital A—at least, that’s not their primary concern. First and foremost, they want to tell a good story
Of course, there are writers of genre fiction whose concerns are very literary, just as there are literary writers who occasionally work with genre tropes, and literary and genre fiction have more in common than you might think. All fiction stimulates the imagination, promotes abstract thinking, deepens empathy, strengthens readers’ skills with language, and contributes to society, if in different ways. And the reality is that the students who come to our classrooms are deeply accultured to popular fiction. Most people (even those who read a lot) spend far more time being exposed to visual media—movies, TV shows, cartoons, videogames—rather than the printed word, and the vast majority of the media they consume is based on popular fiction genres. One way or another, creative writing teachers must contend with popular fiction in their classrooms.
Erin Flanagan, English Professor at Wright State University and Edgar Award–winning author of the novels Deer Season and Blackout, and the short story collections It’s Not Going to Kill You and Other Stories and The Usual Mistakes, describes her approach to dealing with genre fiction in her classes. “What I try to stress is that in classes we’re trying to find a common ground to talk about all stories regardless of genre—literary, sci-fi, etc.—that include character development, plotting, motivation, dialogue, narration, etc. These are the things (almost) all stories have and we’re trying to use them across genre.
“I also try to be very clear that I’m far from an expert in all areas, no one is, and that this is where their knowledge comes in both as readers and writers. If I don’t understand something in a story (say how goblins might typically behave), I note this when I’m reading and tell them it’s out of my wheelhouse, then in workshops, they can either help us to understand why they’ve done what they’ve done, or others familiar with the genre will weigh in. I think they’ve found this empowering, that they know something the prof doesn’t (if they only knew how little I know!). I’ve also asked them to help point me in the right direction to understand their work better. For instance, I did an independent study with a grad student who was working on a fantasy novel and he set our reading list. He came up with three to four books that he thought would help him figure out some issues in his novel, but also that I could read to understand the genre a bit better.” 2
All fiction stimulates the imagination, promotes abstract thinking, deepens empathy, strengthens readers’ skills with language, and contributes to society, if in different ways.
Michael Kardos, codirector of Creative Writing at Mississippi State University and author of The Art and Craft of Fiction: A Writer’s Guide, Bluff, Before He Finds Her, and The Three-Day Affair, has a similar approach to working with genre fiction writers. “Often, my workshops include students writing all kinds of fiction. What I try to impress upon them is that writing fantasy or sci-fi or crime stories or any genre largely comes down to the same thing as writing non-genre fiction: reading a lot, becoming attuned to what’s been done (even ‘literary fiction’ has plenty of baked-in conventions), and learning enough craft that you can start forgetting about craft.” 3
How you’ll deal with genre fiction in your classes depends entirely on your focus as a teacher. Do you want to …
Help students become the best writers they can be, whatever type that is?
Steer students toward producing a specific type of literature you deem as superior?
Encourage students to write stories based on their actual, earned experience?
Help students exercise their imaginations?
Enlist students in a pushback against popular culture?
These are trick questions. Whatever your goals as a teacher, there’s still room for genre fiction in your class. Let’s say that ultimately you want your students to produce literary fiction. One of the ways you can help them is by using genre fiction as a gateway to literary fiction. Permitting students to write genre fiction still allows you to help them develop all the qualities of good fiction. As the course goes on, you can urge them to focus more on character than plot, even if they are still writing fiction with genre tropes. You can assign “genre-adjacent” reading as models for genre-writing students to introduce them to literary fiction, such as Karen Russell’s St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, and J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. Make a deal with the genre writers in your class that they can write one genre story if they try to write a more literary story next time. And if after all this, some students still want to write genre fiction, you can take solace in the fact that broadening students’ horizons will make them better writers of whatever kind of fiction they attempt in the future.
Encourage students to comment on the elements of fiction common to both literary and genre fiction: character, point of view, setting, dialogue, description, etc., and make sure they know it’s okay not to be an expert on a specific genre in order to have a valid response to it.
If you allow students to write genre fiction in your class, there are some special concerns you’ll need to address. How can students write what they know when they want to write about a magical world of wizards and dragons or some far-future intergalactic civilization? The answer is to encourage them to use their own experience as a seed from which to grow their story. For example, when I was four, I became separated from my family in a department store. The experience probably only lasted a few moments, but it sure seemed a lot longer to me. I can take this core experience—child separated from family in a busy mercantile setting—and adapt it to different genres. For fantasy, the child could be lost in an open-air market where wizards are selling magical wares. For science fiction, the child could be lost in a busy spaceport. For horror, the child could be the only person left in the store, perhaps in the entire world. For all of these stories, I could draw on my experience to give the different settings and situations a stronger feeling of physical and emotional authenticity.
Certain types of genre fiction require intense research and/or worldbuilding. This can be true of any type of fiction, of course, but it can be a special problem when a student wants to use space travel in a story but doesn’t know anything about astrophysics. Or if a student wants to use a police detective as the main character in a mystery story but doesn’t know anything about investigative procedure. And when it comes to worldbuilding, a student may need to construct entire geographies, histories, societies, religions, alternate physiologies. For an introductory fiction writing class, I encourage students to hew closer to their own experience and avoid extensive research. The focus is on their acquiring facility with basic narrative tools such as character, dialogue, etc. For advanced or graduate-level students, I warn them that if they choose to write a story set in an alternate history where the Confederacy won the Civil War, they are taking on a much greater burden than one of their fellow students who is writing a more realistic story set in the modern world. If they wish to do this, fine, but they’ll need to put in the work to get it right.
Erin Flanagan also contends with the issue of worldbuilding in her classes. “I try to explain that from my view, realistic fiction (not necessarily literary) can be the easiest because in some genres you spend a lot of believability chips on the premise, which means everything realistic needs to be air tight. With this in mind, I’ve sometimes said no non-realism in the intro class so we can focus more on those common-ground issues, but this has never been a big hit with students so I’ve moved away from it. In the advanced class, I’ve used Benjamin Percy’s Thrill Me as a craft guide the last few years. He talks about taking the best of literary and genre to end up with the best story, and I think this has really helped to bridge some divides between the two.” 4
Metaphors and similes can be an issue with genre fiction, especially with science fiction and fantasy. If a writer of realistic fiction describes a city bus rumbling down the street like a great smoke-belching beast, it’s just a colorful description. But in a genre story, the bus might actually be a living beast of some magical or technological sort, and so metaphors and similes have to be dealt with carefully. Exposition can be another problem. While beginning fiction writers of any stripe struggle with how to deliver information to readers, writers of genre fiction have a lot of explaining to do regarding their imaginary worlds and may need more guidance in this area.
One of the biggest problems you might encounter is that genre fiction may be all a student wants to write, and they might be highly resistant to writing any other type of story. You can put your foot down and insist they write non-genre fiction, but I suggest trying to meet them halfway. What do you want them to learn? To write more developed characters? To write with a stronger sense of how to use language to create effect? Urge them to pursue these goals within the framework of a genre story, and not only will they be more likely to agree, they’ll work harder to master these skills because they’re writing a story that matters to them.
Feedback can be an issue with genre fiction in a creative writing classroom. If genre writers don’t feel welcome, they might be defensive going into a feedback session, and they might construe feedback as criticism of the genre itself and of their love for that genre, rather than a response to a given story. Other students (as well as the instructor) may be unaware of genre conventions and genre history and feel uncomfortable—if not unqualified—to give feedback on genre stories. Similarly, genre fiction writers may not be familiar enough with literary fiction to feel they have any useful insights to offer. Students, depending on their tastes, may hold prejudices toward either genre fiction or literary fiction and have trouble taking one or the other seriously—or taking their writers seriously. And students may simply dislike one of the types and have a difficult time engaging with a story. The best way to deal with these issues is to make it clear that all types of fiction are welcome in your class and that the goal is to write the best stories students are capable of. Encourage students to comment on the elements of fiction common to both literary and genre fiction: character, point of view, setting, dialogue, description, etc., and make sure they know it’s okay not to be an expert on a specific genre in order to have a valid response to it.
As the instructor, there are some other feedback issues you might encounter with genre stories. Genre fiction writers are usually so enamored with the ideas in their stories that they can neglect character development and story structure, so pay extra attention to those elements. “For me, the key to working with genre fiction in creative writing workshop is for the writer to understand that the genre element can never be the reason for something, or the explanation,” says Michael Kardos. 5 “In other words, consider a story with a troll in it that’s guarding a bridge. I’ll want to know: why a troll? Why some pre-established beast that others already created? I mean, it’s not real, so why not make up some other creature yourself? And if it must be a troll, then why must it guard a bridge? Why can’t it be guarding a bank or a meth lab? Or forget guarding as a profession: what about dentistry?” 6 And because genre fiction writers are often deeply into visual media, they might not write with a close point of view. Watch out for that. As I’ve mentioned before, worldbuilding may require too much research for students to tend to other elements of fiction in their stories. Perhaps encourage them to write a story which requires a minimum of research next time. They may never have concentrated on language use before, having mostly read utilitarian prose their whole lives. Steer them toward some examples of well-written, but still accessible, stories to use as models.
I warn [students] that if they choose to write a story set in an alternate history where the Confederacy won the Civil War, they are taking on a much greater burden than one of their fellow students who is writing a more realistic story.
As with responding to any fiction, try to help them tell their story the best way they can.
Don’t be afraid to ask questions if you’re unfamiliar with a student’s chosen genre, and if you’d like to get a background on problems beginning writers of genre fiction encounter, do a Web search on “clichés in X genre” and “problems with writing X genre stories,” and you’ll find articles listing the most common mistakes that genre writers make.
Eventually, you’ll need to evaluate genre stories and assign them a grade. If you’re lucky, you teach a class that’s pass/fail, and evaluation won’t be much of an issue. If the students produce the requisite amount of work and reach the goals you set for them, they pass, regardless of what type of stories they wrote. But if you need to rank order grades, you should evaluate genre fiction the same way you would any other story in your class, but try not to let the fact that a story is a genre story influence your evaluation. Try to approach a genre story on its own terms. What was the student attempting? How well did the writer succeed in this attempt? Did the writer use the appropriate techniques to create this effect? And of course, you can focus on the attainment of narrative skills and improvement from previous drafts.
I believe there’s room for all types of stories in a creative writing class, but then, as a genre fiction writer myself, it’s only to be expected that I’d hold this viewpoint. But consider this: If you help the genre fiction writers in your classes become better writers, not only will they benefit, but if they go on to publish, you’ll be helping to elevate popular literature—and I see that as a win for teachers, writers, and readers all around.
Resources for Further Information
“A Better Way to Think About the Genre Debate” by Joshua Rothman. https://www.newyorker.com/books/joshua-rothman/better-way-think-genre-debate/
Now Write! Mysteries: Suspense, Crime, Thriller, and Other Mystery Fiction Exercises from Today’s Best Writers and Teachers by Sherri Ellis and Laurie Lamson.
Now Write! Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror: Speculative Genre Exercises from Today’s Best Writers and Teachers by Laurie Lamson.
Many Genres, One Craft: Lessons in Writing Popular Fiction edited by Michael A. Arnzen and Heidi Ruby Miller.
Plot versus Character: A Balanced Approach to Writing Great Fiction by Jeff Gerke.
Thrill Me: Essays on Fiction by Benjamin Percy.
Tim Waggoner has published over fifty novels and seven collections of short stories. Three-time winner of the Bram Stoker Award, he has been a finalist for the Shirley Jackson Award, the Scribe Award, and the Splatterpunk Award. He’s also a full-time tenured professor who teaches creative writing and composition at Sinclair Community College in Dayton, Ohio.
Notes
1. Kevin J. Anderson, email message to author, June 8, 2020.
2. Erin Flanagan, email message to author, June 8, 2020.
3 . Michael Kardos, email message to author, June 15, 2020.
4 . Erin Flanagan, email message to author, June 8, 2020.
5. Michael Kardos, email message to author, June 15, 2020.
6. Michael Kardos, email message to author, June 15, 2020.
