Guest Post, Laurel S. Peterson: The Challenges of Writing in Multiple Genres

Laurel S. Peterson’s poems have been published in many literary journals. She has published two poetry chapbooks, two full-length poetry collections, Do You Expect Your Art to Answer? and Daughter of Sky (Futurecycle Press) and two mystery novels, Shadow Notes and The Fallen (Woodhall Press). She is a writing professor, serves on the editorial board of Inkwell magazine, and was Norwalk, Connecticut’s, Poet Laureate from April 2016 – April 2019. You can find her on Twitter, Laurel on Facebook, Instagram, and at her website.
 

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Thanks for having me on your blog, Sarah. It’s a pleasure to be here!

As a community college English professor, I teach a lot of writing courses, and many students seem to struggle with why they need what I’m teaching them. Granted, employers tell us that they want employees with great communication skills, but that feels less accessible to them than, say, being able to tabulate a series of numbers (as an accountant), take blood (as a nurse), or whip up chicken marsala (as a chef). I get it. But the point of my courses isn’t only that they can now write about literature or make an argument for or against the death penalty, but that they have the facility to move among multiple forms to best express their ideas.

As professional writers, this is even more true of us. We are capable of not only writing our books in whatever our chosen genre is, but we also pen blogs, write Instagram or Twitter posts, create short stories and promotional materials, and make grocery lists. We are all capable, but what are the challenges?

The first challenge for me is flexibility of mind. I need to see what form the material wants, and then use that form. My poetry comes from intensely felt moments, while my novels come from issues. If I am out walking and am transported by the beauty of a hawk’s screel or the whispering water against the shore, that’s a poem. The purpose is to describe that moment’s power, its strong emotional pull, the way in which it connects me to something so much bigger than I.

But if I’m thinking about how someone might sneak up on me in those woods, where they would hide the body (or push it over the cliff to land in those handy bushes down below), and how women cannot walk alone in the woods in this world, then I’m in novel mode. However, the form isn’t always so clear right away. The intense moment of feeling afraid in the woods might go in either direction, and sometimes I don’t figure that out that it’s a poem until I’ve written thirty bad novel pages! 

The second challenge for me is a mastery of forms. The components of poetry are different from the components of novels. Character can be muted in poetry, but not in fiction. In literary fiction, you might get the kind of intense description that you get in a poem, but that might not be the case in genre fiction. Setting plays an important role in fiction, but it could be muted or almost absent in a poem. My challenge is to know how I can use those elements to create the effect that I want. In this case, being a poet can be really useful, as there is such attention to detail and language in a poem, and that’s a useful skill for any writer.

Finally, writing in multiple genres requires me to read more broadly. If I’m going to write in more than one genre, it’s my responsibility to be sure I’m reading in that genre as well. I do much better at that in the mystery genre than in the poetry genre, but there are always a couple of each in the reading stack. (The reading stack is a bit out of control!)  But this might also just be an excuse to buy another book!

Next up, I’m going to try writing something multi-genre, in which I combine genres in a single piece of writing. Wish me luck! What challenges do you face writing in more than one genre? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Thank you so much for visiting with us!