IWSG: Genres I Don’t Tackle; RIP Peter Straub

 It's the first Wednesday of the month and so it’s time for another Insecure Writer’s Support Group (IWSG) post! In an IWSG post, we writers bring our writing challenges and problems out into the open to share with each other and try to offer solutions. I’ll be open about it right now: I’m going to keep this post short because I’m writing it at the last minute and the extreme heat wave my area has been getting has been wearing me out and so I’ve been trying to get to bed a little earlier. I don’t have time to take an afternoon siesta (nap) on the weekdays like they do in Spain and Latin America when the weather is extremely hot. In this post I’m going to stick to answering the September optional question and commemorate a famous author who unfortunately passed away recently. 

Question of the Month

The optional question for September is: What genre would be the worst one for you to tackle and why? For me there are actually two genres that I would not try writing in because they are too much of a challenge for me: romance and detective fiction. I wouldn’t bother writing romance because I never read the genre and have never had an interest in it. To try to write even just a romance short story would bore me to the point where I wouldn’t finish it. 

As much as I enjoy reading it, I wouldn’t write detective fiction because it often involves deductive reasoning. The stories are often dependent on this type of reasoning which is a reasoning that I’ve often had a hard time conveying in writing. There’s enough as it is to balance out in writing fiction such as characterization, fact checking for believability, and timing of the plot, that to write using deductive reasoning would drive me mad. 

Author Peter Straub, 1943 – 2022

I was shocked to learn only this morning that best-selling and award-winning horror author, Peter Straub, died this past Sunday. He did some collaborative fiction with Stephen King and, although I haven’t read as much of his work as I have King’s, of what I have read I thought was really good. I may have read a few short works of his but can’t remember. I read one of his newer novels, “Dark Matter”, several years ago and thought it was cleverly put together. Other than that, I only remember seeing a 1981 movie based on one of his other novels and with the same name, “Ghost Story”, which I really liked. I’d like to read the book and do a Book-To-Movie review on it sometime. Many of us horror fiction fans will miss Peter Straub but his masterful horror stories will be with us for a long time. May Mr. Straub rest in peace. 

That’s all that I have for this month’s IWSG. Look out for a post here each late-night Saturday/post-midnight Sunday for more sci fi/fantasy news and discussions here at the Fantastic Site. The exception is the weekend after an IWSG, such as this coming weekend, during which I usually take a break from the blog. But be sure to be with me the following weekend for another exciting post! Also, I just started working on the next issue of my author newsletter, “Night Creatures’ Call”, so look out for that within the next week or two. If you haven’t done so, you can sign up for this free newsletter here. In each issue you’ll find science fiction and fantasy articles, details on the progress of my latest writing projects such as my upcoming book, “Bad Apps”, discounts on books, and more! 

Today’s IWSG is brought to you by these super co-hosts: Kim Lajevardi, Cathrina Constantine, Natalie Aguirre, Olga Godim, Michelle Wallace, and Louise - Fundy Blue! IWSG was founded by awesome author Alex Cavanaugh, writer of the Cassa Series of novels! 

Have you read any of Peter Straub’s work? Do you have any genres that would be too tough for you to write in? 

Until next time . . .