What would’ve happened if Mary Shelley insisted her novel Frankenstein was a romantic-comedy-horror? Or George Orwell wrote his dystopian masterpiece 1984 as a self-help book? Those who attended Fiona Johnson’s Genre Mash-Up evening had the opportunity to explore these questions – more on that later.
To ease us into the mash-up mood, Fiona opened with a helpful presentation on genre conventions and reader expectations. After all, when you read a gritty Scottish crime novel, you expect a hard-boiled, heavy-drinking police inspector with a complicated love life and unhealthy addiction to their job, don’t you? But over reliance on tropes makes a story predictable. Genre mash-ups – sci-fi/horror, romantasy (romance/ fantasy), steampunk (sub-genre of historical/fantasy and sci-fi) – offer readers something fresh, exciting, with a twist, while still respecting certain genre expectations.
Our first writing exercise was ‘The Genre Recipe.’ As an example, Susan shared her own ‘Cosy Crime recipe’ – part of a short story published in an anthology.
Our prompts included – a fantasy recipe for tea and a sci-fi recipe for toast. Cue ten minutes frantic scribbling.
Kirsty read out her fantasy tea recipe – lavender, camomile, fresh spring water from a burn – brewed, naturally, by a coven of witches on the solstice.
I’d chosen – a romance recipe for soup – but, as mine veered into ‘Confessions of a Soup Maker’ territory, I spared everyone’s blushes and kept it to myself!
Next was ‘The Impossible Collaboration’ – where we teamed up to co-write as a famous author, but in true mash-up style, in a genre wildly unlike their own. The results were entertaining. Susan’s group imagined Shelley’s lovelorn Frankenstein at a speed dating evening with horror lurking beneath the romance and humour. Jennifer’s group produced a bleak survival self-help guide written in Orwell’s voice. Bob B and I channelled Enid Blyton, writing an HG Wells-inspired sci-fi adventure – the Famous Five en route to Mars on a space mission, manage to scupper an Martain invasion of Earth with the help of Tom Cruise and a dose of the ‘lurgy.’
This challenging exercise certainly stretched imaginations – and the results were all created in just fifteen minutes.
We closed the evening with ‘A Genre Weather Report’ : a self-help forecast from Carrie, a sci-fi bulletin from Pat and, after tapping into my inner Miss Marple, a cosy mystery report from me.
What a lively and fun evening that showed how inventive mixing genres can be.
So, let’s get mashing!
Linda Brown