What genre do you write in?
I write in urban fantasy. I don’t know that I always will, since I go where the writing takes me. I can worry about what to call it after I’m done. I’m pretty heavily influenced by horror and mysteries as well.
Umberto Eco said something like “Every story is at heart a mystery” (not the exact quote, but that is the gist of it). Yes. I think so. Much like so-called real life, for that matter. I try to write it like it’s a mystery, even when it’s not.
Speaking of Umberto Eco, he said something else I think about a lot: “there are only two stories: ‘a stranger comes to town’, or ‘someone goes on a journey.” (Again that’s just the gist of it, not the quote itself). My sense is that both of those stories are actually the same story with different POV. I think about that a lot when I am writing. Sometimes when I am struggling with a scene I re-write the action from another character’s POV just to see it through their eyes. That can get me over rough patches.
What do you love about it?
I love reading UF, and I think we have to write what we love to read.
I love the freedom to solve problems in unexpected ways. Having worlds full of magic and supernatural doings allows for that.
I like writing first person narration, and that is commonplace in UF.
I am bored by reading or writing female characters who stay nicely inside proscribed gender roles. Many UF females heroes violate gender norms. I love that.
Chloe Cocking 