Access the video of episode one on Youtube.
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SHOW NOTES
Season one, episode one of the Genre-rama podcast is titled: Why Genre Fiction is Essential to Humanity’s Survival and features an interview with film critic and former Sci-Fi Now editor Jonathan Hatfull.
To access the free creative writing starter library mentioned in the show, click here.
The fake sponsor for this episode is a phoney medicinal bonbon called Realit-ease. This chewable candy is designed to make the fictive dream last longer and relieve symptoms of reality.
Fans of Star Trek might have spotted the easter egg in this segment of the show. Realit-ease is advertised in new leola root flavour, a fictional root vegetable from the Delta Quadrant. Though high in nutritional value, leola root was not known for being all that tasty.
This is #NotARealProduct. Anyone who tries to sell you a pack or ten of Realit-ease is an agent of evil and thus not to be trusted.
CAST
Host: Helen Cox
Guest: Jonathan Hatfull.
Jonathan Hatfull is a writer, critic and horror fan. He’s the former editor of SciFiNow magazine and co-hosts Chillennial Horrors, a podcast looking back at the horror films of the 00s. He keeps talking about a novel he’s working on. Find him on Twitter @JonathanHatfull.
Jingle Performance: The One Man Barbershop Quartertet
Realit-ease Voice Over Artist: Shba Cochrane
RECOMMENDED MEDIA IN THIS EPISODE
The Deptford Mice Robin Jarvis
The Redwall Books Brian Jacques
The Alan Garner Collection Alan Garner
Happy Valley BBC TV series
Line of Duty BBC TV series
A Head Full of Ghosts Paul G. Tremblay
The Cabin at the End of the World Paul G. Tremblay
My Best Friend’s Exorcism Grady Hendrix
The Southern Book Club’s Guide to
Slaying Vampires Grady Hendrix
A Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet Becky Chambers
A Memory Called Empire Arkady Martine
The Broken Earth Trilogy N.K. Jemisin
Hereditary horror movie
Saint Maud horror movie
The Babadook horror movie
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
Helen: Hi, Johnny, welcome to the show.
Jonathan: Hello. Thanks for having me.
Helen: It’s our pleasure. So today we’re going to be talking about why genre fiction is essential to humanity’s survival, my words, not yours. And to start off I thought we could talk about a piece of genre of fiction that first had an impact on us and why, do you have something that you want to talk about on that front?
Jonathan: I think the first piece of genre fiction that I remember really having an impact on me as a kid, I’m sure there were a few, but the one that really sticks in my memory is The Deptford Mice by Robin Jarvis. I’m not sure if you’ve read that one. And I remember it because my older brother had it. And I think I was probably a bit too young to be reading it, but I think whatever age you read, Robin Jarvis’s work, it’s probably gonna scare you and get under your skin a bit. But The Deptford Mice, if you haven’t read it, is a trilogy of books and has a couple of other trilogies spinning out of it. It’s about mice who wander into the sewers looking for their dad. And is it just a bit to start where I think it’s just a passage about the father, he goes missing in the sewers, the mouse, there’s something about it can happen to kind of any ordinary sensible mouse, that at some point, he’ll just get in his head that he needs to go into the sewers. And that’s probably going to be it for that mouse. Like he can be as happy as he wants and kind of very sensible and smart and canny. But just at some point, that little thought will pop into his head. Why don’t I go in the sewers? And off he goes into the darkness, and that’s it.
Helen: Thank you Mr Jarvis for that.
Jonathan: Yeah, I mean, Robin Jarvis scared the crap out of me several times and I think, made me cry a couple of times, his books are really emotionally powerful and kind of unforgiving in a way that I think a lot of good children’s books are. And looking back, I think that’s quite a lot of emotions for like a seven or eight year old to be feeling. But I think that is important. At the same time, you need to be exposed to that kind of stuff as a kid.
Helen: Yeah. And it’s interesting as well, how I’ve always thought his books tap into things – and it’s I’m sure it’s integral for writing for that age group – they tap into the fascinations of children, those books, I think, and also the fears of children. So the idea that you might one day just get it into your head to go somewhere that you shouldn’t…
Jonathan: Mmm. Definitely.
Helen: …is a very relatable thing for a child.
Jonathan: Really, and it’s just some of the scary stuff in it. Like there was a, like a rat with, I think, a potato peeler instead of her tail and they used this tail, they used to skin mice. That’s, that’s quite heavy. That’s quite intense for kids.
I’ve just been reading The Redwall Books as well, if you ever read them, they’re pretty violent in terms of kids books, but nothing to that kind of level. That’s quite a jump.
Helen: We’re not talking Jarvis level here.
Jonathan: Yeah, absolutely.
Helen: And I think again, it’s sort of preying on children’s fascination. As kids we’re quite morbid. And we’re quite, just generally speaking, not every kid’s gonna be this way. But we’re kind of into kind of weird, or, you know, we kind of want every detail. It’s very specific, that detail, isn’t it?
Jonathan: Absolutely.
Helen: It’s not something you’ll find in just any children’s book. So I can see why that would make a really strong visual. You’re not gonna forget in a hurry. So I can see why that would make an impact on you. And so do you think that those books, in general, have kind of influenced your tastes as you’ve grown older?
Jonathan: I think so. I think looking back at the stuff that really like I can still remember reading and being important at that time. The ones that tend to stick out are the ones that are a bit spooky, and a bit weird, like Alan Garner, I think was a big one growing up. And then, as I was kind of getting older, and getting into different, like knowing what kind of TV shows are, like, for example, like The X Files, I think, is the one that I always think of is the big kind of touchstone moment of like, Oh, I like this kind of thing.
And I think I’m sure I’m not alone in that. And I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that it was kind of scary. And all that conspiracy stuff. There’s lots of kind of meaty, almost like real stuff that you can sink your teeth into and go away and read about. And also there was the fact that I was allowed to stay up and watch it with my older brother who was the one who had asked and was allowed to but then I would complain that was unfair, that I was not allowed to. So that’s how I got in under the wire for The X Files. And then my parents regretted it and I wasn’t allowed to watch the second of the two Tooms episodes. We were allowed to watch the first one, and then they were so horrified by it. They were like, no, you’re not allowed to watch the second one.
Helen: Well, funny you should say that because that just shows how responsible your parents were, in comparison to mine. Which leads us very much on to my genre touchstone from when I was small. And I think maybe because, you know, we’re friends, and this might have come up between us before, but I did see Jaws at a very impressionable age and by impressionable I mean four years old.
So I’m a bit older than you it was the 80s and the TV and the VHS, was the center of the living room, the center of my life. And I don’t really know what happened. I think it was just one of those moments of unfortunate negligence where Dad wasn’t home from work. You know, Mum was in the kitchen doing something important and motherly, and it came on the TV. And so I just watched it.
So I grew up on what is affectionately known in the UK as The Nuclear Coast. A rebrand by Monty Burns, if ever there was one, but it’s basically the area around the Solway coast. And we lived really close to the water, really close to the Irish Sea. So close that we had daily assemblies in our primary school about how not to drown by water or by quicksand. I mean, these were the these were the things that, you know, a young imagination was exposed to on the beautiful Nuclear Coast. So to live that close to water and watch Jaws at four years old, shall we say it was a transformative moment in my life?
And like your parents regretted letting you watch X Files. My dad tells the anecdote of when he came home from work. He used to own some bingos, and he came into the door. And this was what I said to him, I said, I ran up to him, and I was like: Daddy, it’s a very naughty fish. And that’s how he knew that something was going on, that should not be going on in this house. And then when he looked at the TV, he realized what was going on. And he thought it was the funniest thing he’d ever heard. And he also thought it was funny that I was traumatized. By this film that I shouldn’t have been watching. I mean, not really funny, that was traumatized. But it’s just the way in which that trauma manifested itself. When he came through the door, I was clearly trying to put a bit of a brave face on it, you know, naughty fish, that.
But when I went to bed, all bravado was gone. You know, it was nightmares. It was I don’t want to go in the swimming pool or barely wanted to have a bath. Like I just, you know, I was just really, really kind of traumatized by it.
But weirdly, as an adult, so I rewatched it. As I got older, it just became it became one of my favourite movies. And, and I think as well, when I think about the creative stuff I’ve got out of that traumatic experience. It’s quite interesting how like fear as a kid became fascination as an adult. So, you know, I started in film, magazine and loads of projects attached that magazine were to do with Jaws, or to do with films like jaws. And I wrote articles and I’ve even written a poem and a piece of little micro memoir about the naughty fish moment, because it’s a little bit of funny, you know, sort of family anecdotal micro memoir. So I think so much came out of, like, that almost traumatic experience. But I also think that at the same time was feeling a bit afraid. I also felt like there was something kind of cool about that, in the same way that people go on rollercoasters, because they kind of like the thrill of it, if that makes sense.
Jonathan: Yeah, absolutely. I think there’s an awful lot to be said for the safe scare being of being able to put yourself in a situation where you get to expose yourself to some kind of fears or kind of emotions or sensations in a very safe environment. And I think there’s an awful lot of books to be said for the, like, emotional catharsis of that as well. Kind of, yeah, confronting something that’s scary, and it’s in a safe space and kind of being able to just kind of explore it and kind of deal with some of those heavy issues and fears in a environment that you can hit pause or stop if you want to, but going on that roller coaster in your living room or in a in a movie theatre.
Helen: Yeah, I think that’s such an important point and it sort of leads us into why genre fiction is important. It does allow you to access experiences and emotions connected with those experiences in a safe. So thinking about our past experiences, yours, slightly less traumatic than mine, which is good, although I do think those Jarvis’s books were…
Jonathan: Oh yeah, they scared the crap out of me. Yeah, I did have nightmares for sure.
Helen: It’s almost as though that was the intention. But yeah, wouldn’t like to say wouldn’t like to say. I’m sure he’s a very nice, man.
Jonathan: I think, on Twitter. I’m sure he gets a lot of people tweeting him saying that ‘you broke me as a kid.’ And I think I saw a very good tweet saying that. Looking back, I should have issued like a roll of Sellotape with each book.
Helen: It’s funny, you should mention him. He was tweeting me quite recently, because I’ve written a book set in Whitby. I know, obviously, he’s got the witches books. I read those as well as the ones that you’re talking about. I think I read everything that I could get my hands on, really. And so and I did see along his timeline him replying to some people who are like, you scared me! It’s like, yep, I did. But you’re fine. You’re alive.
I was just thinking about moving things forward to the present day, and thinking about if there’s any, you know, given this as a podcast for writers, and we’re trying to explore when we write genre fiction, what we can do to serve a readership, if there’s any writers out there now, writing now that you think of particularly doing well at serving a readership that are good for sort of getting inspiration, and it might not even be a readership, it might be an audience of some kind, so could be in any format. Do you have any recommendations for people listening?
Helen: Yeah, absolutely. I think well, my go to is always horror. And, yeah, movies and books. And I think at the moment, there’s a couple of authors who are doing some really great stuff in the horror genre. I think Paul Tremblay, who’s written books like A Head Full of Ghosts, and The Cabin at the End of the World, and author called Grady Hendrix, who’s written My Best Friend’s Exorcism, and I’m gonna get this title wrong, I get it wrong every time. I think it’s the southern, Southern gothics book, The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires.
Helen: I mean, you’ve got most of those words right I’m sure. I’d have only got about three of them, right. So well done, I will look it up and put it in the show notes to Don’t worry too much.
Jonathan: They’re two authors who are very genre literate, and who really know and love the genre. In all their books there are like little easter eggs for people to get and references to classic novels. But they’re also kind of very clever and very emotionally intelligent, like genuinely moving – a lot of their work. And they’re really scary as well. I think they’re really good examples of how you can kind of be genre aware and like be genre savvy, without kind of going too meta or kind of going, like sacrificing story, your impact for the sake of being like, Oh, yeah, well, you know, I’ve also seen this TV show and here’s a little reference for you.
And I guess the other thing I was thinking of in terms of serving a readership well for sci fi, one of the things that a lot of readers find hard, and that I find hard sometimes with sci fi is, sometimes people will put so much effort into world building and kind of creating an environment where everything makes sense, and everything works. And you’ve got this grand idea for wherever this world is. But you will, at some point, run the risk of losing track of what’s happening with your characters, or why people should care about your characters. And there are a couple of authors I’ve read fairly recently, who I think just really nailed that balance and one is called Becky Chambers who did A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, and a couple of other books in that series.
Helen: It’s a great title.
Jonathan: Yeah. If you like kind of a ragtag group of people on a spaceship kind of thing.
Helen: Ensemble.
Jonathan: Yeah, ensemble, going to stop this impossible thing. Highly recommended, really fun and you feel good while reading it. Like I said, it’s just a kind of really emotionally enriching and rewarding experience reading those books. And there’s a book called A memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine Who I think she won. Possibly a Hugo or Nebula or something like that. It’s an award-winning book. But that’s another one where it’s very big on concept, it’s very high concept. There’s a lot going on. It’s very plot-heavy, a lot of twists and turns. And it’s one where I was kept worrying that it was gonna shake me kind of loose as a reader, that I have too much detail. But it just Yeah, she just is a very good author. And there’s so much going on with the characters and so rich that you keep that grounding, even when it gets very complicated. And I think that’s, always something that I, you know, when you read a book, and you think, how did they get that, right? That’s always something with sci-fi and fantasy, in particular, when they get that balance of, you know, managing all the logic and all the rules in the world building, and also have really good characters as well.
Helen: Yeah, and I think that there’s something to be said, because I get this asked a lot, because I, you know, teach how to write fairytales and things. I’ve written a few myself just novellas. And you get asked a lot, you know, how do you make it realistic? How do you get how do you get the people to, to kind of go along with you on that story? And I think you raise a really important point with something as complicated as the books that you’re discussing here. And that is, you might have a very complicated world that you’ve got to convey. But you can build a lot of goodwill with the reader to be patient about how you do that. If you build characters that are compelling, that are worth following through that world, exploring that world through their prism through their perspective.
But I think that it sounds from what you’ve said, like about the fact that you find these books emotionally engaging, as well as you know, intellectually engaging, is that they probably done a really good job of making the emotions feel really authentic. And you can sell a reader almost anything, if you’re realistic with the emotional aspect with the intellectual emotional responses of the character. Because if we believe those, we believe in them. So whatever is happening around them, we just kind of accept that as part of the world. And so I think that that is integral to carrying someone along with a story like that, where you’ve got to understand perhaps three different spaceship models and all kinds of different things. And that’s just really surface stuff, before you get into the rules of how society works, or anything like that. So, it sounds like they’ve done a really good job of that emotional honesty in the book.
Jonathan: Yeah, absolutely. That’s what I was thinking of is The Broken Earth trilogy by N.K. Jemisin. And that’s one where, yeah, like this incredibly traumatic, kind of a massive, emotional family event happens in the exact same time as a massive world-breaking event. And a family fractures and goes off in his two separate directions. But yeah, like the emotional anchor and the world building and anchor happening, at the exact same point and then launching off. And it’s amazing.
Helen: It’s really interesting as well, what you say about the authors, that it’s obvious that they’ve done their homework, so to speak. That they’ve read in that genre that they’ve watched in that genre, that they’ve really got to grips with everything, all the promises that are being made to a reader when they pick up a book that fits into that category. And of course, they’re gonna fulfil some of those promises. And they’re gonna twist some of those promises. And depending on what kind of book that they’re writing, and as long as they fulfil the big promises, then we’re okay with that.
But I think doing your homework on what you’re writing, as a genre is, to me, essential. And, again, you know, people don’t necessarily want to hear this one. When they ask you for writing advice, they will have you considered doing about two years’ worth of homework, you’ll enjoy it is not really what people want to hear. They want to know how they can write their book, you know, yesterday, but the thing is, is that if you write a book, and you’ve not read or watched anything in that genre, how will you know if you’re pushing the boundaries in it? You can’t know whether you’re being interesting and compelling, if you don’t know what everyone else has done.
And so I have met quite a few authors who are scared to read in that genre, who are worried that they’ll accidentally steal something. I’m like, what do you think is going on here? We’re all stealing from each other anyway, like, do you think there’s been an original idea in the last 200 years? What we do is we sort of look at something that we like, and then we think how we can twist it into something a bit different. But yeah, I do think that’s really important.
And I’m going to go a bit different with my recommendations. Because of the genre I’m writing, I’m going to go more towards crime, and TV but I’m gonna be very specific about what I’m recommending here. So, Sally Wainwright, and Jed Mercurio are two very big names in TV at the minute. Sally Wainwright’s had loads of different projects. But the one that I really thinking of is Happy Valley. And you know, Jed Mercurio has also had many projects, but perhaps his most famous one is Line of Duty. And what I’m sort of recommending people do if they’re writing any genre really, is look at how those writers curate what they show the viewer in each scene, because that has a huge bearing on how tense it is, on how fast-paced it feels at times, on how high the stakes are raised. So, to give an example, from Happy Valley, which is, you know, a little bit old now. So if you’ve not watched it, there’s a little spoiler coming from the beginning. But you know, it’s, it’s been on Netflix and everything. So you’ve had your chance.
There is a scenario in which a guy agrees to kidnap his boss’s daughter, because he needs money, he wants money, and his boss won’t give him a pay rise. So, he essentially feels out some pretty suspect characters in the area. This is all set in Calderdale in Yorkshire. So they decide they’re going to kidnap his daughter to extort money from him, because he needs to pay for something and he won’t give them a pay rise. And I think it was for his daughter’s tuition. So he arranges all this with the criminals and the next day goes into work. And the boss has had second thoughts, and is gonna give him the pay rise, instead. So, then we’ve got this fantastic dilemma for that character, really huge complex, he tries to, to get to make sure that the kidnapped doesn’t happen, and he can’t stop it. It’s already in motion. And that is then a catalyst for everything that happens in the remainder of that season.
But there’s lots of different ways that could have been shown and portrayed. But we see those scenes quite close together, we see him asking for the money, then arranging the kidnap, and then we almost immediately see his boss coming back with the second thoughts. There’s no need for any in between scenes. And there aren’t really any in between scenes, it sets up the dilemma really well. And the same thing with line of duty, although it can be a little bit naughty at times Line of Duty in terms of making you think that something really weird or different is going on when actually it’s not. That’s particularly season 4, it’s a bit that way. It’s still fun. It’s still interesting to watch, but it’s just a slightly different take on it. But what I would say about Jed Mecurio’s work. And
I’ve heard him speak about his writing. And he said that he’s not particularly interested in dialogue, which is kind of interesting for a TV screen-writer not, to be so interested dialogue. You can see it if you watch Line of Duty, there’s a reason why a bingo card with like key phrases that we’re waiting on circulate around Twitter, because there’s probably only about five or six phrases that are necessarily going to come out of anyone’s mouth at any one time.
But I do think that the very clever and careful curation of each scene one after the other in those series, is pretty much a masterclass in how to plot, thinking about how you ramp up the action, about a third way through the episode and then two thirds through the episode, and then finish on a cliff hanger to make sure that the next week people tune in. And if you’re writing prose, it would just be the same way. You’d ramp up for third the way through the chapter two thirds the way through the chapter. And then you’d finish on a clif fhanger. So they turn the next page. So it’s just it’s just keeping that momentum going. I think, you know, most people will have probably come into contact with some of their work. If you haven’t, I do think that in terms of curating the information for the audience, and heightening the tension. Happy Valley, in particular, is just a fantastic example of that.
And so having thought about all these different things. About the people that we admire, the people that we have admired in the past, maybe we could think about why genre fiction is important. I have my view, but I’d really like to hear yours first.
Jonathan: It’s interesting. I think there’s like different answers depending on who you’re talking to. Because I think Sometimes it feels like you have to justify it. So, if someone says, oh, why do you like horror? My answer is always, you know, it kind of it deals with a lot of fears and concerns that that we all have that we can confront in a safe way, or it deals with societal issues that we might be able to address a more clever, emotionally engaging way than if you were just to address it in like a straight drama.
But then also, I think, that’s also true of sci-fi as well, obviously, that’s kind of long been an area where you can talk about kind of huge societal issues, and not worry about turning people off by making it too serious or too boring. You can kind of do like a Planet of the Apes and talk about how we treat people who are different and or, you know, do Black Mirror and talk about how technology is changing the way we treat other people.
But yeah, I think it’s important that we don’t overlook the fact that the genre is really fun as well, I think it’s a bit easy to put on kind of a serious hat when you’re talking to someone who doesn’t like genre, about why genre is important. And kind of get a get a bit defensive like well, actually all your favourite films are genre films, you didn’t realize it or actually, genre has become like one of the biggest, you know, everyone’s watching genre films all the time now.
They’re like the biggest earners is at the box office and all your favourite novels are genre. But I think there’s a lot to be said for escapism. And I think, you know, obviously, not all genre stuff is escapist, some of it is incredibly bleak. Like, a huge amount of recent sci-fi and horror films have all been dealing with the things that we’re scared about right now and over the last couple of years. And sometimes that’s really important to deal with that. And then sometimes you just want to be told a story and be taken somewhere else. And I think that’s a part of genre that I’m kind of learning to appreciate more as I get a bit older, and especially during a pandemic, when you kind of want… can I just watch something that I know I like and is set in a really silly world, or like a very escapist world? And I think there’s just a huge amount to be said for, you know, genre allows you to tell stories that are bigger than life, that are more fantastical and more creative, and allow you to see things in a way you’ve never seen them before. And yeah, there’s a lot of very noble and important reasons why, like that kind of story can change the world, change someone’s opinion on something or make them think about something a different way, or it can just make them forget about everything else for a couple of hours, or however long you’re reading a book for and just can be transported. Yeah, so I think that question of why genre is important is, it’s a lot bigger than I think it used to be. I think I used to kind of take it very lightly. But it’s important. And now it’s like, well, of course is important.
Helen: I know what you mean. And I do think that these things evolve with age as well. And our perspective and like you say, your point of view has changed as time has gone on. And I think that that is very true. There was an Ursula LeGuin. She accepted a Lifetime Achievement Award a few years ago now. And Neil Gaiman introduced her and she did a little acceptance speech. She’s so lovely.
But one of the things that she did say, quite unpopular things to say to a bunch of publishing executives in the room, about how art shouldn’t be dictated by money. She also said that people are going to need more and more as the future goes on people who can imagine a world other than the one that we’re living in. And that was in 2015. And of course, she had no idea what was gonna happen. And she was right. And I think that it’s true. Also, you know, that post pandemic, escapist fiction is expected to really skyrocket in terms of sales. And as I write escapist fiction, I think, you know, I do get the odd review of someone going this wasn’t a very serious book at all, this could never happen. Yeah, I wasn’t really going for, you know, po faced serious crime, hard crime is not really where my expertise sits.
But you do get that occasional kind of attitude. But on the whole, I’ve had emails from people saying, I’m so glad that I’ve found your books in a pandemic, like I’ve been able to just completely forget about everything that’s going on. It’s really taken me out of caring for my, you know, insert elderly relative here, who’s at great risk from the virus or whatever it might be. It’s just such an amazing feeling to know that someone has used your stories as a way of getting through a difficult time.
I pretty much read The Princess Bride on repeat, as most people know me know. And I’ve definitely been doing that. And that’s not to say that’s the only book I read, folks. By the way, it’s just that I pick it up now and again, my bookmark is always in there, because I’ve read it every year since I was 21. And I’m not 21 anymore. So I’ve read it quite a few times. And that, for me is like the ultimate, ultimate escapist book, I just feel so safe in that world. And I think it’s really important to create worlds where people do feel safe in difficult times.
But also, as you say, there is that flip side of exploring, being able to explore issues that interesting, compelling way that people will engage with. If you want to lecture someone on climate change, you can, but they might not listen. But if you create a story that deals with that topic, and it’s compelling, it might get people thinking twice in a way that they didn’t before. And so there’s something to be said for that, too. And I think also what you were saying about it being fun, you know, we’re not just brains on sticks, we are human beings. And we need stimulation in all kinds of ways, particularly the moment when only the things that are immediately available to us in our house are available t us for stimulation. It’s all we’ve got going.
So I think it’s really, really important that we tell these stories. And I just want to underline now that this podcast is not about bashing literary fiction, I actually deem literary fiction, its own genre, because it has got expectations attached to it. When you pick up a piece of literary fiction, they’re different to the kind of expectations you’d have if you picked a sort of explicitly genre piece. But we do have them, we are expecting certain things from that story, if it says it’s a literary story. So this is not about bashing literary fiction. I’ve read lots of literary fiction in my life, very slowly because I’m a slow reader, but I did manage it. And I loved it. I’ve loved lots and lots of different stories.
It’s just that I think my heart belongs to genre fiction, perhaps more. And I think it’s a really important thing to hold it up and value it in the same way that we do literary fiction. It’s something that Ursula Le Guin said in her speech, that you’re unlikely to win awards as a genre fiction writer, and that’s changing a bit now, but I know what she means over the history of genre fiction.
So that sort of brings me on to our next question, which is why do people look down on me when I say Grease 2 is my favorite movie? I can’t think… Someone was really not very impressed me on Twitter a couple of weeks ago about this. They’re like, really? What’s going on with that? I told him I do like Die hard too. Was it that was gonna make it better? I can’t really decide between those two. So why do we think it gets looked down on what’s your point of view on that? Because I know you’ve looked a lot of different genre fiction over the time of working with Sci-Fi Now and some people have an attitude about genre fiction. Why do you think is?
Jonathan: A lot of it has to do, I guess with kind of, it’s what you’ve grown up reading or watching and I guess with a lot of people if they didn’t grow up watching or reading genre fiction, then it would be seen as that other thing. And I guess that’s how it’s often been portrayed in pop culture, although it’s strange, I think. Is it just because it is so easily classifiable? But I think a lot of its must be to do with the fact that that’s kind of how it’s been for a long time. You know, the the B Movie or the pulp novel has just carried on in terms of the perception of it, but I think it is just such a strange idea that it’s it continues to be the subject of snobbery, when, yeah, everyone’s watching it or reading it, like every everyone is spending money on these stories. Everyone’s spending huge amounts of time watching them and reading them.
I think one of the things that we’ve seen in the horror genre, particularly in terms of film, is this idea of elevated horror. Which is one of those phrases where if you say it to a horror fan you kind of get like a shudder up their spine and their eyes go black and they hiss. But it’s a phrase that was coined basically by people who don’t like horror movies to explain the fact that they liked a horror movie. So you know, so like something like Hereditary or The Babadook. Something like Saint Maud might be classified as an elevated horror movie, but it’s just a way for people to feel better about the fact that they’ve enjoyed a genre thing. And I think with sci-fi, it’s a bit different, I think, because maybe it’s because there’s less mainstream explicit sci-fi, and by explicit, I mean, on a spaceship, or kind of set 200 years in the future, I think sci-fi seems to be the area where it’s still a bit kind of unclear about kind of what is and what isn’t mainstream in the same way, even though it’s something like the Avengers, or, you know, so many comic movies could be classified under that umbrella.
And then fantasy, like Game of Thrones was like, the most popular series in the world for a while. It’s just, it’s weird. That there’s still people out there who are snobby about it. And I think you have actually seen it with comic movies recently. Where I think, every month or so someone will say something that riles up everyone on Twitter about you know, are comic book movies, real movies? And my Twitter feed tends to be split 50/50 between people who are like, you know, a bit of fed up with comic movies and think there’s too many being made and people who ardently defend them, and think that people who aren’t as big fans of them are massive snobs. And that seems to be this weird kind of next level of the genre, things not being taken seriously. That kind of that massive divide is kind of getting bigger and bigger. Yeah, the short answer is, I don’t really know. I think it’s such a such a baffling thing that I don’t get why people would be snobby about it, but they are.
Helen: You just reminded me of was I was giggling away when people like Martin Scorsese, we’re coming out and explaining their distaste for these movies. I’m like, really, he’s not a big fan of the Marvel Universe? I am shocked. You know, and there was this huge Twitter storm about it. And you’re like, are you surprised? Like, I just don’t think they’re for him are they?
Jonathan: That was all he was saying as well. He wasn’t saying you weren’t allowed to enjoy them.
Helen: Exactly. He wasn’t. He wasn’t saying that at all. And so it’s just getting the misquote. There’s some of those that I will watch. And there’s some that I won’t. And that goes for quite a few franchise movies. Sometimes I draw a line and say, actually, you know, I don’t I’m not a big fan of big ensemble pieces like that. I don’t feel that they ever have the character development that I enjoy. And so I’d rather just watch a Captain America movie than watch End Game, which I still haven’t seen controversially. And so you just start to decide, you know, what you want to watch, it doesn’t mean that it’s a bad movie, or it shouldn’t have been made or that anyone should look down on it just because some people choose not to watch it.
I suppose for me, with this whole thing about sort of slight snobbery around genre, I feel it more keenly, because I like elements of genre fiction, that tend to be just traditionally maligned because they’re aimed at women. So for example, I really love the romance genre a lot. I read a lot of romance. I watch a lot of romance, and I’m completely unashamed and unabashed about it. I’m a romance author. But I’ve just there’s a whole section of my website that’s just called Chick Lit, Ugh because that is the response. I got to, you know, a bloke, asked me, what do you write? And I went, Oh, romance, you know [he said], ‘ugh chick lit. Not well done on finishing two books. chick lit, ugh. But he felt entitled to say it, and looking back now, I just think well, yeah, because that’s actually how people think about romance. And I think it’s a shame because it’s essentially maligning a genre that encourages people to think about relationships.
I do think that romance is a genre that encourages us to think about our interior lives, about our wants and desires and needs within relationships. And so to just have that written off, because it’s aimed at women, and often written by women, I find it really infuriating and I have done for years. And I’m not the only romance author to experience discrimination like that. And I’m not the only one to speak about it or write about it. And it seems to me as well, that when the new Star Wars came out “the new Star Wars,” it’s not really the new Star Wars anymore. It’s quite old. When The Force Awakens hit cinemas, I wrote an article about Rey and I got so much negative feedback, mostly from men, I’m sorry to say. I was talking about the fact she was described as too efficient and to self-sufficient. I’m like this girl’s an orphan from the back of beyond, she’s had to fend for herself, she can do stuff for herself because she had no choice. And I was explaining in the article how it was interesting that you would describe it that way because you wouldn’t say the same about Jason Bourne or James Bond. You wouldn’t say he was too competent, which was really the word being bandied around.
But I did get a lot of feedback saying ‘Oh well, I just don’t think it’s very believable.’ And I’m like, well, I’m sorry, first of all it’s Star Wars. At least fifteen minutes was spent trying to open a door on a spaceship somewhere because that’s what we expect from Star Wars. I don’t know but it seems to me that particularly when it comes to women in genre fiction people have a really concerning attitude. And I really hope that this changes and it’s seen more as a space where women can write, contribute and star in these particular stories. I just think it’s really important that we move beyond that and diversity in all areas, obviously. Not just gender. But in all ways. It would be just so great if it was more representative on the whole.
Just to finish off then, coming full circle back to writers. Writing is really about serving a readership. So as somebody who consumes a lot of genre, do you have any ideas about how writers can better serve their audience?
Jonathan: Yeah, I think the point I made earlier about don’t forget your characters is a huge one. Even if you’re fretting about how to put a world together, the characters are still a hugely important thing. In terms of what I read generally, being aware enough of the genre to tell a really satisfying story using a lot of the same tropes but also being aware that that’s not enough.
As a horror film watcher, the number of times I start a film and think oh yeah, I know what this is. This is a film that likes those kinds of movies and has just done one of those. And there’s not anything inherently wrong with that but the ones you remember are the ones that build on tradition. And build on the things that we all know we love about genre. Don’t be completely stuck in the past.
Helen: I can think of a really good example of this. I am going to be controversial and bring up the 2016 Ghostbusters film, which I know a lot of people did not like but I really enjoyed it. But my criticism of it was the fact that it was too beholden to the format of the earlier Ghostbusters, which I also love. It was a nice tribute but I think it went a bit too far. For me I would have preferred it if the person of colour, if there had to be only one, was a doctor rather than a manual labourer like the first film. I think that’s moved on. And it also followed the beats of the first film a little too closely. I think it moved beyond the first film in lots of great ways, I just didn’t think that that was one of them. I still watch the film and enjoy it but I would have preferred it if it had done something slightly different. Something a little bit surprising. And this is starting to come out in some of the interviews I do with writers for the podcast, you know, they are starting to talk about the fact that you, and I and many of us who read and consume genre in all its forms are very literate now.
Jonathan: That’s it really, and one of the other ones is in terms of horror and sci-fi fantasy as well, a lot of the mega influences we all grew up reading and watching some aspects haven’t aged very well. You do see faithful recreations of those things that don’t take into account what you’d want to see from an update of that in terms of how they treat people of colour or women.
One of the nice things about horror is that it does feel like it’s a genre that does evolve constantly. But there is also part of it that is going to be rooted in the past just by the nature of it. And the best genre stuff does have one foot in the past sort of acknowledging where it’s come from and what we all love about these things but also be confident enough to know, well actually times have changed. We don’t have to kill this person first or do this to this character.
Helen: My two cents worth, there’s a big promise made when people pick up a piece of genre fiction. It depends on which genre you’re writing in terms of what the big promise is. To use romance as an example, the big promise is Happily Ever After. Same for fairytales. Happily Ever After. If you break that promise to me I will never read another thing that you write. If you make it a sad ending I won’t be coming back for more. I want a happy ending. However, you can find new and innovative ways of fulfilling that promise. I think that is really at the heart of serving genre audiences in genre. Fulfil the promise, sure, but do it in a way that is interesting, innovative. Build on what has been laid down before in terms of foundation.
Well, I think we’ve pretty much put the genre world to rights. We should probably wrap this up. It’s been so interesting Jonny, thanks so much for joining us. And I really appreciate all your insights.
Jonathan: No worries. It was lots of fun. Thanks for having me on.