I don’t write scifi.
That probably sounds weird, given that I’m publishing the 2nd book in my Time Traveller’s Best Friend series this month. Don’t worry, you didn’t imagine it; Memento Mori really does exist.
I don’t write horror, either; but I’ve published a short ghost story.
Nope, I’m not schizophrenic (not that you can prove, anyway); I just have a different world view.
Aliens, time travel, ghosts…
…those things don’t exist in my paradigm. I’m a Christian writer, so I believe in God. Any other supernatural or alien creatures other than angels or demons? I don’t believe in ’em.
So when I write about them, I’m writing fantasy. And I am a fantasy writer.
I came to this conclusion a few years ago when I first wrote A Time Traveller’s Best Friend–why it was that I found it so easy to switch to writing scifi when it wasn’t something I’d ever considered writing. Why I felt so much at home there with Kez and Marx. I’ve always been more interested in characters than genre (it’s the reason I read so widely across genres) and when Kez and Marx showed up there was no other setting for them than a Scifi one. They were time travellers, and could never have been anything else. I just wrote them into the fantasy world that was right for them.
So next time you read one of my scifi books–psych! You’re not really reading Scifi. It’s all in your imagination. You’re reading Fantasy.