Unbox 5-Day Hybrid Writing Challenge - Day Four
Collisions and mash-ups!
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Day 4: Collisions and Mashups
If you missed my introduction to what I call “hybrid writing” and everything it might mean, you can read it here and follow these links to catch up with Day One, Day Two and Day Three’s writing prompts and exercises.
As I mentioned in the introduction, one way to think of a hybrid piece of writing is as a mash-up or collision of existing genres. First, before we collide them, it’s worth stepping back and asking: what does “genre” mean? Here’s a thought from the fantastic Family Resemblance: An Anthology and Exploration of 8 Hybrid Literary Genres, edited by by Marcela Sulak and Jacqueline Kolosov (Rose Metal Press, 2015):
“What is a literary genre but a family of works that resemble one another – in style, form, technique, goal or philosophy?... Genre can be viewed as affiliation.”
Let’s look at an example: crime fiction, non-fiction or poetry. When you start reading something that has been billed as a crime story, novel or other crime piece, there are certain things you can assume will probably occur. A crime. A victim of the crime. Someone investigating that crime. Each crime writer will take those and make it their own, do it in their own way, in their own style, but you could see how all crime novels, stories or poems could be thought of as members of the same family, although some may be very distant cousins.