Our lives have ups and downs. Our lives can also move forward and back, such as when we look to the future or examine the past. Our lives can also be filled with a murky mess of unknowns, such as when we journey to new places or meet new people, creating fantastical stories to enthral our friends and family when we relate our experiences.
In this, we are all storytellers, and multi-genre ones at that. When we share our most stressful or alarming moments with others, we become horror or thriller writers. When we joke about experiences to make others laugh, we become comedy writers. When we talk about our everyday experiences, infusing our storytelling with contemporary angst, romance, or adventure, we switch genres accordingly. When we consider where the world, science or society is heading, we become speculative writers.
Professional creators experience the same range of ups and downs, forwards and backs, angst and jokes, thrills and horror; which means that, if they can listen to their experiences effectively enough, they can become very versatile in the art they create.
Take my brother Adam for instance. He’s an award-winning film producer in the UK, and this year he’s produced two films, through his amazing production company White Lantern Film, the second of which has just been released… Congratulations, Adam!
A Very English Christmas:
Earlier this year, he produced another romance…
To England With Love:
But he’s also won awards for horror…
K-Shop:
And he’s also won awards for business and entrepreneurial endeavours, as well as environmental documentary…
Drying for Freedom:
His versatility makes perfect sense to me.
As children, we were sponges of story. Television, movies and, for me, books. Genre didn’t matter, it just had to be a good story. Good story thus became central to everything we absorbed from the world, and everything we then created.
It still is! Like my brother, I too have won awards for multiple storytelling genres – contemporary fiction, horror, children’s books, science fiction and fantasy – and in my novels and novellas I use the full breadth of my storytelling skills and experience to take readers on a journey of ups and downs, forwards and backs, exposing them to horror, contemporary angst, thrill, adventure, romance and speculation.
My complete bibliography is over here if you’d like to check it out.
And my brother’s portfolio is over here.
You could also check out the complete bibliographies or filmographies of other professional storytellers you like, to see what else they create. You might prefer one genre over another, but if a creator is good at telling one type of story, they’re probably good at telling all different kinds of stories, and you never know when or where you’re going to discover your next favourite story.
After all, as you know from being a multi-genre storyteller yourself, there are always new stories to tell.
What a talented duo!
Aw, thank you Anne! :0)