Subscribers, what follows is an excerpt from my upcoming January 30 Genres in 30 Days workshop, where participants write one story a day for 30 days, each inspired by a different genre of writing. Enjoy!

30 Genres in 30 Days for Fiction Writers
DATE: 4 Weeks Starting January 6, 2025
TIME: Asynchronous, Self-Paced via Writing Workshops Dallas
Price: $299
​Get ready to discover the magic of different genres in this fun and interactive 30-day workshop tailored for short story writers. Whether you’re into mystery, romance, horror, or science fiction, this workshop will help you grasp the unique elements and essentials of each genre. With 30 engaging prompts, you’ll master how to seamlessly blend popular genre traditions into your stories, no matter if you usually write microfiction, flash fiction, or short stories. This workshop is the perfect opportunity for fiction writers aiming to enhance their craft by gaining a deeper understanding of genres

What Is Realism?

“[Realism is a]…true art, simple art, an art that consists in rendering one’s ideas without having them dance on the sentence” —Champfleury

“Realism sets itself at work to consider characters and events which are apparently the most ordinary and uninteresting, in order to extract from these their full value and true meaning. It would apprehend in all particulars the connection between the familiar and the extraordinary, and the seen and unseen of human nature. Beneath the deceptive cloak of outwardly uneventful days, it detects and endeavors to trace the outlines of the spirits that are hidden there; tho measure the changes in their growth, to watch the symptoms of moral decay or regeneration, to fathom their histories of passionate or intellectual problems. In short, realism reveals. Where we thought nothing worth of notice, it shows everything to be rife with significance.” —George Parsons Lathrop, ‘The Novel and its Future,” Atlantic Monthly 34 (September 1874):313 24.

“Realism is nothing more and nothing less than the truthful treatment of material.” —William Dean Howells, “Editor’s Study,” Harper’s New Monthly Magazine (November 1889), p. 966.

As a speculative genre writer, I prefer not to use the term “literary” fiction to describe what is truly realism—writing that explores today’s real world. While some may argue that “literary” as a term can be applied to speculative genres, there is no good real definition for the term “literary.” Frustratingly, the definition of literary fiction often seems to be “subjectively good.” Most of what we call literary fiction today deals with reality: real settings, people, and emotions. Like the terms we use to describe it, genre is subjective. However, this exploration of genre aims to give you the tools to explore different genres through your own voice.

So, putting aside “literary,” the majority of stories throughout history are in the genre of realism.

“Literature adds to reality, it does not simply describe it. It enriches the necessary competencies that daily life requires and provides; and in this respect, it irrigates the deserts that our lives have already become.” —C.S. Lewis