#AtoZchallenge Xenogeneic-like Ways to Use Other Genres To Improve Your Story

The #AtoZChallenge 2017 Theme at Operation Awesome is the Publishing Journey.

Today's post is Xenogeneic-like Ways to Use Other Genres To Improve Your Story.

Xenogeneic is usually a medical term, but an X was needed for the challenge, so go with it.

Sometimes adding the best parts of other genres can spice up your story. The action and tension of the suspense genre is a welcome edition to almost every story. The mystery genre keeps readers asking a question with every new scene, creating a page-turner. A character or object that brings humor is often memorable. There can be a quirky place in any setting. Ask yourself how some dark scenes, a philosophical insight, or a chapter of wild and crazy could give your book a new angle. What is a cross-over book but a way to appeal as much to introverts as extroverts, the intellectuals as well as the warriors, the believers and the questioners?

We're all looking for books that make our hearts races, let us long for the next page, have well-built plots, logical twists, a setting we can imagine with every sense, comic relief, and an ending we don't see coming. Romance and love are universal urges that work in any genre. So is survival and protecting loved ones. Just because you've written realistic fiction doesn't mean you can't have a character telling someone a fable. Cookbooks based on fiction are popular, but what about a fiction book with a recipe in every chapter?


This is also a way to fight off a cliché. The biggest trends in fantasy right now are, instead of in medieval Europe, to set the book in the future or on a different continent.


Books with equal parts humor and the philosophy of life, aimed at readers over age 70, are expected to trend in the next decade. What if you write one and then turn it into a graphic novel just to stand out?

Try adding something from a different genre and see where it takes you.

What's your favorite X word today?