Jumping Tracks

I came to a slow realization the other day. It's an idea I've been toying with in the back of my mind for a couple weeks. It started out as a really random thought but the more I think about it, I wonder why I didn't think of it before. Now I have to give credit where credit is due, one of my sisters helped me realize this (you know who you are).

So what's the realization you ask? I've been writing my White Crow story in the wrong genre. Currently, it's an Urban Fantasy (UF). Wikipedia describes UF as such: "Urban fantasy is a sub-genre of fantasy defined by place; the fantastic narrative has an urban setting. Many urban fantasies are set in contemporary times and contain supernatural elements. However, the stories can take place in historical, modern, or futuristic periods. The prerequisite is that they must be primarily set in a city.[1]"

I'll be honest, I don't really read UF. I've read a few things but nothing that's really caught my attention and made me go "Oh wow!". The genres that I really love is High Fantasy (HF) or Historical Fantasy (HisF). Only difference between those two is that HF generally takes place in a whole new world (think Lord of the Rings) while HisF takes place in our world but in the past (like King Arthur).

(and if you throw some dragons in either genre, I'm golden :) )

Anyway, since I don't read a lot of UF it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to be writing a story in that genre does it? As I said, this idea came to me a couple weeks ago in a "Yeah, I could write this as a more traditional fantasy if I wanted to" kind of way. Then I was talking to my sister and she asked me why I was writing in a genre I don't even read. It was like a slap upside the head, "Well DUH!"

So after some careful thought and lots of notes I've decided to completely jump tracks and change this story from a UF to a good old HisF. I truly believe this will be better for the story. I won't be forcing my self to write about topics I'm not really interested in. I'd so rather be researching medieval swords than drug cartels, let me tell you.

Of course, this does mean throwing out about 44000 words and a year and half worth of work, but a lot of the fundamental work I did will still be the same, it's just the words that are going to change. I'm going to give my self a month or so before I really start working on this, just to let the ideas marinate for a while.

In the mean time I'm working on the SFF Challenge I talked about before and hope to have the first installment up and ready by this weekend. So look forward to that. :)

Thanks for reading friends! Have a Happy Hump Day!