Genre Party!
The undeniable pleasure of reading 1500 pages about dragons
Check out my first post here to read more about the namesake of this newsletter and make a copy of the input/output tracking sheet if you so desire.
Upcoming classes
I have one each in March, April, and May: Comedy Writing for Non-Comedians, Write Like an Athlete, and How to Write a Short Humor Piece. All linked here.
***NOTE: they are NO spoilers for the Empyrean Series (Fourth Wing, Iron Flame, and Onyx Storm) below I am NOT A MONSTER***
***NOTE TWO: there are many typos here, I caught a bunch then gave up, sorry! You can be confident this newsletter isn’t AI.***
Growing up I was only allowed to watch a few TV channels—Nickelodeon, Disney, and that’s pretty much it. But I was permitted to read anything. My mother would take me to the Cranston library, let me pick out whatever my heart desired, and never censored me in any way, which is how I ended up at age 11 reading a collection of letters John Wayne Gacy wrote a reporter from prison. After sating my transgressive urges I moved on to athlete memoirs and pretty much all of the Sweet Valley High books. Then I met my father, Stephen King.
Is there any better feeling in the world than reading a book by an author, loving it, then seeing they have THIRTY MORE? Your reading life unspools before you, every spare moment spoken for until you complete their oevre. I remember reading Pet Semetary quite young (like…10?) and the last page changing my soul, for better or for worse (worse). I quickly read almost all of King’s books before the end of high school, rereading my favorites (The Stand, Misery, The Mist) several times over.
As I got older, I did a few more genre dips: The Hunger Games trilogy; about 40 books on mountain climbing accidents after devouring Into Thin Air; a study on dystopian and zombie novels so intense I created and taught a college course on it; and many satiric and comedic novels as I specialized in those deciplines and began teaching. I read more widely, took classes that introduced me to fantastic writers like Samuel R. Delany, and largely stayed out of the deep end of the genre pool.
But in January, after I read a Katy Waldman New Yorker article (non-paywalled link) about romantasy tropes and copyright, I decided to read Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros.
2.5 weeks later I woke up to find that I had blown through Fourth Wing, Iron Flame, and Onyx Storm and could finally join r/fourthwing to discuss fan theories. OF WHICH I HAVE MANY. Suddenly I was steeped in the romantasy genre as a whole, its many, many tropes, and a very engaged fandom. It couldn’t have come at a better time for me.
Digging into a new genre is always a creatively invogorating experience. Before getting into Fourth Wing, I’d been struggling to come up with satire and humor piece ideas after over two years of writing comedy craft book “Inside Jokes” with Elissa Bassist. As we wrote the book I was constantly studying other pieces, writing hypothetical examples and brainstorming prompts, and generally feeling a bit removed from comedic writing itself.
But by midway through Iron Flame, the second book in the Empyrean Series, I was having ideas like crazy. Because the romantasy genre is so new to me, delightful absurdities popped out all over the place: why are the sex scenes written like the author has never had penetrative sex, despite her bio claiming she has six children? How is everyone in the world so ripped? Are they constantly bulking and cutting? Do they take magical creatine? Why are some of the names so our world-coded (Violet, Quinn, Cam) and others batshit insane (Ridoc Gamlyn)?
In other words: I was charmed and delighted!
There’s so much new information in romantasy that I’m allowing myself to skip over whatever I want. Every time I see the word “rune” in one of these books I smile and let me eyes move right over it. I am simply not going to learn what runes are and there’s nothing Rebecca Yarros can do about it.
Is Rebecca Yarros a good writer? I’m going to be annoying and say you can’t answer that in a binary way. Is she good at writng subtext? No. Is she good at writing plot? Yes, definitely. Is she good at avoiding repetition? NO. Is she good at foreshadowing? YES. Is she good at writing memorable and creative dialogue and a variety of physical descriptors? No—I have never read about so many smirks in my life. Is she good at worldbuilding? Yeah, for sure—the whole setting of Basgiath War College is excellent (once I looked up a picture of a parapet to understand the opening) and with the exception of the aforementioned runes (can’t even summarize what they are), the amount of magical worldbuilding she does is impressive. I also admire how she spaces out exposition so you don’t feel overwhelmed (except when it comes to runes).
All that to see, she has strengths and weaknesses like any other writer working in a more literary genre.
Once I ripped through the trio, I listened to this romantasy episode of Critics at Large from The New Yorker. The podcast encapsulated two things for me—how snobby “literary” people can still be re: genre books, and also, that they still can’t hide how titillated and intrigued they are by the conventions of this genre. Even when talking about how romantasy was not their thing, when recounting the plots of the books they each read (Fourth Wing, ACOTAR, Crave) their speaking rates sped way up and their voices almost shook with excitement. Guess you’re not too good to be seduced by some magic, huh, critics at large?
As for me, my romantasy journey is ongoing. I’ve moved on to A Court of Rose and Thorns by Sara J. Maas (considered one of the hallmarks of the genre) and I’m already halfway done with the first book. It’s pretty good! It’s extremely Beauty and the Beast! There’s a monster called “the Bogge” which is a very good and funny name!
Here’s Fourth Wing reading ambiance music, if you want to channel a dragon rider while working your day job. And if you need fresh genre energy in your life to reinvigorate ideas, here are some entry-level recommendations:
Genre Entry Recs:
Horror: if you’re a writer, start with Stephen King’s Misery. If you’re more of a historical fiction reader, start with King’s 11/22/63. If you like an immersive experience and are OK reading about kids in scary situations, try IT for gang bangs and The Institute for no gang bangs. For literary, Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go. In translation, Tender is the Flesh by Argentinian author Agustina Bazterrica.
Science Fiction: Ted Chiang is peerless. His story collection Exhalation is a great sampler of many different flavors of sci-fi. I think about the novella “The Lifecycle of Software Objects” from that collection…many times a week. And in case you don’t already know, his 1998 “Story of Your Life” was the basis for the icnonic Amy Adams/Denis Villeneuve collab Arrival.
Climate Fiction: The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson. I’ve already read this book three times since it came out. I own in hard copy and ebook. This is a genre I want to read MUCH more in.
Post-apocalyptic/Dystopian: Station Eleven is one of my top three books ever. Beautiful, elegaic, classy dystopia. I also really recommend reading The Children of Men by P.D. James, which is quite different from the movie and upsetting in totally new ways. Severance by Ling Ma is unsettlingly believable. And if you want to understand how to plot but you think you’re too good to read The Hunger Games—no you’re not.
Western: it’s a revisionist western so probably most enjoyable if you already have an idea of the conventions, but I can’t get Outlawed by Anna North out of my head. If you want to go traditional, treat yourself and buy a big ol’ paperback copy of Lonesome Dove to lug around.
Zombies: World War Z is my all-time favorite book in this category and one of my top 10 favorite books ever. I will never get over the fact that it’s written by Mel Brooks’ SON! If you want a literary take on zombies, Colson Whitehead’s Zone One is VERY GOOD. I also recommend The Girl With All the Gifts.
Romance: I’m only just starting to read more in this genre, but I LOVE the work that 831 Stories has been doing—all their books are novellas, so they’re easy to breeze through (AND HOT). Start with the first one, Big Fan, and go from there. I’m looking forward to reading Yulin Kuang’s How to End a Love Story.
What’s your relationship to genre reading? Give us your best recs for your favorite!
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ABOUT ME: My name is Caitlin Kunkel and I’m a writer, teacher, and creator of The Second City’s Satire Writing Program. I co-founded The Belladonna Comedy and the Satire and Humor Festival, and co-wrote the satirical gift book NEW EROTICA FOR FEMINISTS. My second book, INSIDE JOKES: A COMEDY AND CREATIVITY GUIDE FOR ALL WRITERS is out January 2026.
best wedding photo i've ever seen!
If you're looking for other climate fiction recommendations, be sure to add Birnam Wood to your list. I loved it and apparently books of this kind are a part of a new subgenre called "cli-fi".