I’m trying to recapture a previous thought, so writing this post is a bit more difficult than usual. Someone recently shared a short story with me. It was very emotional, dramatic, and thought-provoking story. All these things are good for a story. They make reading it meaningful. But I couldn’t help thinking that it was not the kind of story I would want to write or the kind I like to read most of the time. I try to be appreciative when something like this comes my way and take what is given with a spirit of thankfulness. These kinds of stories can spur great reflection and lead to a lot of personal growth, but it is not what I enjoy or seek out.

Genre fiction is my personal blend of tea. It can reflect reality without being tied to it. What I mean is that I don’t have to be limited to autobiographical or historical events to tell a story. Escapism is a big draw for the genre. One of the things that I like most about the genre is that I feel like I can distance myself from the dramatic and painful events of a story and still learn the lessons that the story has to teach. I can see someone suffer pain and loss without the emotional burden of knowing that someone had to suffer for my attention to be focused on the story.

I hope that this doesn’t point to a sort of emotional immaturity, though I should be vigilant against something like that anyway, but drama can be present in nearly any type of story. And there are different types of drama as well. Not every dramatic life event in an autobiographical work needs to be somber or soulful. However, it feels to me as if these themes and tones are the ones that are seen most often.

Another point that I often find limits my enjoyment of an autobiographical or biographical story, is that these stories are necessarily someone else’s. The dramatic lives of George Washington and Frank McCourt are their lives, and the dramatic tension of their stories is tied to their environments and choices. As a reader, I can more easily assume the perspective of a fictional character. Possibly, again because I don’t have to think about how the person in the story lived or wonder about their unknown thoughts. My imagination gives the character depth beyond what the author has written, and there is no guilt or worry that I do an injustice to an actual person.

So these are some of the reasons that I prefer genre fiction. In the first place, I have the freedom to explore any setting that I want, whether they are real or imagined. Likewise, I can follow the people that I want, whether they are real or imagined. And finally, if I don’t resonate with the story or the character, I don’t have to feel guilty that someone’s deeply personal experiences didn’t turn out to have the universal appeal that their pain may have warranted or didn’t evoke the ‘appropriate’ level of empathy.