Chris Jorgensen's Lesson Plan and What To Expect

Written by Chris Jorgensen

Last time we spoke, we got to talk about audience. Now, while there is more to be said about the audience and where your target should be, that is going to fall very well into genre discussions. And so, to start to introduce a set of genre study styled lessons, I want to take this time to go over what I have in store for the future of the discussions surrounding genre and writing around those particular styles. So while this won’t be a completely formal rundown of topics like the previous posts, I think this will help to sort of guide and precisely identify what it is I will be writing about for the next while. So let’s get into it.

Genres Studies and What to Expect

My basic formula is going to be something similar to a listed out sort of discussion. I want to touch on each topic for each genre and then do a follow up on style and writing for that particular genre. So I would list out all the things you might need to know to help you sort out these genres and give some background. Perhaps do a book review, or an author bio, or something to that effect to help lead you into the particular style you are looking for. So an example might be something along the lines of:

#1 History

#2 Well known names/authors

#3 Books to reference

#4 Differences in style

#5 Audience expectations

The list of things could be short, it could be longer, I’m still in the working phase of deciding what I want to go through. But from my experience, when you are introduced to a subject, it helps to give some background and lead in when tackling a new field of study before just jumping into the deep end. Now, after a piece about this list, I would do a follow up on each subject to try and isolate the primary points when it comes to the writing aspect. For instance, if we had discussed short story writing and I made a list in the previous post, I might now take a step into another set of points or just general discussion on “How to Write…”, and include whichever subject I was covering.

This can all be intermingled with what I was talking about before, perhaps some author bio’s, some book reviews, some particular writing examples, all to help lead into the discussion about the genre itself. It may also turn out that I could make an entire post dedicated to the history of a particular genre if I find it interesting enough. Or the whole post could be about the audience and where their expectations lie. There have been books written about each of those I listed above, and we can try to narrow down a few bits and details to try and condense the information as best we can. The limitations are not exceptionally strict, and we can take our time exploring as much as we need to to get a firm grasp on the subject matter.

So, that’s the plan going forward for now, and I’m really looking forward to seeing what we can go over soon.