Changing Genres

I'm comfortable writing science fiction and fantasy, creating new worlds, imagining new technologies, but I decided to try writing a contemporary romance. It has been more difficult than I imagined.

Not because it is a romance and I'm not a particularly romantic person, but because I'm trying to reflect the real world. Maybe my mind doesn't meld with the concept of creating a world that is set in a place as complex as reality with all its intricacies that we accept but with which we aren't always familiar. You think you know because you live in this world, but when you go to write about different facets of contemporary society, you find you don't know as much as you thought you did. I've found stories set in contemporary settings need as much research as historicals, and yes, science fiction and fantasy.

No matter how long you live in this world there are always some aspects of it with which you will be unfamiliar. Part of the work of writing is making those instances believable, perhaps showing the reader some part of the world they've never experienced. And that is true no matter what genre you write.