A fiction genre is an artificial construct of conventions that affords us some idea of what to expect from a work, but can also prevent us from experiencing it as an individual experience rather than merely an example of a defined "type". It's both safety net and strait jacket.

Most popular fiction can be squeezed into a genre or mixture of genres, and while some authors readily market themselves as a horror writer, or a fantasy writer, many others resist being pigeonholing into just one genre. Margaret Atwood and J G Ballard denied they wrote science fiction, J K Rowling ingenuously claimed she didn't realise she was writing fantasy, and Stephen King has expressed disappointment at being seen purely as a horror writer. I think some authors are a little too quick to disassociate themselves from unfashionable genre labels, but I can understand why they might want to avoid typecasting.

I can see there is some definite value in genres. Mostly importantly maybe from the author's consideration is that genre fiction is easier to market because it can be aimed at a targeted audience. Genre readers head for genre sections of the library or bookshop. Publishers prefer works that have a ready-made niche. And yet the value of quantifiable creative criteria also comes with a definite downside.

An author defined strongly by genre is at the mercy of fad and fashion. As I write, YA horror fiction with sparkly vampires is all the rage. Next month, the trend may be (forgive the pun) dead. Being pigeonholed into a genre also means a restriction on creative range. Readers have specific expectations of genre authors and trust them to adher to an established formula. Many published writers say that if they become known for work in one genre it can be difficult to find a publisher for anything else without using resorting to a pseudonym.

As a non-published writer who will never be published, the very last thing I should be worrying about for myself is getting typecast in a genre! But I do write collaborative fiction in several online communities, and even at this very amateur level, I have never liked to be put into a box and neatly labelled.My reading tastes are eclectic and diverse, and when I write I am inspired by and incorporate many different influences. Creatively and socially, I don't want to feel myself pushed into a box, or stuck with an outmoded label long after I want to move on to something else. Why feel obliged to stay on one island when there is an entire archipelago to explore?

So when people ask what my favourite fiction genre is, or what genre would I place myself or wish to be placed into, I answer, none of them, and all of them. When I go into Waterstones I don't look at the horror section, or the crime section, because I don't read 'typical' horror or crime fiction, yet I have loved individual novels that I suppose would fall within those genres. When I was younger, our small local library didn't have genre fiction sections. It was all just "Fiction". Science fiction novels rubbed shoulders with Westerns, Tolkien sat near Tolstoy and I read widely, both popular and literary, unconstrained by classification labels. And that's how I like me and my amateur collaborative writing to be defined now. Not as action-adventure, or romance, or fantasy or science-fiction-with-a-twist-of-homoerotic-mystery. Just "fiction".