Reading habits & book guidesIndependent guide library · English edition
Literary GenresNotice what a genre invites a story to do.
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THE COLLECTION / 02

Speculative writing

Examine how invented worlds change the possibilities of a story. Compare imagined technologies, magic, altered societies and uncanny presences, attending to rules, consequences and the relation between an unfamiliar setting and the assumptions readers bring from their own world.

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Never Knowingly Overdressed

I was recently in Cornwall clearing my mother-in-law’s house. The property, in Penzance, was being sold and had to be emptied. The nearby council dump was a godsend. With its helpful staff and well-patrolled skips it seemed more than a mere facility; rather, a beacon of sanity and order in an increasingly mad, rule-less world. […]

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