What happens when writers leave their literary comfort zones? Three acclaimed authors—Rachel Howzell Hall, Alma Katsu, and Alex Segura—share how switching genres reshaped their craft, stretched their careers, and unlocked new creative terrain. For anyone curious about crossing genres, their insights offer both inspiration and a reality check.
What happens when a crime writer picks up a sword? When a horror novelist turns to espionage? Or when a noir author jumps into the Star Wars universe?
Genre boundaries may still rule bookshelves, but they don’t intimidate some of today’s most dynamic storytellers. Hall, Katsu, and Segura each built loyal followings in crime, horror, or thrillers—only to step deliberately into different narrative territory. They’ve learned to manage new craft challenges, audience expectations, and industry logistics. What they’ve found on the other side is equal parts frustrating and freeing.
As someone who writes post-WWII historical mysteries with LGBTQ+ protagonists and recently finished a contemporary ghost story, I’ve been obsessed with one question: how do writers actually pull it off? (Can I pull it off?) How do you transition mid-career without derailing? I spoke with Hall, Katsu, and Segura about their creative pivots, craft adaptations, and the emotional truths that emerged. Here’s what they taught me.
Craft Across Borders: What Transfers, What Doesn’t
Genre isn’t just about setting or tropes—it sets expectations for pace, tone, structure, and payoff. Still, some storytelling tools carry across categories.
“It all boils down to character and conflict for me,” says Alex Segura, who’s written crime fiction and sci-fi, a Star Wars novel, and an expansive body of comics. “Whether it’s one of my own novels, work-for-hire, or a comic book—my first question is: who is the protagonist and what do they want? The rest springs from there.”
Rachel Howzell Hall made her name writing razor-sharp psychological crime thrillers. But when invited by Red Tower Books to write a romantasy series, she faced new demands. “You need more world, you need more romance,” her editor told her after reading an early draft. Used to 85–90k word thrillers, Hall now had to create 150k+ fantasy epics—world-building, politics, and an expected mid-range level of “spiciness.” It was daunting.
Still, she knew how to deliver tension. “We are at an advantage,” Hall said of crime writers. “We understand how to structure a plot. We understand secrets.”
For Alma Katsu, who toggles between horror and espionage, the shift is also tonal. “You don’t want to get too much peanut butter on the chocolate,” she said, laughing. “You don’t want the wrong kind of creepy in your spy novel.”
Spy novels come “easier” to her, thanks to a career in intelligence. Horror, by contrast, requires constant reinvention. “I think horror is hard to write—at least for me—because it’s hard to come up with a new way of looking at our mortal fears. I dislike cliché.”
Yet her principles never change: “Interesting, arresting plot and great, well-developed characters.”
Publishing and Audience: The Genre Divide is Real
Creative rewards aside, publishing across genres brings marketing and audience hurdles.
“It creates a problem for the publisher and author,” said Katsu. Readers can get disoriented. “They typically put a chapter of the new book in the back of the trade paperback, but readers weren’t expecting a chapter from a book of a different genre. It was confusing.”
Even for established authors, genre identity matters. “It’s hard to imagine fans of one of these two very specific genres being fans of the other,” Katsu noted. “I know I have a handful of readers who read all my books, but they’re the exception.”
Branding complicates things further. “Are you going to manage two sets of social media accounts? Even coming up with a coherent look for a website is hard,” she said.
Hall’s move into romantasy began not with personal impulse but with an invitation: Red Tower sought first-rate mid-career writers who could bring sharp storytelling into fantasy. The offer was flattering but required recalibrating her image and style to reach a new fan base—not to mention expanding her knowledge of the fantasy genre. She had to prove herself again.
Segura also spoke about the pressure of writing in someone else’s world. “You’re in a sandbox that is very defined—and you have to stay in that box. It’s deceptively difficult,” he said. “When a company asks you to write one of their characters, it comes with the expectation that you won’t break the toys.” For him, that responsibility carries real weight. “You’re a guest, and the biggest service you can do is to tell a memorable story that also allows for others to tell stories later.” The goal is to be additive, not destructive.
And then there’s the stigma. “There’s this unspoken but common misbelief,” Katsu said, “that you can’t be a very good writer if you write more than one kind of book. It’s one of those knee-jerk assumptions: a jack of all trades can’t be a master of any, can they?”
New Genres, New Selves
Despite the confusion and compromise, every writer I spoke with found their shifts to be transformative.
For Hall, writing romantasy was not just artistic expansion but a way to process personal loss. It also allowed her to keep exploring identity and “all the crazy sh*t that happens to women.” Her new work also tackles politics, sociology, and religion in new ways—subjects always present in her fiction.
Segura sees every medium—novels, comics, games, podcasts—as a chance to stretch. “It’s all story to me,” he said. Comics sharpened his economy of language: “You want the art to sing and dominate, so your contribution has to really matter.” Writing prose, in turn, refined his comics. “Writing is, in many ways, a contract with the reader. I give you, the reader, what you need to make the picture in your mind, not more.”
Katsu, meanwhile, sees genre-switching as a way to stay creatively engaged—even if it complicates everything else. “I’m probably doing it all wrong,” she joked. But she’s committed to new angles, even if it means juggling two readerships.
So, Should You Cross Genres?
If you’re thinking of crossing genres, expect friction, doubt, resistance—and maybe your best work yet.
Genre rules are fundamental but not fixed. They’re a conversation with the reader. Learn the language, then decide how to speak it your way.
Hall, Segura, and Katsu all cross genres for different reasons—exploration, evolution, opportunity—but what unites them is curiosity. Not just about new worlds, but new parts of themselves.
As Hall put it best, crossing genres can feel like a leap into the unknown. But sometimes, it’s the leap you need. “At first, it was hard to accept that this is my world,” she said of fantasy world-building. “But then … the freedom became exhilarating.”
Maybe that’s what happens when you stop thinking of genre as a fence—and start treating it like a door.
