The Uncanny Valley of plausibility.

The closer to reality I write, the more anything unrealistic stands out.

I started off writing fantasy. The biggest difficulty with writing fantasy is avoiding overused tropes--and they're all overused by now.

Then I started writing horror. It is much easier to write an original storyline in this genre; just about anything can be labeled horror given a few tweaks here and there.

The last three books I've written are thrillers. I originally stayed away from this genre because I realized that I just didn't have the knowledge of police procedures and gun use and all that kind of thing to make it sound believable.

In other words, the more believable the genre, the more you need to be accurate. An Uncanny Valley of plausibility.

(SF is a whole nother hurdle--getting the science right is crucial and not my strong suit as much as I love reading it.)

I recently had the epiphany that all genres are fantasy in one form or another. So that freed me up to finally tackle the subject. But...I'm still finding the believability factor to be a large hurdle.

I've mentioned my tendency for quirkiness--well, in fantasy this is not only not a hindrance, it's a benefit. The more peculiar, the better. Unless, I suppose, you're writing ponderous medieval epic fantasy. (A large percentage of fantasy.)

I'm trying to play this thriller straight. Make it interesting, but not by doing odd little things. It's pretty difficult for me to stick to reality. I always want to throw in stuff that is cute or a little strange.

But I don't want any reader to go, "Wait....what?"

So the problem is this: If I write fantasy, then I have to construct an entire world, when all I really want to do is tell a damn story.

If I write thrillers, the world is already there, but everything has to be researched to make it plausible.

In both cases, it's a lot of work and I'm intellectually lazy. 

Horror is a nice middle ground for me. I can write with a reality background but am allowed to be as quirky as I want to be.

But I've now written so much horror that I want to try other things. Plus I've realized that most people don't take horror seriously. (Even though I think right now it's the most vibrant of genres...)

So I have to research (for thrillers) or I have to world build (for fantasy.)

I still intend to write a fantasy trilogy someday. All this writing I've done is prelude to that. But I'm not ready to tackle it yet.