Why I Write Across Genres

~ J. Tiffany Noore

(And What It’s Taught Me About Ensemble HaremLit)

I have a confession: I can’t stay in one genre. I’m a wanderer, a time-traveler, a hopeless romantic who falls in love with every era I visit.

When I wrote my first Ensemble HaremLit story, I didn’t have some grand plan to romance every time period from the Roaring Twenties to ancient Persia. I just wanted to play. Tremayne’s Harem Adventure let me loose in the 1920s—that delicious era of jazz, rebellion, and women who refused to stay in their lane. And honestly? It felt good.

Then Merchant Zayed whispered in my ear. Return to Scheherazade’s world, he said. The original harem stories, where magic hums beneath silk and desire shapes destiny. How could I resist?

The Three Tiffanys seduced me differently. What if the women got to tell the story? What if we crawled inside their heads, felt their jealousies and victories, their midnight conversations and morning-after regrets? I spent a year letting Prospector Finch seduce me—getting that delicate mix of 1860s history and alien encounters just right, until it hummed.

And my Steamy Holidays stories? Pure impulse. Whatever fantasy grabbed me by the knickers that month, I followed. (The Man from G.I.N.G.E.R. actually started as JAG fanfic. Don’t judge me. 😘)

Here’s what all that genre-hopping taught me about writing stories where every character matters.

In short fiction, every touch counts. Writing Merchant Zayed and The Three Tiffanys as bite-sized serials forced me to make every word earn its place on the page. You can’t meander when you’re juggling three perspectives and limited space. Every scene has to seduce, advance, or deepen. That discipline? It’s made my longer works tighter, hotter, more focused.

Women see women differently. As a woman writing in a traditionally male fantasy space, I know what I bring to the table. The ensemble approach feels natural because we do work in teams. We form bonds that have nothing to do with the man in our bed and everything to do with the woman standing beside us. Whether my companions are on a spaceship, in a harem, or aboard a pirate ship, they’re building relationships with each other—and that’s where the real magic happens.

Hearts beat the same in every era. Here’s the revelation that surprised me most: people are people. Strip away the corsets or the space suits, and everyone wants the same thing. Connection. Understanding. Someone who sees them—really sees them—and still chooses to stay.

An Ottoman mystic in 1860, a sultan’s American wife in the 1920s, an AI who’s just discovering what desire feels like—they all navigate the same beautiful, messy terrain of opening their hearts. The costumes change. The longing doesn’t.

That’s my love affair with genre-hopping: the setting is just the bed we play in. The relationships? That’s where I get excited (well, in bed too… so there).

Ensemble HaremLit Musings

Kisses, Tiffany
Kisses,
–Tiffany

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