Some of you don't know what the term genre means. It's not a difficult word but for some reason it seems to frighten people-good people like you and me. It doesn't have to be a scary word. It's my intention that by the end of this post, genre will be your friend.
(If you're already well-versed in the language of genre, go ahead and skip this post, but for those of you who-like me-learned how to pronounce words when you read them, and learned what they mean by figuring it out in context, you might enjoy the rest of this post.)
Genre - Janra - Zah . . . Oh Forget It
Even the sound of it smacks of a language that is not English.
I tend to pronounce it: ja'n'ra. The j slides into an almost z sound, the a is a short a sound, the n is as nasally as you would expect from any French loan word and followed up with a -ra sound to beat the band.
(If you'd like true professional help in sounding out the word try MSN Encarta )
The Definition is . . .
We use the term genre in reference to art or culture. It is a grouping or classifying word. Genre Fiction encompasses all the types of popular fiction that have shared rules or goals-types such as mystery, fantasy, science fiction or horror. Thus mystery fiction is one genre. Science fiction is another genre. Horror is yet another genre and there are many more.
Each genre creates a different kind of expectation in the reader's mind. For instance, in the mystery genre, one expects a crime to be committed and for someone to solve it. This is a bare bones and inexpert description of the mystery genre and there are exceptions but it works for our purpose.
Now this definition covers a lot of ground, encompasses books that have very little similarity with each other. Because of that and because we seem to be a people who love making categories, we have subgenres.
Break it Down Again
For our discussions, categories such as romance, western, mystery and thriller are just a few of the genres that fill our bookstores and libraries. So what's a subgenre?
A subgenre breaks a genre into smaller categories. If a mystery is a story where a crime is committed and someone solves it, then a story where a crime is committed and a cynical detective - at odds with the corrupt system and mean streets, sporting his own code of honor - is duty bound to find out who did it despite the violence and the personal cost, is a hard-boiled detective story.
The hard-boiled detective story is just one of many (I mean ridiculously many) subgenres of the mystery genre. Thus all the stories within a subgenre have more in common with each other than they do with books in other subgenres.
In Summary
As I write this post, I realize that I have a lot more to say about the uses and abuses of genre but I'll save them for future posts. Right now, if the concept of genre is new to you, you'll want to start playing with the idea. When you read a book - or even just look at its cover - try to determine what genre it is. Don't worry about subgenres; we'll come back to them later. You can even play name that genre with movies and television shows.
One other note: you may encounter authors who disparage the very notion of genre. They call it a tool of the marketers. They'll say it's restrictive to the artistic endeavor. They'll say these things and more and they'll be right. But right now we are learning to crawl. Soon we'll be walking and we won't need to think so much about genres and we'll be careful not to assign them too much importance. However we must crawl before we can learn to run.
Trust me; we're going to run. And running rampant through literature you love is a wonderfully heady experience.
(Originally posted in . . . With Intent to Commit Horror)
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