Grouping Like with Like: Genre as Taxonomy

Genre is not a single subject. A wide range of discussions are lumped together under similar labels when talking about genre and this is the no small source of the frustration we feel when doing so. The emergence of names for new subgenres of clustered works often defy neat categorisation. Ask any player of video games the difference between Western RPGs and JRPGs[1]. Ask any given anime fan what exactly constitues anime[2]. But this goes further as internet flamewars can break out over whether or not a pop tart is a sandwich.

Not to mention how a day does not go by without someone founding a new subgenre of *punk[3].

It is all too easy at this point to just throw up one’s hands and declare the whole idea of genre broken. It is a feeling many have when delving into questions like How Many Continents Are There as the simplistic model taught to us as children breaks down.

What is Genre?

There is a human desire to find patterns in the things around us, to group like with like and to give these groupings names. A lot of this happens intuitively as we make sense of things we experience. Spagehtti is more like linguine than it is like rice or soup. War and Peace is more like Bleak House than it is like A People’s History of the United States. The Shannara Chronicles is more like Lord of the Rings than it is like Pride and Prejudice.

This gut instinct for sorting and grouping is what lies at the heart of how heated this debate can get. We are often seeking to define with rules a grouping that we have instinctively noticed. It’s why the ideal response to the definition of a new subgenre is “ah, so that’s what it is called”.

But not only are people’s gut flawed judges dragging our prejudices[4] into the process, criteria for similarity and comparison are not universal. Are the aesthetics of a work more or less important than its thematic content? Are the details of presentation and persepective worth considering? Are the circumstances of a work’s creation relevant to the discussion? Can Avatar: the Last Airbender and the Legend of Korra be truly termed “anime”?

A Plethora of Purposes

As critic, as writer, as reader, we use genre differently.

Just as how the same word can have different technical uses, different genre terms are contextually useful. Words and labels are not singular in their meanings and their usefulness need be judged by the circumstances of the explicit and implicit questions posed[5].

For example, horticultural, biological and culinary taxonomy are very different beasts. Insisting a tomato is not a vegetable but a fruit halfway through a conversation about cooking[6] is neither relevant nor useful. For all that it is fruit biologically, culinarily speaking, a tomato is a vegetable. It is used alongside carrots and onions and it is thus more like them than it is like an orange. Similarly, a cauliflower is also a vegetable to a culinarian, but would be a flower to a horticulturalist and a biologist may term it an inflorescence meristem.

Crucially, culinary taxonomy is not wrong. It simply values different criteria.

Genre as Recommendations

The most obvious use for genre is in the realm of recommendations. They become in this paradigm loose labels used to find books or movies or games that similar to that which the audience already likes. If I liked Shannon Hale’s The Goose Girl, I might also like Gail Carson Levine’s Ella Enchanted or Donna Jo Napoli’s Zel, all three novels being Young Adult fairy tale retellings.

When using genre in recommendations, there are many reasons to be expansive in one’s definition. We desire to encourage a reader to find things they would like, but we also want them step outside their comfort zone and explore new ground. It is no great sin for Buzzfeed to throw in a picture of a dog named Cat in their list of cat photos.

Genre as Legitimacy

Certain genres or subgenres can be more in the limelight than others. They have awards dedicated to them, forums and hashtags to discuss them. To deem works to be outside the genre isn’t simply about an abstract neatness of categories, it can be an act of invalidation. When gamers call for certain games to be termed “walking simulators”, they aren’t simply concerned with genre precision, they desire for those games to be cast out of their marketplace and for game publications to stop talking about them. When some members of the Romance Writers Association called for Romance to specify a male and a female protagonist, they were asking for books to be left unsupported and uncelebrated by their organisation.

The legitimacy a genre provides is important, with much of it down to the networks that exist to promote and discuss various works within that genre. Fans of an orphaned work can easily find themselves without a place to share their love. It is all well and good to say something belongs elsewhere, but without the community and structure, it may not be possible to have that conversation. A particularly interesting case came about when /r/anime moderators came down hard on the discussion of the music video Shelter.

On the other hand, many writers and publishers have gone to great lengths to prevent their works from being trapped in the “genre ghetto”. There is greater literary acclaim and mainstream success to be found outside the bounds of science fiction. Salman Rushdie’s first novel, Grimus, was withdrawn from winning a best SF novel of the year award due to the publisher’s desire for him to not appear as a science fiction writer. Ursula K. Le Guin rather famousy called out Margaret Atwood and Jeanette Winterson for their claim that they didn’t write science fiction.

Genre as as Reader Expectations

Readers have certain expectations of genre fiction. The words on the spine and shelving of the book make certain implicit promises to the reader. This isn’t simply to decry the rise literature as consumer product, a book is more than text. Expectations are formed from the blurb and title and general hype over a book. It is almsot impossible to go in a book blind. The physical object of a book from cover art to font choice and paper weight all contribute to the experience of reading it[7].

Genre expectations fundamentally shape reader response. There is art to be made in subverting and challenging these expecations, but equally readers can feel tricked and betrayed by the work. The status of the Happily Ever After (HEA) within Romance is a fascinating one. The RWA mandates a “Emotionally Satisfying and Optimistic Ending”, which does leave wiggle room but many romance readers have decried insufficiently happy endings in their novels.

Genre as Audience

Children’s and Young Adult fiction is defined by their primary audience. This can be liberating for many writers within, as “genre” fiction is not separated out from realist fare. Because it is is defined solely by the age of its primary audience, many have argued that they aren’t genres in the usual sense of the word.

It is hard to say if marketing departments merely define audiences or create them, and the argument of whether or not Young Adult as a category of books can predate its coining is itself a question that can yield many answers depending on the criteria of its asker.

But humans like pattern spotting and despite a plethora of outliers, many see briskly paced action-focused novels with young protagonists as inherently “YA”. Others associate strong-minded heroines, love triangles and coming of age stories with the designation. But for all that it may be useful for readers interested in such tropes to have a genre consisting of them, having it bear the same name as being for young adult is not only confusing, it also leaves teenagers without a designation to call their own.

It is also interesting to note that not all literature recommended specifically to teenagers for their consumption Young Adult fiction, especially if we take into account all the things they get taught at schoool. Macbeth, Of Mice And Men, and Beloved are all texts that have appeared on English syllabuses that many wouldn’t label Young Adult, nor would they be shelved as such in book stores.

Another intersting example in genre as audience is how the American SyFy (aka Sci-Fi) channel once dabbled in airing wrestling matches. The logic as most can gather is that though wresting wasn’t science fiction, its audience of 18–35 year old men overlapped with that of SyFy’s core demographic.

This idea that the demographic and their interests define a genre becomes deeply problematic when applied to something like video games, where those with a primarily female audience gets dismissed as “not real games”. Though many of these complaints would not necessarily be voiced in these terms, at the root of it is a feeling that something is no longer exclusively for them.

Genre as Shelves in a Bookshop

The apparent exodus of books that have gained mainstream success from the science fiction and fantasty bookshelves is a literal one as well as a metaphorical one. Bookshop genre is often the most superficial, most concerned surface trappings and cover art. The demands of shelf space are painfully simple and the resulting sales speaks for themselves, entrenching industry truisms of what will and won’t sell.

And yet these truisms constantly being challenged. The rise of Young Adult as a genre has been a double edged sword for women writing speculative fiction. The many female fans have disproven the inane idea that women don’t read science fiction and moreover female writers have flourished in the genre, arguably far moreso than in traditional adult science fiction. But even as YA grows commercially, questions of perceived literary merit and that selfsame fiction ghetto looms.

Genre as Taxonomy

The taxonomical approach to genre can often be alienating and tedious to those are who aren’t interested in the subject for its own sake. We all know, for example, that a whale is not a fish. But the things is, nothing is a fish because there is no such thing as a fish[8].

Taxonomies of literature exist in part so that academics can make sense of bodies of work and compare them to one another. They allow one to make generalisations about the cultures that gave rise to those stories and what underlying societal aspects they spoke to. In this context is would make little sense to mean a modern romance novel with writing about medieval romances. Their similarity or lack thereof in content is unimportant.

There is sometimes a desire for a genre seen as new to seek old works that shares its traits and ground itself in such legitimacy. I have often defended fanfiction as hailing from an ancient tradition that includes such luminaries as Milton and Virgil. This can sometimes muddy the geneological waters as academic approaches to genre isn’t simply about what content but also about the context of creation. In Borges’ short story, Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote, a fictional 20th-century French writer recreates Don Quixote. But the shift in creator changes everything and despite identical words, the meaning is different. An infinite number of monkeys can never write Shakespeare because they are not a 16th century merchant-turned-playwright.

Genre as Core Engagement

Writing Excuses spent a year defining “elemental genres”, which are rooted not in the aesthetics of a work or even bookshop genres but in its core engagement. Claudia Gray’s much praised Star Wars: Lost Stars is given as an example of a story where the trappings of the tale are science fiction but the core of the story is rooted in a relationship. Marvel Studios does this with their universe of superhero movies: they each try to use the core engagment and beats from another genre such as spy thriller or heist (and soon, high school drama) to make each move feel different.

It is impossible to summarise everything said in a year’s worth of podcasts but suffice to say it is very insightful, especially if one is looking at genre as a book recipe.

Genre as Book Recipe

A great many writers simply write stories that interest them rather than to fulfil the requirements of any given genre. And even if they do write with a genre in mind, they may discover as I did, the language has somewhat shifted. It was not until long after finishing my own novel, Under the Pendulum Sun, that I realised I had written dreadpunk.

But there are also writers who write with the intent of positioning their books squarely within a genre, utilising its themes and tropes. Certain genres can be evocative their their wealth of history can deepen the themes of a story. Genre convention can save on exposition and smooth over the rough edges of world building. The familiarity of a genre piece can provide structure and familiarity to both reader and writer, allowing greater flights of fancy.

Other authors may seek to specifically find new genres in their writing, much like scientists who used to use the periodic table to figure out where the gaps are and tried to find ways to fill them explicitly. One may see an obvious niche unfilled by the current landscape of subgenres. Many have, for example, written about the eurocentric nature of steampunk and have subsequently written stories to fill that gap.

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[1] Extra Credits did an excellent three part series discussing (and defining) the two genres: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_rvM6hubs8

[2] The simple answer of “animated media that originates from Japan” is often unhelpful due to the sheer number of outliers. For example, despite episodes of Batman being animated by Japanese studios, few would all it an “anime”. The Red Turtle is a film with Studio Ghibli in its credits, but it is written and directed by Michaël Dudok de Wit, who is Dutch-British.

[3] I myself have argued that in common conversation “steampunk” has emerged as a serviceable umbrella term for all flavours of *punk, despite cyberpunk being the originator (they are https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberpunk_derivatives ) And there has much digital ink spilt on both celebrating and decrying the many, many cyberpunk derivatives.

[4] See any discussion about how women can’t write Science Fiction.

[5] I remember the exhausting and exhaustive discussions about definitions of steampunk back when I was active on steampunk forums. Many of such conversations went around in circles as they touched on the sense of community and identity, of inclusion and exclusion, of cinematic and literary recommendations, of aesthetics and themes. It all got heated very quickly. There were some who felt very strongly about restricting steampunk to certain eras, cultures and colours.

[6] It’s still a fun fact, of course. And I did this, a lot. I was an insufferable know-it-all of a child and still have a soft spot for pedantry.

[7] It is why academics always talk specifically about the TEXT, not the book or novel or play. Did I mention I was a pedant?

[8] Yes, you read that right. There is no such thing as a fish.
This statement seems absurd to someone unfamiliar with taxonomy and that is very much the point I’m trying to make about usefulness. As our understanding of the sheer diversity of sea life grew, modern taxonomy has moved away from using “Class Pisces” in formal classifications. Sea creatures are simply not that alike. For example, a salmon is more closely related to a camel than it is to a hagfish.